Jim Rice Marquee Hall of Fame 2009

That season he led the American League in hits, home runs, runs batted in and triples, with 213, 46, 139 and 15, and was voted Most Valuable Player. Only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio had ever put fifteen triples and forty home runs in the same season, and nobody has done it since.

A pitch broke his hand in late September 1975 and he missed the World Series that Boston lost in seven games. In August 1982 a line drive hit a four-year-old boy in the seats by the Red Sox dugout; Rice went into the stands, carried him through the dugout to the clubhouse doctor, and the boy lived.

He played sixteen seasons, all of them for Boston, and finished with 2,452 hits, 382 home runs, 1,451 runs batted in and a .298 average. The writers named him on 137 of 460 ballots the first year and made him wait fifteen. He was elected in 2009, in his last year of eligibility, with 412 of 539.