There are plenty of priceless stories about Ricky Henderson — the fact that he refers to himself in the third person, that he once unblinkingly described himself as “the greatest” (via the public address system, no less), that he failed to cash a $1 million bonus check — but far fewer about Bosox great Jim Rice. Rice waited fifteen years to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, a fact that fans of ”the Nation” view as one of baseball’s great injustices. But there are two reasons for the postponement: Rice’s career is ”right on the Cooperstown borderline,” baseball reporter Larry Stone says, and the former Red Sox outfielder had a moody relationship with baseball reporters — and with fans. “Privacy is important to everyone,” Rice once said. ” People say that you owe the public this or that. You don’t owe the public anything.” Rice’s most notorious temper tantrum is legendary: he engaged in a shoving match with Red Sox manager Joe “Walpole Joe” Morgan in 1988, after Morgan sent Spike Owen to the plate to pinch hit for him. The incident outraged even Bosox fans, who had grown tired of Rice’s devolution as a hitter — a .264 batting average in 1988, with just fifteen home runs.

Rice’s election to the hall after a fifteen year wait revived all of the controversy surrounding the Red Sox left fielder, a lot of which is reflected in an often-angry exchange of claims by his least sympathetic supporters — those who write about the game — with those who view him as one of his era’s most feared hitters. 

“Rice, lauded for his power production, in reality was only average in this department,” an outspoken critic writes. ”His meager .502 slugging percentage, .854 OPS, and 128 OPS+ testify to this assessment much more accurately than the remembrance of those who saw him in action. Sure, his 1,451 career RBI total is very good total – 56th all time – but even that number leaves him well short of deservedly snubbed Hall candidates Andre Dawson (1591) and Harold Baines (1628) and 15 short of non-Hall of Famer Rusy Staub, who also had a higher OBP than Rice in a dominate pitchers era.” Other writers jump to Rice’s defense, baldly reminding readers of Boston’s racial history. ”Listen closely to the stories you will hear from many of those who were there about Rice being surly and one of the nastiest SOB’s anyone has ever met,” baseball writer Ed Berliner opines. “The honest stories will also tell of how baseball beat reporters back then hammered Rice into a corner and made his life as miserable as they could. And how there was no doubt in the minds of many bigotry was at the core of many a comment and many a story line.”

Most recently alot of these arguments have been put aside — not only because of Rice’s new found openness with reporters, but also because those who follow “the Nation” are now retailing Rice’s more selfless, if less well-known, side. A kind of Jim Rice ceasefire is taking place. During a press conference in Cooperstown, Rice downplayed his poor relationship with the press: ”That’s over with,” he said. “I don’t wonder about that.” In Boston, meanwhile, baseball writers are busy reminding their readers of Rice’s best moments — like the time he went into the stands and grabbed a boy hit by a foul ball. ”He scooped up the injured boy, carried him into the dugout, up the runway and into the clubhouse. Doctors arrived, and soon the little fellow was on his way to the hospital,” Boston Herald reporter Steve Buckley writes. ”That’s the story that gets placed into evidence as People’s Exhibit A whenever there is any discussion or debate about Jim Rice’s everyman quality. Indeed, it could rightly be called the biggest play of Rice’s brilliant 16-year career in the majors.”

The debate over Rice’s qualifications for the hall will inevitably fade — he’s there. As will the controversy over his relationship with the fans who, despite his rocky relationship with the Boston media, turned out in droves to see him play those caroms off the green monster. “He played it like he built it,” one Red Sox fan proudly notes. Then too, there’s this: the people who reportedly liked him the least are the people who decided that, in spite of all the controversy, Jim Rice deserved a plaque in Cooperstown.