IL Hall of Famer Jim Rice Gets Cooperstown Call

This summer Red Sox great Jim Rice will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, the result of a brilliant 16-year Major League career with Boston. For Rice, the honor comes one year after the International League inducted him into its own Hall of Fame, honoring the brief but amazing Triple-A career he put together on his way to Boston.

As a 20-year-old in 1973, Rice joined the Pawtucket Red Sox late in what turned out to be a championship season. Rice hit .378 down the stretch, then helped the PawSox defeat Tidewater and Charleston for the Governors' Cup. Rice added a game-winning home run in the Junior World Series as the Sox triumphed over Tulsa.

As it turned out, he was just warming up. His 1974 effort went down as one of the best seasons in IL history, despite the fact that Pawtucket (at 57-87) was last in the League.

That year Rice became just the sixth International League player to win the Triple Crown. He hit .337 with 25 home runs and 93 RBI, leading the League in each category - even after his mid-August promotion to Boston. To the surprise of no one, Rice was voted the IL's Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year.

35 years later, his Triple Crown season remains one of the legendary achievements in the history of the Pawtucket franchise. On July 20, 2008, Jim Rice returned to McCoy Stadium for the formal ceremony recognizing his induction into the IL Hall of Fame (alongside fellow inductees Ben Mondor and Joe Morgan). Almost exactly one year later, Rice will be in Cooperstown to take his place among the game's immortals.