Albert Belle Career Profile
A Great Hitter Whose Temper and Attitude Kept Him From Hall of Fame
Aug 20, 2008
Albert Belle was a fierce hitter who routinely inflicted baseball's equivalent of medieval torture on opposing pitchers who dared to challenge him at the plate. During his eleven-plus years in the Major Leagues, Belle batted .295, hit 381 home runs, and collected 1,239 RBI. For nine straight years between 1992 and 1999 he had at least 34 home runs and 100 RBI.
His best seasons were arguably 1994 and 1995, both of which were shortened by the strike that cancelled the World Series for the first time in 90 years. When the strike hit on August 12, 1994, Belle was making a legitimate run at the American League Triple Crown. He was hitting .357, second best in the A.L. behind Paul O’Neill’s .359. His 36 home runs ranked third to Ken Griffey’s 40, and his 101 RBI were second best in the league. Belle's Indians had played 113 games when the strike ended the season. Assuming that he played in the final 49 games and maintained his season pace, Belle would have finished the 1994 season hitting .357 with 52 home runs and 150 RBI.
The strike, however, denied Belle a chance to make a chase for the first Triple Crown in 27 years, and denied him the chance of .350/50 HR/150 RBI season. That still hasn’t been done in more than 70 years.
Because the strike lingered on through to the end of the next spring training, the 1995 season had to be shortened to 144 games. Bell had another monster year, hitting .317 with fifty home runs, 124 RBI and 121 runs in the abbreviated season.
Belle continued to have MVP-caliber seasons for the rest of his career. In 1998 with the Chicago White Sox, he hit .328 with 49 home runs and 152 RBI. There was a clause in his contract, however, that allowed him to become a free agent if the Sox didn't keep him among the three highest paid players in the game. In the fall of 1998, Belle dropped out of the top three and asked for a raise. The White Sox refused to give him more money, and Belle soon became a free agent, eventually signing a five-year/$65 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles.
Belle's two seasons in Baltimore were successful, averaging .290 with 30 home runs and 110 RBI per year. But in the fall of 2000, Belle learned that he had degenerative osteoarthritis in his hip. The condition had been hurting him and limiting his play fo a while, and doctors told him that it would only worsen over time. His career was over. Belle retired just two months after his 34th birthday.
He finished his career with a .295 batting average, 381 home runs and 1,239 RBI. He won a home run title, three RBI titles, and made five All-Star teams.
Belle became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2006, but received very little support, garnering just 7.7% of the vote, light years away from the requisite 75 percent needed for election. The next year, Albert got just 19 votes, a mere 3.3% of all ballots cast. Because he earned less than 5% of the vote, he was off the ballot.
Belle’s almost non-existent support for the Hall is clearly not based on his statistics. His overall numbers were better than Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett, and quite comparable to Hall of Fame no-brainers Hank Greenberg and Ralph Kiner, both of whom also had brief yet stellar careers. While one could make some good arguments against Belle’s candidacy (no World Series rings, no MVPs), only an idiot would say that he should be off the ballot in two years.
Belle's problem, by most accounts, was his surly behavior on and off the field. In 1990, he threw a baseball into the stands at a fan who had been tanting him during the game. In 1994, he was suspended for using a corked bat. In 1996, he was suspended again for using excessive force in running over 150-pound second baseman Fernando Vina.
Belle also had a well-earned reputation of being very difficult with the press, as evidenced by the profanity-laced tirade he launched at NBC reporter Hannah Storm during the 1995 World Series. As New York Daily news columnist wrote about Belle upon his retirement due to injury: "Albert Belle was always a surly jerk. Now he's just a hurt surly jerk."
Belle's problems often went beyond baseball. One Halloween, he chased downs ome kids who had pelted his car with eggs, hitting one of them in the process. In 2006, Belle was arrested for stalking a woman, and eventually pled guilty to that charge and served 90 days in jail.
All in all, Albert Belle was a great baseball player. But, clearly, it was his shocking behavior that denied him any real shot at baseball immortality.
