Belle is Baseball’s Forgotten In Unforgettable Season

Baseball has been one big party this summer, with Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and the New York Yankees as the guests of honor. And then there’s Albert Belle.

Although he’s chasing his second 50-50 season, he’s the forgotten man in baseball’s summer of love. Think he cares? Think again.

“People want me to do things, be a certain way and that’s not going to happen,” Belle told The Associated Press in a rare interview. “I’m going to be Albert Belle.”

Belle was hitting .379 since the All-Star break with 29 home runs and 82 RBIs going into the season’s final weekend. His total of 47 homers and 148 RBIs was second-best in the AL, and his 48 doubles, 387 total bases and .648 slugging percentage led the league.

And when Cal Ripken finally took a day off last weekend, Belle became baseball’s current leader in consecutive games played (331). He’s set new White Sox single-season records for home runs, doubles, RBIs, total bases and extra-base hits.

“You look at that statistic sheet they put out every day, you’re going to find his name in almost all of those categories. Defense, too,” White Sox manager Jerry Manuel said, adding that his outfielder should be considered for the MVP award.

But Belle knows that won’t happen. No matter what he does, he’ll always be shadowed by his history of bad behavior. He was suspended five times in six years, and he screamed profanities at a reporter during the 1995 World Series while with the Cleveland Indians.

When he became the first player to hit 50 homers and 50 doubles in 1995, he finished second to Boston’s Mo Vaughn for the MVP award in what many considered a backlash to Belle’s personality.

“I do 99 things great, then one incident happens and everybody blows it out of proportion,” Belle said.

In 1996, for example, he leveled Fernando Vina of the Milwaukee Brewers with an elbow to break up a double play and was suspended.

“How many [broken-up double plays] have happened since then?” he asked. “They didn’t get suspended. Nobody says a word. They congratulate the guy for breaking up the double play.”

So, does it bother him?

“The guys in the other dugout know the season I’m having,” he said. “That’s what counts.”

He insists he isn’t surly or mean, and except for a domestic battery charge this summer he’s stayed out of trouble the past two years. But he feels no need to change the perception.

“People don’t need to know what Albert Belle is thinking,” he said. “I’ve learned from my mistakes in the past, and that’s what’s made me a better person.”

He believes he’s an athlete, not a role model, perhaps a good approach given his occasional violent outbursts and past gambling habits that one prosecutor said cost the player as much as $300,000.

Belle also once chased down several Halloween pranksters who had egged his house. He was accused of hitting one of them in his car, and later convicted of reckless operation of a motor vehicle and fined $100.

The 32-year-old Belle, who is not married, said he understands it’s tough to raise children these days, but sending them to the ballpark or parking them in front of a game on television isn’t the way to do it.

“Moral values have been thrown out the window. Christianity is out the window. And that’s wrong,” he said. “Parents should be at home, teaching kids right from wrong, making sure they get a great education so they can be a success in life.”

Off the field, Belle keeps a low profile. He lives in Arizona in the offseason and is an avid golfer. A 14 handicap, he got his first hole-in-one last winter.

He didn’t play golf at all this season for fear of being injured. But come Monday, he’ll be back on the course.

“It’s an individual sport, so it’s the exact opposite of baseball,” he said. “If you hit a bad shot, you can’t say, ‘Well, this happened.’ It’s just you. It’s your shot. You can’t point the finger at anybody but yourself.”

And when he’s finally done with baseball, Belle dreams of turning all of his attention toward his offseason hobby.

“I want to own my own golf course,” he said. “And run it myself.”

But that will have to wait a few years. Although he signed a five-year, $55 million contract in November 1996, he could become a free agent after this season. According to his contract, if he’s not one of the three highest-paid players (by average value, not including option buyouts), he can become a free agent.

To prevent that, the White Sox would have to pay him an additional $1.42 million in each of the remaining three seasons in his contract.

Belle hasn’t decided what he’ll do, but he enjoys playing in Chicago. He likes Manuel, and the fans treat him well. The day after he was arrested on the domestic battery charge, fans at Comiskey Park greeted him with loud applause.

He likes his teammates, too. With the youngest roster in the AL, the White Sox got off to a rough start, but they rebounded after the break. With almost everyone coming back, Belle said he thinks the White Sox could win the AL Central next year.

“I think our lineup can be just as potent as anybody else’s,” he said. “I like the makeup in the clubhouse. We’re all in this together. We’re all going to win together, and we’re all going to lose together. We’re a pretty close-knit group of guys.”