The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Belle’s talent is worthy of Hall of Fame
First, congrats to Jim Thome. His Hall of Fame induction on July 29 was well-deserved.
Hitting 612 home runs — No. 8 on the all-time list — was a huge achievement, and he did it by playing 22 years in the majors, 12 with the Indians on his first goround and a 22-game swan song in 2011.
Thome was also well-liked by the baseball writers who vote on the Hall of Fame.
Albert Belle, Thome’s former Indians teammate, wasn’t wellliked. That has been well-documented. He was a grouch and moody, and unlike Thome, his career lasted just 12 seasons.
Imagine the stats Belle might have compiled had he played five, six, seven more years in the bigs?
Belle’s career was cut short by a hip injury, and in a blink he was gone. For the writers who dealt with him, Belle was probably easily forgotten. For many, it was probably good riddance.
Belle’s legacy since retiring in 2000 has been like a disappearing act. The former Indians slugger hasn’t made any appearances at Progressive Field to reconnect with the team or fans in retirement. In 2016, he was a noshow when the Indians inducted Belle into its Hall of Fame.
He apparently holds a grudge with former Indians general manager John Hart that lingers to this day. In the 2017 MLB Network documentary “The Dynasty That Almost Was” (about the powerful 1990s Indians), Belle blames Hart for not keeping the nucleus of the team together, and “ruining the Indians dynasty.”
Belle signed with the White Sox for a then-record $55 million after the 1996 season. Indians fans instantly turned on Belle, who continued to mash the baseball in The Windy City.
When he retired, Belle’s Hall of Fame discussion quickly became complicated, and his former manager with the Indians knows why.
“Maybe if Albert would have shook a few more hands and said hello to a few more people, he might have had a shot at it,” Mike Hargrove told The News-Herald in 2017. “I doubt he’ll ever get in, but he should get in.”
Belle’s big-league career began with the Indians in 1989, but he played in just 71 games his first two years. By 1991, he was a full-time outfielder until he was done playing. Those 10 full seasons were some of the best of his era.
In the 1994 and 1995 strike-shortened seasons, it wasn’t outlandish to say he was arguably the most feared hitter in the majors. In 106 games in 1994, he hit .357, slugged at a .714 clip, hit 36 home runs and drove in 101. Belle’s numbers
that season projected to 162 games were 55 homers and 154 RBI.
The next season in 143 games, he led the league in homers (50), doubles (52), runs (121), RBI (126) and slugging (.690). Another monster season followed in 1996 — 48 homers, 148 RBI, and a .311 batting average.
Belle’s last two seasons in the majors were good but not great. It’s the 1998 season — when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were chasing Roger Maris’ single-season HR mark of 61 — that Belle was again off the charts. He hit 48 homers with a career-high 152 RBI, and hit .328. Belle also led the league in slugging (.655), OPS (1.055) and total bases (399).
With Belle, though, the good came with the bad.
In 1994, there was a famous corked-bat incident during a game at Chicago vs. the White Sox for which he was suspended.
In 1995, despite becoming the first player in baseball history with 50 homers and 50 doubles in the same season, his relationship with the media turned out to be a real issue. Baseball writers gave the American League MVP award to Boston’s Mo Vaughn.
During the 1995 World Series, his profanity-laced outburst against NBC’s Hannah Storm and other media members made national headlines.
His monster season with the White Sox in
1998 only returned an eighth-place finish in voting for AL MVP. That was just a precursor for consideration into the Hall.
Wrote columnist Bill Madden of The New York Daily News following Belle’s retirement in 2001:
“Sorry, there will be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle. He was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he’s a hurt surly jerk .... He was no credit to the game. Belle’s boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers’ Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame.”
Off the field, there were other Belle moments to forget. In 1995, his Euclid home was reportedly egged when he turned away trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Then he chased down the trickor-treaters with his car. Later, Belle was fined $100 for reckless operation of a vehicle.
There were others: In 1991, he threw a baseball at a heckling fan, and in 1996 steam rolled Fernando Vina while running the bases.
Recently, Belle made headlines when on March 25 he was arrested in Scottsdale, Ariz., and charged with indecent exposure and DUI. A month later, all charges were dropped.
As for Belle’s Hall chances, it was as expected — barely a blip. His first year of eligibility in 2006 returned 7.7 percent of votes by baseball writers. The next season, just 3.5 percent. When a player doesn’t get at least 5 percent of the vote, he taken off the ballot.
“I guess it does (become a bit personal),” said Hargrove in 2017 about Belle and the Hall. “You try not the let it be that way, but it can become that way. You hate to see someone that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame not get there for whatever reason.”
The Hall’s rule for voting states it “shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
Five more productive seasons would have greatly helped Belle’s case for the Hall, but there’s also an argument to be made the longer he remained in the game the bigger the disdain there likely would have been among writers. One thing is without dispute — he was one of the two or three greatest sluggers of his era.
Two questions about Belle:
1. Does a great player need to be a good guy to be hall of fame worthy?
2. Does a player need to play a long time to get into the Hall?
In Belle’s case, his antics served him zero amount of good will with the people responsible for getting him into the Hall. Having played exactly 10 full-time seasons has to be another setback in the eyes of voters. But at his rate of play it shouldn’t.
Peeling back the layers — easier said than done for the people affected I’m sure — would reveal his ability and stats should be enough for the Hall.
Contact Podolski at mpodolski@news-herald.com; On Twitter: @mpodo