Background
Edgar Charles "Sam" Rice was born on February 20, 1890 on a farm near Morocco, Indiana. His parents, Charles Rice and Louise Christine Newmyre, were farmers.
Edgar Charles "Sam" Rice was born on February 20, 1890 on a farm near Morocco, Indiana. His parents, Charles Rice and Louise Christine Newmyre, were farmers.
By the time that young Sam was ready to begin school, the family made a fateful move a few miles across the border into Watseka, Illinois. There Rice briefly attended the Rhode Island Country School in Iroquois County, Illinois, but did not graduate from high school.
He recalled that he did not play more than six baseball games as a child. Rice tried unsuccessfully to make the Watseka baseball team in 1912 as a right-handed pitcher.
The disaster struck on April 21, 1912. While he was trying out for the Central Association, his mother, two sisters, wife, and both children were killed by a tornado. His father died, some said of grief, nine days later.
Devastated by personal tragedy and disappointed by his release from the Watseka team and by all the teams he had tried out for in the Central Association, Rice began to wander. He went to Louisville and worked as a whiskey bottler, then worked as a farmhand in the wheat fields of the Dakotas and Minnesota. He also worked as a gandy dancer or section hand on the railroad.
Finally, in 1913, he ended up in Norfolk, Virginia, where he enlisted in the United States Navy and was assigned to the battleship New Hampshire. He pitched for his ship's team while they were at winter port at Guantanamo, Cuba.
On April 21, 1914, he was a member of the landing party that landed against hostile forces in Veracruz, Mexico, in response to the arrest of American sailors. When the ship arrived back in port at Hampton Roads, the manager of the Petersburg team in the Virginia League offered to buy his release from the service and to pay him $135 per month. Rice accepted and had a record of nine wins and two losses in 1914. Rice also got his nickname while with the Petersburg club.
In 1915, the league was about to fold and the owner of the team, Doc Lee, had an IOU with Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators. Lee asked if Griffith would accept the contract of Rice to pay the debt and Griffith accepted. Rice, then twenty-five years old, arrived in Washington on August 12 and played in four games that year, his first year in the major leagues. When his sister died, he cut his season short, since it was almost over. The next year he pitched but five games, and then, disgusted after a weak hitter slammed a triple off him, he vowed never to pitch again. For a while he was used as a pinch hitter, but then he worked his way into the lineup and hit . 299 in fewer than 200 times up.
By the beginning of 1917 the left and center fielders of the team were urging Griffith to use Rice as the regular right fielder. Though slight, at 5 feet 9 inches and 150 pounds, his hitting skills and speed both on the base paths and in the outfield made him a desirable player. That year Rice had 177 hits and 26 assists in the field. Neither Joe DiMaggio, Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle, nor Willie Mays ever had that many assists in a year.
He also stole 35 bases and batted . 302. He also struck out 41 times but would never strike out more than 26 times in a year the rest of his career. By the end of the season Rice, knowing he would be drafted into the army because of World War I, signed on as a sergeant in the army. Playing only in seven games of the 1918 season, he spent eleven months in service, seven of them in France. Rice returned to the Senators after the war, batting . 321 in 1919.
In 1920 Rice led the American League in steals and in putouts by an outfielder. The next three years established Rice's consistency at bat. From 1921 to 1923 Rice had 185, 187, and 188 hits, respectively. He tied for the league lead in triples in 1923 with 18. With the arrival of Leon ("Goose") Goslin as a regular, the Senators now had two outfielders who would become Hall of Famers. Since Goslin was such a good hitter and rarely struck out, Rice did not steal so much. With the help of these two players, the Senators won their first American League pennant in 1924.
Rice led the league in hits and at bats and had a thirty-one game hitting streak that year. Rice rarely struck out, averaging eighteen per year, rarely walked, averaging forty-six per year, and tended to be a first-pitch hitter. He also averaged 609 at bats each year, which gave him extensive opportunities for hitting. Rightfielder Rice had only mild success during the World Series, but the team won. When the team won the pennant again in 1925, Rice set an American League record for singles (182), a mark that would last for sixty years, until Wade Boggs broke it with 187.
In the 1925 World Series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Rice became part of a controversy. Chasing a line drive from catcher Earl Smith, Rice crashed into the temporary stands in right field and fell into the seats. After a fifteen-second delay for the umpire to arrive and judge the catch, the batter was called out. Since Rice emerged from the bleachers with the ball in his glove, that was the only call the umpire could make. Owner Barney Dreyfuss and other Pirates ran onto the field to argue with the umpire.
The commissioner of baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, called Rice into his box and asked if he had caught the ball. Rice cleverly replied, "The umpire says I did. " Reports of the game say that 1, 600 fans wrote affidavits about whether the catch had been made, but the split was fifty-fifty. Forty years later, Rice gave a sealed letter to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Even though his at bats declined from 1926 through 1932, Rice maintained a . 322 batting percentage, averaging 175 hits per year. In 1933 his at bats fell below 100 and his hits to 25. Almost one-third of his at bats were as a pinch hitter, thus imitating the beginning of his career. In the losing effort in the 1933 World Series, Rice pinch hit once, successfully. He was released from Washington on January 8, 1934. His fellow outfielder, Goslin, was also gone from the team, and the Senators never won another championship. Rice played one more year, with Cleveland, and batted . 293. He ended his career with 2, 987 hits, just thirteen under the exalted 3, 000. Not much attention was paid to that number when Rice retired, but years later Clark Griffith offered Rice the chance to return to the Senators and get those thirteen hits. Rice said he was too old and refused. Rice lived comfortably, having wisely invested much of his $18, 000 top annual salary. Rice spent most of his retirement on his chicken farm in Ashton, Maryland.
Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1963, Rice complained that his election was long overdue, but he modified that stance on his induction day. He had averaged 192 hits per year, a remarkable feat for someone whose full-time career did not begin until he was twenty-seven years old. His skills remained virtually undiminished until he was in his midforties. Sam Rice died in Rossmor, Maryland, near his home.
Although Rice made his debut as a relief pitcher, he is best known as an outfielder. Playing for the Washington Senators from 1915 until 1933, he was regularly among the American League leaders in runs scored, hits, stolen bases and batting average. Rice was best known for making a controversial catch in the 1925 World Series which carried him over the fence and into the stands.
Quotations: "At no time did I lose possession of the ball. "
He married Beulah Stam on September 17, 1908, and they had two children.
His second wife was Mary Kendall Adams whom he married in 1959.
