An Ultrastrong Silent Type

The breakfast aside, Rice had on this important day of his life fulfilled an obligation to his banking friends. He had rescued these merry and decent men from a potentially embarrassing dilemma and established himself in their minds as not just a superb ballplayer but as a man of honor. The next day he would not do himself quite so proud.

For reasons not entirely clear, even to Rice himself, he has an unfortunate penchant for being rude and unpleasant to newspaper reporters and even, heaven forfend, to television interviewers. He obviously subscribes to the dictum, memorably advanced by the late Humphrey Bogart , that all a performer owes his public is a good performance. On the afternoon following his banquet speech, Rice represented the bank at the opening of a new branch in Charleston . A press conference had been called for the occasion, and the first reporter to arrive was Jim Laise of the Charleston News and Courier. Laise is 25, only three years out of West Virginia University , and was preppy-looking this day in a dark wool sweater and white shirt. The assignment did not seem especially difficult because Rice, whose home is only a few hundred miles from Charleston , in Anderson, is virtually a local boy. Rice was signing baseballs in the office of branch manager Rick Hawkins when Laise strolled confidently in, notebook in hand.

"May we talk now?" he began. Stony silence.

"I've heard that you're a very private person, Jim," Laise said, persevering. "Just how important is your privacy to you?"

Rice considered this inquiry for an agonizing moment and then snapped, "Privacy is important to everyone. People say you owe the public this or that. You don't owe the public anything. Of course, it doesn't hurt to go out and be nice to people, give them respect. If he treats you good, are you gonna treat him bad?"

Laise suggested that as a famous ballplayer, Rice was, like it or not, in the public eye. Did he not owe people something of himself? "My name is nothing," was the clipped reply. "You're paid by your credentials. My statistics show I deserve what I'm getting. What am I supposed to do, say, 'No, I'm not worth it. Take it back.' Would you?"

Laise allowed as how he certainly would not reject 5.4 million dollars, or even 5.4 dollars, but his mild jest did not serve, as surely Laise hoped it would, to loosen up the dour Rice. The interview continued in this adversarial vein for 20 minutes, with Rice responding to even the most innocuous questions as if they were accusations of wrongdoing.

"You seem pretty abrasive," Laise finally ventured. "If this job didn't mean so much to me, I wouldn't be here."

"Right, but you're doing this on my time," Rice said. "If this wasn't for the bank, I wouldn't be here either."

But wouldn't the bank prefer him to be more cooperative with the press, because he is their representative?