An Ultrastrong Silent Type

"If more people were more direct," this would be a better world," said Rice. "Too many people want to play games, beat you around the bush. When I dislike someone, I tell them. But I always tell them why. If you give a reason, then maybe people will say, 'Hey, maybe he's right. Maybe I was wrong.' Now take you; you started off bad by asking me the same old thing about $5.4 million...."

"But...it's news."

"Tell me, what do you do with people you don't like?"

"I avoid them," said Laise, folding his notebook.

After this contentious interview, Rice signed autographs and chatted with local youngsters for two hours. He was unfailingly polite, if not exactly ebullient.

A few weeks later, in Boston, Ken Harrelson, the former slugger who is now a Red Sox broadcaster, discussed his friend and golfing partner, Rice. "Jimmy is almost too good to be true," said Harrelson. "He's a kind of Frank Merriwell. I have a 12-year-old son, and I just hope he can grow up to be the person Jim Rice is. Jimmy is such a good kid—except for this one thing with the press. If he could only cultivate or even tolerate the media better. He's so thoughtful with everybody but writers. As a former player, I know what the media can do for you. The press made a personality out of me. If only Jimmy could portray himself to the writers the way he really is, if he could only get that charisma across."

"Jimmy has a smile that will make you melt," says Pennacchia, a short, glib man of 34, "and a frown that will make you cringe. Deep down he's a real nice kid. But what have you got here? You've got a 26-year-old, a black, from South Carolina, who finds himself in the intellectual capital of the world. He's aware of his shortcomings. He'll get older, more mature, better with the press."

Rice complains that he was misrepresented last year in a Sport magazine article that had him charging the Red Sox with racism. But he is equally testy about more trivial transgressions and, in fact, does not even tolerate criticism, justified or not, of his teammates. He sometimes overreacts, says Harrelson, because of his sensitive, perceptive nature. These traits, Harrelson concedes, are not always immediately apparent. "It's like you're going into a bar looking for some action," Harrelson said, roaming far afield for an analogy. "Well, the first thing that draws you to a lady is her physical attractiveness. With Jimmy, the first thing you notice is his great strength. Then, after a while, if you talk to the lady and find she's not only pretty but smart, you've really got something. It's that way with Jimmy. Talk to him, and you find he's smarter than he is strong."

If that is so, then Rice should be on the faculty at MIT as well as a member of the Red Sox, because he is widely considered the strongest man in baseball. His majestic home runs are certainly a good measure of his power—one of his clouts last season departed Fenway and descended to the street an estimated 650 feet from home plate—but a swing he took several years ago in Detroit at a ball he did not hit may be an even more accurate gauge. Rice checked that hefty cut, and the bat came apart in his hands, as if he had smashed it against a concrete wall. On the golf course, where his drives are also legendary—former U.S. Open Champion Lou Graham says Rice hits longer than anyone on the pro tour—he has snapped at least three clubs on the downswing. Harrelson saw him do it with a Triple X (extra-stiff) shaft driver. "All he came down with was the grip," says Harrelson.

In baseball, according to Harrelson, "there are strong guys, real strong guys and ultrastrong guys—your Mantles and Frank Howards. I saw Howard hit a ball so hard the stitching just came undone. The ball looked like it was going 800 feet, but then it just stopped and fluttered to the ground. It just couldn't take it. Jimmy is in that category." In fact, when SPORTS ILLUSTRATED recently polled baseball experts, asking them to choose between Pirate Dave Parker and Rice as the game's best player, a majority selected Parker, mainly because of his expertise as a fielder and his speed. Among those who picked Rice, his strength—his ability to drive the ball high and long—was usually the deciding factor in his favor.