Dartmouth Professional Athletes

Ben Rice Is Carrying Dartmouth's Flag Into October

September baseball is for closers — and Ben Rice is looking like one of the Yankees' most reliable bats as New York tightens its grip on a playoff spot.

The Dartmouth first baseman put together a standout week, headlining a stretch that saw the Yankees go through the Angels and Red Sox while positioning themselves firmly in the postseason picture. In New York's 9-2 blowout of Boston, Rice delivered two hits and three RBIs, anchoring a lineup that already features Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, and Max Fried. By the time the Yankees wrapped up a 6-3, 10-inning win over the Angels, Rice had singled in the decisive fifth run of a five-run tenth inning — the kind of situational hitting that earns trust in a pennant race.

The week wasn't without its tense moments. During Wednesday's game in Anaheim, Rice's sharp foul ball struck a person in the camera well, briefly delaying the contest in a scary scene. Play resumed, and Rice, unfazed, contributed to the win.

Rice continued his momentum through the weekend. Against the Padres on Saturday, he went 3-for-the-day with a home run, an RBI, and a run scored — pushing his average to .257 on the day and finishing the week as arguably the Yankees' most consistent producer outside the marquee names. His batting average hovered in the .252–.261 range across the week as he continued to pile up multi-hit games.

The recognition is catching up to the production. Heavy Sports noted that Rice has become one of those Yankees names that needs no introduction anymore — mentioned in the same breath as Judge and Fried as a known quantity in New York's lineup. That's a significant leap for a player who arrived in the Bronx as a relatively under-the-radar prospect out of Hanover, N.H.

Manager Aaron Boone has been experimenting with lineup construction as the roster heads into the final weeks of the regular season, and the decisions around Rice — including how he's slotted against left-handed starters — reflect just how integral he's become to New York's September calculus. With the Angels rolling out lefty Reid Detmers for the series finale, Boone made a specific Rice-related roster move, underscoring the front office's attention to maximizing his matchup advantages.

Two other Dartmouth alums are active in MLB, though neither made noise this week. Kyle Hendricks is pitching for the Angels, and Cole Sulser is with the Rays — both quietly keeping the Big Green on MLB rosters as September rosters expand.

But make no mistake: this is Rice's moment. A Dartmouth product playing a meaningful role in a Yankees playoff push is exactly the kind of story that gets told in Hanover for years. He's making sure it has a good ending.

The Big Green's Big Leaguer Is Having a Big August

There aren't many Dartmouth alumni making noise in Major League Baseball on any given week, but Ben Rice is making enough for the whole Ivy League. The Yankees first baseman is in the middle of one of the hottest stretches of his young career, and the numbers from the week of Aug. 23–29 back it up fully.

Rice blasted his 35th home run of the season in New York's 9-3 rout of the Houston Astros on Aug. 26 — a big swing that headlines a multi-game hit streak in which he logged at least one hit in every game he appeared in during the period. He went 2-for-the-day against the Astros with an RBI and scored three runs, drawing three walks to boot. By Saturday, Aug. 29, he was sitting at a .254 batting average with two more hits and three RBIs in what has been a relentless run of production.

The recognition followed the performance. Rice earned Yankees At-Bat of the Week honors for Aug. 23, courtesy of a two-run single in the sixth inning of a clutch series win over the Toronto Blue Jays. In that Sunday game, he finished 2-for-the-day with two RBIs as New York cruised to an 8-3 victory to claim the series. His ability to deliver in leverage situations — not just pile up stats in blowouts — is what's separating him from being a feel-good story and making him a genuine offensive force.

The week also included a series-clincher showing against the Blue Jays, where Rice added two hits and two RBIs in New York's dominant 8-3 win, a game in which Jazz Chisholm's two-run homer grabbed the headlines but Rice's steady production was equally decisive in building the margin.

Thirty-five home runs is a threshold that separates sluggers from the rest of the field. For a Dartmouth product to be sitting in that territory in late August — on a Yankees roster under playoff pressure — is the kind of development that would have seemed far-fetched even two seasons ago. Rice is no longer a prospect narrative. He's a lineup piece.

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The other active Dartmouth alumni on MLB rosters — Kyle Hendricks (Angels, P) and Cole Sulser (Rays, P) — had no notable statistical activity in the research brief for this period.

Rice Saves the Yankees, Then Does It Again

Ben Rice had a week worth writing home about — and the postmark would be Hanover, N.H.

The Dartmouth product turned in the defining moment of New York's week on Sunday, Aug. 16, erasing a brutal self-inflicted wound in the most dramatic fashion possible. Rice had committed a fielding error that allowed the Blue Jays to tie the game, but he answered in the top of the tenth with a two-run homer off Braydon Fisher, lifting the Yankees to a 4-3 win and preventing a sweep. It was the kind of sequence that gets talked about in clubhouses for weeks — error to walk-off (away), all in the same afternoon.

That moment earned Rice the Yankees' At-Bat of the Week honor and raised a pointed question: could it jolt him out of a slump that had been quietly gnawing at New York's lineup? The answer, at least in the short term, was yes.

Three days later, on Wednesday, Aug. 19, Rice kept the momentum going against Baltimore. He went 2-for-the-day with his 34th home run of the season, drove in a run, and scored as the Yankees beat the Orioles 5-3. The milestone homer made Rice one of the most productive first basemen in the American League this season and underlined the kind of ceiling Dartmouth's most prominent MLB export is now brushing up against.

The week wasn't without its quieter moments — Rice drew two walks Friday against Toronto and scored a run Saturday — but the box scores around those days were secondary to the narrative arc. This was a week defined by two signature Rice contributions bookending a stretch of steady, if unspectacular, production.

The larger storyline hovering over Rice all week is one of expectation management. After a torrid first half, a mid-season dip drew scrutiny, and questions about whether the Rice from earlier this season was gone for good started circulating. The extra-innings homer and the 34th long ball in a four-day window suggest the answer may be no — that Rice is still capable of delivering when the Yankees need it most, even if his batting average (.248 by week's end) reflects the inconsistency of recent weeks.

For Dartmouth fans, the broader picture is striking regardless. Rice has already posted a season that would have seemed implausible for an Ivy League product breaking into MLB — 34 home runs, everyday starter for a contending Yankees club, and now a highlight-reel extra-innings shot to add to the résumé. The Big Green has produced a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat in the Bronx, and this week served as a vivid reminder of exactly what that looks like when it's firing.

The Yankees didn't get much from their other arms in the period, with Kyle Hendricks (Angels) and Cole Sulser (Rays) not featuring in the week's Dartmouth storyline. This was Rice's week, front to back.