Belle Admits To Knocking Vandal To Ground With Car
Cleveland Indians slugger Albert Belle admits knocking down a Halloween vandal with his pickup truck while chasing the youngster across a muddy field.
Belle, in a wide-ranging interview published Sunday in The Morning Journal of Lorain, said he braked just as he reached the teen.
“As soon as I caught up with him, I slammed on the brakes and was jumping out of the car and was going to run after him. It was raining and it was kind of mucky back there,” Belle said.
“The truck kind of skidded, or whatever, and it slid and bumped him. He fell down and as soon as he fell down, he jumped back up and started running.”
The youngster, one of four who were chased by Belle on Oct. 31, has sued Belle for $850,000. Belle was charged with reckless operation of a vehicle and paid a $100 fine.
Belle said the teens threw eggs at his house after Belle’s father said they had no Halloween candy to give out.
“I feel like I was targeted,” Belle said. “It’s a shame where people target athletes. If they would have done the same thing to my next door neighbor and had my neighbor chased them, they wouldn’t have filed a report.”
Belle said he hasn’t decided whether to proceed with his threat to move out of the Cleveland area because of the egging.
“I went out to Las Vegas and looked at houses out there. I found a couple of places I like,” he said. “But I made a decision here five years ago to live in the community and be involved in the community, and I never expected people to harass me.”
Belle had this to say on other issues:
-His contract, which has one more year to run: “I haven’t really sat down and thought about how much I want or how much I should get. Whenever the Indians make an offer, we’ll go from there.”
- On losing out in the MVP voting: “I was surprised I got as many votes as I did. I’m kind of upset that they give the baseball writers all this power when other media people who were former ballplayers should be involved in the voting. Maybe it should be 50-50 with those guys and the writers.”
- On whether MVP voting should include a player’s character, in addition to performance on the field: “If you’re talking about the Most Valuable Player, you look at what the guy has done between the white lines on the baseball field.-
On using a corked bat: “Not in a game. First of all, you’ve got to find someone who will cork them. So there’s one headache. Then you’ve got to be bold enough to use them in a game. So there’s another headache.- On the Indians’ pro spects for 1996: “They’re expecting us to win it all now. This past year, they expected us to win, but they didn’t know how many we would win. Now, everybody is expecting us to beat the (American League) record for wins of 111. We should. With our pitching staff and the team we’ve got coming back, it shouldn’t be any problem.”