Nurse the Hate: Albert Belle and Me

I saw that former Indians slugger Albert Belle had been arrested in Phoenix for something called “extreme DUI” and “indecent exposure”.  That's never good.  There were very few details this afternoon, but I assumed that Belle must have been taking a leak somewhere public and then drove off drunk.  A copy of the arrest report was secured by the media and it turns out it was a bit more spectacular as Belle was in fact taking a piss by a parked car.  When the owner of the car walked over to complain about it, Belle turned around and waved his dick at the guy and his 15 year old daughter.  That’s going to be a tough one to talk your way out of in court.  I think the key word in the account is “wave”.  That denotes a certain carefree yet aggressive display of your penis that most judges will find problematic, especially with a 15 year old girl involved.  Albert Belle always liked to go all the way.

Before the Indians ascended into a legendary team, they were still a bunch of unknown players working hard to get people to come to the games.  I remember the Indians marketing director showing up at the radio station pleading for us to take tickets and give them away on air.  We would leave stacks of them on the front reception desk that would go unused.  You could go to a game in the early 90s and it was so devoid of people that when you yelled at a player, he heard it.  It would be like yelling at someone at a gas station.  I remember conversing with Kirby Puckett in the outfield one Saturday afternoon.  My buddies and I were knocking back whatever terrible beer they served in those wax paper cups carrying a normal conversation with Puckett through the mid-innings.  He didn’t have to be very focused as the Indians chances of hitting one to the deep outfield was almost none.  Hell, he could have hopped up in the stands with us and knocked back a few.  It’s crazy to think about now.

Things changed in 1994.  The Indians managed to get lucky and have a few generational greats hit at the same time.  Belle was one of them.  He could really hit a baseball.  He was also notoriously difficult with a short fuse.  He was also coming off rehab for alcohol abuse.  He was a very difficult guy for the organization to keep on the field for a period of time.  There were incidents.  A woman in the stands was yelling at him in left field and said something that pissed Belle off, so he fired a ball into her.  Pow!  He was, by all accounts, a loathsome human being at that time.  Teammates called him Mr. Freeze after he turned the thermostat down to where he liked it and then proceeded to beat the themostat off the wall with a bat.  You get the idea.  A real fun guy.

Now I didn’t know that much about him, except for the ball hitting the fan in the stands story.  The reason I mention this is that I met Belle right around this time.  I was watching Albert Belle play pool with a co-worker at this charity event.  The idea of the charity event was people would play a game of 8 ball with a local “sports celebrity” for a cash donation to whatever the hell the cause was.  This was probably early in 1994, before the team took off.  Belle was about as famous in Cleveland as an arena football player.  It’s always been a football town.  The pool tables with low profile Browns offensive linemen were packed.  My friend and I saw Belle by himself so we walked over to see if he wanted to play a game.

Say what you want about Albert Belle, but the guy always competed.  Even in charity 8-ball.  He ran off a few balls and got pissed when he missed a makeable shot.  He wasn’t mildly annoyed.  He was pissed.  Muttering to himself.  Super intense to the point of it being sort of crazy.  Meanwhile my buddy was a pretty good pool player.  Belle was actually in trouble as he had just matched up with a guy that spent the last 8 years hanging out in bars with too much time, so my buddy could beat almost anyone on the planet in pool or pinball. 

My buddy started to run the table.  We were both lighthearted as this was a charity event and there were no stakes.  It was a total goof off event.  We were knocking back beers and having fun.  This is when I made a mistake in judgement.  Now, if I knew then what I know about Belle now, I never would have said what I said that day.  However, he was just this obscure ballplayer who I recalled somewhat hazily had pegged a woman in the stands with a baseball the previous year.  I’m sure he had a sense of humor about it now.

“Hey Albert…  If my buddy keeps running the table, you aren’t going to get pissed and chuck the cue ball at him, are you?”

This was a major mistake.  A large lapse in judgement.

I could literally feel the temperature of the room go down.  A black cloud formed over Albert Belle as he glared at me.  He stared holes through my face.  It flashed into my head clearly.  “That enormous man is going to kick my ass.  He is going to kick my ass right now.”  I had radically misunderstood Mr. Belle’s ability to laugh at himself and his past.  He was so angry that he missed his next shot, a bunny.  This made him even angrier.  He was almost shaking with silent rage.  My buddy was totally silent now as well, knowing that anything could set Belle off like a powder keg.  I felt bad.  I mean, I wanted to bust his balls, but I figured he could take some wiseass remarks from a guy his age.  We were all friends here having fun, no? 

I tried to apologize.  This had all gone so wrong.  “Hey, I was just screwing around.  I didn’t mean to upset you.”  Belle cut me off.  He hissed out a retort.  “You don’t tell me nuthin!!!”.  There would be no coming back from this.  Belle fumed as my buddy beat him in a few shots.  My buddy and I both walked back from the table slowly, like you would if a junkyard dog had shown you his teeth.  Easy…  Easy…  Years later when I saw Belle had that unbelievable incident where he tried to run over kids trick or treating, I thought “yeah… I could see that…”.        

I hope Albert sorts this latest arrest out.  It sounds like a pretty fucked up situation.  Waving your dick in front of 15 year olds is a bad look.  He is going to need a good lawyer.  Hopefully that lawyer can keep Albert in the pocket.  He can be a bit edgy.  If I could make one suggestion to the judge, it’s this:  Do not ask Albert if he is going to hit you with a ball if he doesn’t like the judgement.  Albert does not like that.  At all.