Numbers are one thing and how one fares against his contemporaries is another. I wouldn't care if baseball went through a stretch where the top home run hitter hit only 10 per year. If those 10 were enough to lead the league and over the course of a decade, the top home run hitter only hit 100 homers, he's getting my vote. That's what Rice was. He was the most feared hitter in the game for over an extended period of time. So what if he didn't play long enough to reach the so called "magic" numbers. He played long enough to prove that for what was at least an eight-year stretch, he was the most feared hitter in the game. To me, that means more than the final numbers.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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