I was disappointed to hear that Jim Rice was not elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame today. Rice was named on nearly 65% of the ballots, but fell 53 votes short of the 75% he needed to get in. Bruce Sutter was the only player to be elected to the Hall.

Rice was the greatest Red Sox player of my formative years growing up watching the team. In fact, one of my first vivid baseball memories is seeing Rice hit a home run at McCoy Stadium in 1974 when he was with the Pawsox.

Sentimental reasons aside, Jim Ed meets my criteria for being a Hall of Famer. He was a dominant player at his position for a long period of time. I define a dominant player as one who is at or near the top of the league in key statistical categories for an extended period; makes multiple All-Star Teams and is regularly considered for major post-season awards.

Rice meets all these criteria. He led the league in home runs three times and RBI twice. He made the All-Star team eight times. He was in the top 5 in MVP balloting six times, winning in 1978.

Tony Perez, by contrast, never won an MVP award and only finished in the top 5 once. He never led the league in any major statistical category. He did, however, play much longer (23 years to Rice's 16), and longevity seems to count for quite a bit in the Hall of Fame voting. Perez (who was a very good player, don't get me wrong) is in the Hall while Rice isn't.

Rice has three more shots to get in, but it's going to be tough for him to get another 50 or so votes. In any event, the Red Sox should do the right thing and retire Rice's number.

On another topic, Apple announced the first Intel powered Macs today, with a new iMac and the MacBook, which will eventually replace the Powerbook line. Naturally, Apple had a clever tagline to go along with the release: "What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC."