During his tenure with the Cleveland Indians (now Cleveland Guardians ), Albert Belle was one of the premier players in baseball.
In his eight Major League years with Cleveland, the left fielder hit .295 with 1,014 hits, 223 doubles, 242 home runs, 751 RBI, .580 slugging percentage, and .949 OPS. In each of his last four seasons with the team, he was named an American League All-Star and finished top-seven in AL MVP voting.
On Monday, Belle appeared on The Chris Rose Rotation podcast, reflecting on his MLB career with Northeast Ohio native Chris Rose.
One of the many topics of discussion was Belle’s missing corked bat incident in 1994, for which he was suspended for seven days.
Here is what Belle had to say about the incident:
“I laugh about it because during the game, I don’t know what happened. You hear stories. We knew the White Sox thought they were the team to beat, but we were kind of like the new kid on the block. And we just knew since you can’t beat us, you’re going to try things. And you’re going to try to knock us off our game.”
The incident occurred on July 15, 1994, after the Chicago White Sox suspected that his bat was corked during a game. The umpire then took the bat into the umpires’ room to be investigated.
However, Cleveland pitcher Jason Grimsley eventually crawled through the ceiling of Comiskey Park, dropped into the umpires’ room, and replaced the bat with one of Paul Sorrento’s.
While Cleveland won the contest, the 1994 season came to an end less than a month later because of a player’s strike, with Chicago one game ahead in the AL Central standings.
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