He wasn’t shy about returning the favor. And so, when Rice toured Fenway Park as a kid — “I had the Yankees dugout jacket on, old-school style,” he recalled — he made his affinities known.
“My dad encouraged me to write ‘Yankees Rule’ on the [Pesky Pole]. He thought it was funny,” Rice said. “And then when I came back last year for my first time actually playing at Fenway, I got to run my name in the Monster. That was pretty sweet. Full-circle moment.”
The closing of that circle was and is remarkable. The 26-year-old — who hit a three-homer game against the Sox at Yankee Stadium as a rookie in 2024, then emerged as a lineup anchor while catching and playing first this year, hitting .255/.337/.499 with 26 homers in 138 games — forged a DIY path to the big leagues.
Growing up, Rice’s passion was hockey, but during his prep years at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, it became clear he’d have more opportunities in baseball. He stayed in New England for college, enrolling at Dartmouth.
After a solid freshman season in 2019, COVID-19 ended the 2020 college baseball season after Dartmouth played just six games. That summer, with most leagues shuttered, the Futures League offered a chance for New Englanders to get back on the field.
Top-level talent, including future first-round draft picks Sal Frelick, Matt Shaw, and Reggie Crawford, flocked to the league. In that environment, Rice thrived, winning Futures League MVP while hitting .350/.467/.683 with a league-leading 11 homers.
“The Futures League was the only show in town,” Yankees New England area scout Matt Hyde said. “When the summer was over, Ben was squarely on my radar.”
Keeping him there wasn’t easy. The Ivy League didn’t play baseball in 2020-21. But Rice persisted, working with college friends to organize workouts and scrimmages at the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough.
“We called it the Ben Rice League,” Hyde said.
Hyde checked in at least once a week, often with an influential companion. By chance, Yankees scouting director Damon Oppenheimer was living in Malden that fall to be near his son, Gehrig, who was playing hockey for The Winchendon School. And so, Oppenheimer, who calls the Yankees’ shots in the draft, saw Rice at least 20 times that winter.
Rice had explosive power — at least a 60 on the 20-to-80 scouting scale, where a 50 grade is average and 60 is plus.
The garage-band scouting process continued in the spring of 2021, when Rice played in the Cranberry Baseball League, an amateur and men’s league that was a far cry from the polish of traditional scouting showcases.
“After the game, the guys were all having a bunch of beers in the parking lot,” Hyde said. “It was such a unique experience scouting him.”
Rice played briefly for Cotuit in the Cape Cod League before the 2021 draft, but didn’t have time to distinguish himself. The Yankees recognized an opportunity.
Hyde and Oppenheimer viewed Rice as a fifth-round talent — unpolished, but with legitimate power, the chance to develop as a catcher, a fallback as a first baseman, and a work ethic that ensured he’d maximize his chances of being a big leaguer.
But the rest of the baseball world hadn’t seen what Hyde and Oppenheimer had seen.
“There weren’t many teams on him. … There wasn’t enough data to really make a super compelling argument if you just went off of that. But if you saw it, you knew it. And I was lucky because Damon had seen it,” Hyde said.
“You would see it, and [hear] the sound off the bat. All of those little things that you watched with your eyes and you heard with your ears, we were very much in tune with. [But many] teams didn’t think that he could catch. Teams weren’t sure that he could hit. Teams didn’t have enough data for him to go higher in their models. So I told Damon, ‘We can wait a little bit.’ ”
Hyde said the Yankees could wait until early on Day 3 of the draft (Rounds 11-20 in ‘21) to take Rice. That stance allowed the Yankees to take three future big league pitchers before grabbing Rice in the 12th round.
Once in pro ball, Rice took off, powering his way through the Yankees system to reach the big leagues by 2024. This spring, with DH/outfielder Giancarlo Stanton on the injured list to start the season, a door opened for Rice. He stormed through it.
“He allowed us to cushion the blow of losing Stanton, and now he’s obviously thriving and one of the better hitters in the game,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said.
Rice has taken a path like few others to get to that point.
“From my perspective now, if I heard about someone [taking that path], I’d be thinking, ‘Oh, good luck. That’s going to be really hard,’ ” Rice said. “But my mind-set at the time, going through all that, was, ‘I’m going to make it to the big leagues doing this.’ I didn’t have any doubts. … [And now] it’s really cool to be at this stage, be a part of such a historic rivalry.”