I don't know. Rice's run production was helped by Yaz and then Boggs, and wasn't Carney Lansford on some of those Red Sox teams (I'd take Yaz or Boggs over Rice any day). The best player I can think of that played with Murphy is Bob Horner. Murphy had power too, I don't want to look up the stats again, but I believe he had more 30 HR seasons than Rice.

Trying hard to shoot down your 75-86 argument, I give you George Brett. It was tough to come up with a name though. Plenty of guys were ending dominance or beginning during that period. Rice really only had Hall of Fame years 4 times (77-79,83).

Simplest way I can put it: I try and slot good players into 3 categories, HOF, perennial All-Star, & occasional All Star. Occasional All Star's are guys like Chili Davis, Harold Baines, Jeffery Leonard. I rate Jim Rice a notch above them, but not HOF. He slots in with Andre Dawson, Keith Hernandez, Don Mattingly, players that were great, but not HOF players.

All of this said, Jim Rice is in and he isn't near the head of the line to be thrown out. He's just standing next to Dave Winfield talking about how much $$ they'd have made if they had the Juice.

P.S. The only questionable guy that I think should be in is Blyleven. If the guy played on mediocre teams instead of horrible teams, he'd have 300 wins and be in already. Case in point, Don Sutton.