![]() You reach this arena & realize that you can no longer aim your heroes in a straight line because of those snow balls! Its a little irritating i have to say. This is probably the only arena in the game where your whole gameplay changes. Throughout the series, we’ll have some bonus pieces, extra anecdotes, honorable mentions, one-year wonders and more.This is probably the most beautiful but challenging deck in the whole game. Feel free to spout off in the comments with your frustrations about where I placed Albert Belle or how I omitted Ryan Garko. I tried to balance longevity with dominance, but this is an inexact science. There surely will be debate about the rankings. The Cleveland Baseball Countdown is a series of features on the club’s 30 best players of the past 30 years. It was an MVP performance if there ever was one. Belle, meanwhile, smacked a game-tying homer in the 11th inning of Game 1, and after Red Sox manager Kevin Kennedy barked at umpires to confiscate his bat, Belle supplied one of the most recognizable images in franchise history.Īs Belle chirped back from the home dugout, he flexed his right biceps and pointed to the bulging muscle, a pose that eventually became a bobblehead. Cleveland and Boston clashed in the opening round, and Vaughn went 0-for-14 with seven strikeouts in the three-game sweep. ![]() 356/.479/.628 slash line, 29 homers and 116 walks.īelle stood tall that October, though, helping to power the Indians to their first playoff win (and World Series berth) in nearly a half-century. Edgar Martinez finished third, with four first-place votes for his jarring. Somehow, José Mesa, with 64 innings pitched that season, received a first-place vote. Maybe his corked bat incident the previous year struck a nerve with some voters. Perhaps Belle was too prickly with the media. (He nearly did it again with the White Sox in 1998, when he tallied 49 homers and 48 doubles.)Īnd that leads us back to the MVP voting. He recorded the only 50-homer/50-double season in major-league history, and he did it in a strike-shortened year, with only 144 games on the docket. During a 10-game stretch in September, after Cleveland had secured its first playoff berth in four decades, Belle crushed 12 home runs in 39 at-bats. Think June 1998 Sammy Sosa or 2001-04 Barry Bonds or the entire existence of Backyard Baseball’s Pablo Sanchez.įrom Aug. There’s no better evidence of that than the final two months of the 1995 season, the sort of stretch worthy of some NBA Jam flames. He would be hailed as a hero making a long-awaited homecoming.īelle was as skilled and daunting a hitter as any who has donned a Cleveland uniform, and as driven to prevail at the plate as anyone who visited the batter’s box. He didn’t return for All-Star festivities or even his own team’s Hall of Fame induction. He didn’t join the collection of players who returned to celebrate Jim Thome’s Hall of Fame induction in 2019. He didn’t join the ’95 club at the 20-year reunion in 2015. He hasn’t stepped foot inside the ballpark since he retired. Few opponents have been booed in Cleveland in such a merciless and vigorous manner.Īfter that falling out, his relationship with the organization soured for a bit. ![]() He returned to Jacobs Field and received a Monopoly money shower as he stood in left field and flipped fans the bird. He enjoyed a Cooperstown-worthy peak, but didn’t have the necessary longevity to support his case.Īnd then he was gone, unapologetic and adversarial as he found a new home in Chicago as the sport’s highest-paid player. If hip issues didn’t interfere in the later stages of his career, Belle would have posed more of a threat on the Hall of Fame ballot. He studied pitchers’ tendencies and struck fear in them when he hunched forward in the batter’s box and glared in their direction. ![]() Despite his temperament, he was the only source of optimism in the talent-deprived organization.īelle was a diligent notetaker and video watcher. It’s not often a team’s farm director has to call a player’s mother.īut certain executives were willing to take any measure to keep Belle in a Cleveland uniform. The phrase “last straw” was uttered more in the front office than in a smoothie shop facing a supply chain struggle. For years, his antics drove the organization wild. His 1994 to 1996 run is unparalleled in Cleveland franchise history. Belle was the most prolific - and, certainly, most imposing - slugger in baseball for a few years.
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