His father and mother drove down Saturday from Cohasset, Mass., and were back at the Stadium on Saturday night to watch Ben Rice play for the third time this week as a New York Yankee, this time against the Braves.
“I was scared to let myself even imagine that this was gonna happen,” Dan Rice was saying over the phone. “You always say, ‘I hope it does, ohmigosh won’t that be awesome?’ ”
But Dan Rice never dared to imagine it, never imagined his son standing at first base at Yankee Stadium for the New York Yankees.
“Not long enough to jinx it, right?” Dan Rice said.
Little Ben started with hockey. “He was out in skates at 2, like all the kids,” Dan said. “We had a little rink in the backyard when it used to get cold enough for that.”
The baseball dream began not long after.
“As soon as he could start whacking things, I was throwing stuff to him,” Dan said.
Over and over and over again through the years.
“It started out on a circle at our house, we live in, I call it a dead end, I think most people call ’em cul-de-sacs,” Dan said. “I had an ‘L’ Screen, it’s kind of an unusual suburban accessory (laugh) so I could just throw him little tennis balls, then he got old enough we’d go down to the Little League field. He grew out of that, we’d go to the other fields.
“I remember it was more than once that Ben would go down and shovel the batting cage.”
The opportunity to attend Dartmouth steered Ben to baseball once and for all.
“He’s always been a good hitter,” Dan said. “What happened, though, is he didn’t grow when all the other kids did. He was a late maturer. He got bigger and stronger and all of a sudden some of those balls were going out there.”
An agent named Pete Mrowka always believed in Ben.
“He kept telling me he was gonna be a Division I player,” Dan said.
The Yankees selected Ben in the 12th round of the 2021 MLB Draft.
“Oh wow, that was such a tremendous day,” Dan said, “and we were hoping it was gonna be the Yankees. I used to go to the library like a lot of laptop people, right, to spend the day working before the game. So Ben came with me to the Cotuit Library watching the draft. Then he got picked, there was a librarian in there, it was a quiet place except for us (laugh). His grandma came over after he got picked.”
Ben — who went 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored in the Yankees’ 8-3 win over the Braves — was a Derek Jeter fan growing up. “He wore a Yankee jersey to his first-grade picture,” Dan said.
Dan recalled what they called a Legends Tour at Fenway Park in April 2004, when Ben was 5.
“Ben went to that wearing a Yankees jacket and a Yankees hat,” he said. “So I got a picture of him in front of the Green Monster with that. Then they take you down to the Pesky Pole, and they give you a Sharpie or something. Everybody has to sign, that’s part of the tour. So Ben (laugh) wrote ‘Yankees Rule.’ ”
Former Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman was there. “Derek Jeter’s my favorite player,” Ben told him.
Dan: “And Lou Gorman goes, ‘Wow. Well, he’s a great player, I wish we had him.’ ”
The Rice family cheering section went bananas when Ben (.214, .547 OPS) singled in his first game as a Yankee, and got to celebrate with him afterward.
“I think they made an exception and after people had kinda got out of there we got out on the field, and that’s hallowed ground, obviously,” Dan said. “Get out there with your kid on the field and all that at Yankee Stadium, my goodness.”
Dan had the same Major League Baseball dream once. He was a Frank Robinson/Orioles fan. He would pitch at Brown. He is an attorney today.
“I’m from the era where every boy in America, and hopefully that’s still true,” Dan said, “but certainly when I was growing up, that was what everybody wanted to be.”
The Yankees like Ben’s makeup the way they like Anthony Volpe’s makeup.
“I used to notice, like, when he would do his homework, he wouldn’t stress about it,” Dan said. “He was nice and calm, and I think you kinda see that in his at-bats. That’s the way he competes, like, I saw him smiling after he got that hit. He is a dialed-in competitor, and he enjoys it.”
Dan figured that Ben’s best path to the big leagues would be as a lefty-hitting catcher. Which is where the Yankees envisioned him for a while. “He’ll go wherever they need him to play,” Dan said.
Ben’s brother Sam and Sam’s girlfriend will be joining the party Sunday. The Rices will go whenever they need to go watch Ben Rice, first baseman, New York Yankees.
