Sam Rice Marquee Hall of Fame 1963

He reached Washington in 1915 as a pitcher, won a game and lost a game, and the club moved him to right field, where he stayed for nineteen years. Rice finished with 2,987 hits, 498 doubles, 184 triples and 351 stolen bases. He led the American League in hits in 1924 and 1926 and reached 200 hits six times.

Three years before he debuted, a tornado went through his family's farm in Morocco, Indiana, and killed his wife, his children, his mother and his sisters. He was twenty-five by the time he got to the majors. He said almost nothing about any of it, and the story was not widely known until long after he retired.

In the 1925 World Series he went into the temporary right field bleachers after a drive and came out holding the ball. Whether he held it the whole way was argued about for the rest of his life. He left a letter with the Hall of Fame to be opened after his death; it said he never lost possession.