History Lesson: Albert Belle

Straight from wiki I guess you missed it.

Belle's White Sox contract had an unusual clause allowing him to demand that he would remain one of the three highest paid players in baseball. In October 1998, Belle invoked the clause, and when the White Sox declined to give him a raise, Belle immediately became a free agent. Belle again became the game's highest paid player, signing a five-year deal, $65 million deal with the Baltimore Orioles. However, Belle ended his career just two seasons later, retiring at age 34 as a result of degenerative osteoarthritis in his hip. However, he was kept on Baltimore's active 40-man roster for the next three years, as a condition of the insurance policy which largely reimbursed the Orioles for the remainder of Belle's contract. (Thank god the sox got it right)

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there was a incident with a fan throwing batteries at him and he also tried to run some kids over with his truck.  

his time with the White Sox. The following is an excerpt from his December 15, 1998 farewell letter printed in the Sun-Times.

I enjoyed the 1998 departure of the original Mark Prior, Jason Bere, far more than Albert Belle's early exit. The Sox carried that guy way too long.

it felt like he was never on the team or connected with the team, if that makes sense.  You could almost feel he was never going to be here very long and he was only playing for his stats.

The contract worked out in the Sox favor big time, because the clause got them off the hook before his bigger payday.  5/65 is a lot of money even now.

For his huge season in 1998.  It might go down as the best year no one noticed.  By then the Sox were out of contention and Comiskey was pretty empty.  Also, it didn't get that much media coverage.  That is why he had the best numbers in the MLB, but still finished 8th in the AL MVP balloting.  Which is an amazing fact if you consider his numbers:

49 HR, 152 RBI, and an OPS of 1.054

The AL MVP that year Juanroid Gonzalez:

47 HR, 157 RBI, and an OPS of .996

1998 also ended the Big Hurt's string of .300+ batting seasons at 8.  He ended the season batting .265.

with the fact that it almost seemed like his years on the Sox didn't really count.  I think of it as just a weird blip, like Julio Franco or Danny Tartabull, even though Belle was a superstar, and played like one in '98.

My greatest memory of the Albert Belle era was the signing itself.  I was tossing a football around with my roommate in our dorm hallway during my sophomore year of college when another guy popped out of his room to tell us the big news.  And even then my feelings were mixed, since I hated him so much from his years with Cleveland.

That was like watching a more powerful Frank Thomas.  But Belle was corking his bat like crazy so it wasn't as impressive as Frank.

came from him being an indian - the rivalry was getting intense between us in the mid 90s. also, as you point out, his first year was kind of pedestrian by his standards. he didn't really stay long enough to really stir up fans emotions either way, i think. most people i remember being pretty ambivalent about his stay. the opting out was not viewed particularly well by fans but you can chalk that up more to the sox organization inserting the clause than albert - let's not kid ourselves, we all would have done the same thing. and, as pointed out, it worked out for the best.

i do recall seeeing on here the negative slant towards belle - he was basically aloof and he had some domestic incident in late 1998 that i don't remember how is was resolved. there were other character issues that probably didn't endear him with the fans - though i did enjoy him flicking off indians fans.

here's a chronology of belle's career; that should fill in the details.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/2001/03/08/belle_chronology/

This was JR's way of coming home with a bunch of long-stemmed red roses after bitchslapping Sox fans with the Strike of '94.

The thinking was, Big Frank was putting up historically insane numbers with hasbeens like George Bell and Harold Baines batting cleanup behind him.  Frank wanted better protection, and pushed hard for JR to sign Albert - the idea being that Frank hits 3rd, Albert hits 4th, and you can forget about Ruth and Gehrig.

What a disaster.  They both slumped to start '97  and the Sox were a huge disappointment, treading water through the ASB and not looking like any kind of serious contenders - not to mention they were way over budget because the anticipated attendance boost never happened.  This led directly to the infamous White Flag trade in July of '97, "If you think this team can make the playoffs, you're crazy."

'98 wasn't much better, most of the FA vets were gone by then and Sox weren't expected to do much.  Frank and Albert started slow, most fans got pissed and fed up and stopped watching (sound familiar?) - then Albert went on his ridiculous tear in the second half, and then left town after the season without anyone noticing/caring.

Weird thing is that Frank had one of his worst seasons in '98 with Albert batting like Superman behind him.  This is when the fans started turning on him, and the beginning of "The Big Skirt" legacy - a sad chapter in Sox history.

Ain't it great being a Sox fan?  How the hell did 2005 get in there?

really high profile, sought-after free agent the Sox signed, as I recall, and the size of the contract was awe-inspiring.  He always had difficulty with fans/meaia, once heaving a ball into the stands and hitting someone in the chest, as I recall.  The domestic dispute was around when Pippen had his, so it was de riguer during the post-OJ trial years for a celb to be in the news for that.  I believe he also had an alcohol problem, but that might've been after he hung up his spikes.

He was one imposing mofo for a few years at the plate, and the crowd stopped when he came to the plate (not quite McGwire-esque, but not bad).  It was a fairly ballsy signing at the time.

And like "Daryl, Daryl" was the mocking cheer in outside NY for Strawberry, "Joey, Joey" was the chant if you wanted to piss him off.

if you are needing to mention that you're being "totally honest" on this post, what are you being on all the others?

;)

Thanks for posting the letter from Belle. It's really good--the Sun-Times should replace any member of their staff besides Ebert with him

I was happy to see Belle. I thought it was a good idea to let him go, but still was disappointed.

Those were the years when it seemed like we were star-crossed. We had one of the greatest, most consistent hitters in the history of the game, and the two years he goes in the tank are the two years you have another one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game.