Worst Person in the World!

[TribeFanInNC]

My first impression was the same as chucksabr - at least he's not opposed to winning!

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Rich, I followed "Joey" Belle since he was at LSU.

I think you hit on it indirectly. The description describes Joey Belle, not Albert Belle. Albert had a work ethic and definitely wanted to win. Who else would be as strong as him and still feel he needed to cork a bat to gain an advantage? Definitely a little bonkers and had some demons. Probably needed a little more supportive environment than a locker room full of guys everyday.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Number4

3 good pitches, stamina of 65 and he's a reliever?

Yep. By the way, I'm not managing the NYG. I just ran across this dude while looking for pitching talent to trade for.

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Probably due to his control issues and smaller starting staffs in that era.

Very astute comments.

In any case, the guy may be rated as relatively content, but the look on this mug gives away his displeasure!

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

Reads to me like you're ratifying hockeyman's assessment: that Albert Belle may very well have been an OK teammate, but because he was quiet, or shy, or withdrawn, or aloof, or Asperger's, or whatever it is, the media hated him.

Buster Olney: media.

Bill Madden: media.

Hall of Fame voters: media.

It's their job to report things. Belle was widely hated and a terrible, selfish teammate.

[The Wolf]

Ultimate Albert Belle | Timeline

Timeline of the worst player ever.

[hockeyman001]

This was an article on Belle I remember seeing at some point. While Belle's behavior certainly was "bad" there was a whole other side of him that never gets talked about.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-687570109b21/

It really boiled down to Belle's predisposition of hate towards media. I remember reading somewhere else that he could never understand why people wanted to ask him things, hear his life story, and write his responses down. His job, he felt, was to play baseball and entertain the fans with his bat, not his mouth. While I don't agree with his methodology, I will say he was right, and it is refreshing when athletes don't use their stardom to suddenly become self proclaimed experts about politics (ahem, Schilling). He was there to play baseball, and on most days he saw the media as interfering with that. He was not the guy to stop to ask questions to while he's walking to the batting cage to get some cuts in, because he was there to practice...and a reporter asking him questions would be interfering with that. And the only way he knew how to respond to this was by being angry.

[The Wolf]

Did you ever watch him play? He would sit at the far end of the bench between innings, away from everyone. The man had no social interaction and no friends. He makes Cobb look like Mike Trout.

He also famously hated his college coach, the legendary Skip Bertman, for forcing him to learn new things and to behave well.

[Germaniac]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Did you ever watch him play? He would sit at the far end of the bench between innings, away from everyone. The man had no social interaction and no friends. He makes Cobb look like Mike Trout.

Just ask Fernando Vina ... one of the few games I could watch in person

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV3fNK31HD4

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Germaniac

Just ask Fernando Vina ... one of the few games I could watch in person

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV3fNK31HD4

Tell me that wasn't a socioipath at work. That hurt just to watch.

[vladdy16]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Tell me that wasn't a socioipath at work. That hurt just to watch.

Definitely not. Looks like his first instinct after the play was to reach out to Vina, and then realized that wasn't the message he wanted to send. Nice clean hit too.

The more you tell me about Albert Belle the more I'm liking him

The media really is the worst.

[The Wolf]

"Belle, already under orders by the AL to undergo anger counseling, flattened Vina as he was about to be tagged out on a grounder. The 5-9 former Met got up and jawed at the 6-2 Belle, but did not retaliate. 'He broke my nose,' Vina said. 'It ain't right for a guy to come at your face like that. He came at me like a fullback right at my face.'" - NY Daily News

[The Wolf]

"For the third time in less than 100 days, Albert Belle, the Cleveland Indians' angry young man, has been disciplined by a Major League Baseball official. But unlike the other two actions, which resulted in a $50,000 fine and orders to undergo counseling, this time Belle was suspended for five games...[AL president] Budig suspended Belle for slamming Fernando Vina, the Brewers' second baseman, with a forearm in the eighth inning as Vina tagged him between first and second and for Belle's role in the ninth-inning brawl. 'The American League,' Budig said in a statement, 'will not tolerate an act that put in serious jeopardy the safety of a player. The physical well-being of our players must be of paramount importance to all responsible individuals associated with the game.'...Just 18 days earlier, Budig had ordered Belle to participate in 'immediate counseling' or face suspension as a result of an incident in which the player threw a baseball that struck a magazine photographer. Last Feb. 29, Bud Selig, the acting commissioner, directed Belle to have counseling and fined him $50,000 for his profane tirade at a television reporter during last year's World Series. Belle, 29, has been suspended four times before, twice for charging the mound (three games each in 1992 and 1993), once for throwing a ball at a fan in the stands (one week in 1991) and once for having cork in his bat (10 days reduced to 6 days and 7 games in 1994)." - NY Times

[The Wolf]

Oh, yeah, Belle's a role model all right - if you're a sociopath.

[Hammercraft]

He'd get along great with Ty Cobb

[Padreman]

Originally Posted by Hammercraft

He'd get along great with Ty Cobb

Wrong Cobb hated blacks

[Hammercraft]

Originally Posted by Padreman

Wrong Cobb hated blacks

malicious rumors

[endgame]

Is the manager's identity highly classified info?

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

It's their job to report things. Belle was widely hated and a terrible, selfish teammate.

that's a bit naive and reductive about what reporters actually do. they write soap opera writers targetted at middle aged and older men. facts and impartiality are not their concern. writing drama is their game. fanning the flames of the ignorant masses (fans) is their favorite national passtime. why? because it sells more newspapers or whatever it is they sell nowadays.

if someone doesn't want to talk much with reporters, they will most likely turn on them and villify them at the earliest convenience. not only that, other local and national sports news sources will circle their wagons around the reporter, regardless of right or wrong and who's at fault.

the writer's screwed him out of a deserving MVP. what petty pr*cks they are. the game of baseball isn't about how much sports writers like you, and neither is the MVP award. to do such a thing shows their true colors.

p.s. cobb didn't like black baseball players until 1950's. i think 1952 was when he recanted about htem being allowed into the MLB.. certainly never while he played the game...so, we'll be generous and say he wasn't a complete* racist the last 'half' of his life.

[Padreman]

Originally Posted by Hammercraft

malicious rumors

He was a blatant racist

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Padreman

He was a blatant racist

Malicious tumors. Read the truth about it in the article in my sig.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by NoOne

that's a bit naive and reductive about what reporters actually do. they write soap opera writers targetted at middle aged and older men. facts and impartiality are not their concern. writing drama is their game. fanning the flames of the ignorant masses (fans) is their favorite national passtime. why? because it sells more newspapers or whatever it is they sell nowadays.

if someone doesn't want to talk much with reporters, they will most likely turn on them and villify them at the earliest convenience. not only that, other local and national sports news sources will circle their wagons around the reporter, regardless of right or wrong and who's at fault.

the writer's screwed him out of a deserving MVP. what petty pr*cks they are. the game of baseball isn't about how much sports writers like you, and neither is the MVP award. to do such a thing shows their true colors.

p.s. cobb didn't like black baseball players until 1950's. i think 1952 was when he recanted about htem being allowed into the MLB.. certainly never while he played the game...so, we'll be generous and say he wasn't a complete* racist the last 'half' of his life.

Falsehood and rumor except for the part about the MVP. But that's happened to other players who had personality issues. Nobody wants to vote for a jerk [insert Clinton or Trump joke here].