Baseball Chat

[fung_derf]

Albert Belle was the first baseball player to earn a contract worth more than $10 million a year. He was also the first guy to hit 50 home runs and 50 doubles in the same season. He was a feared hitter that had incredible raw power that most pitchers feared. As it turned out, it wasn’t solely raw power, rather it was power that was aided by corked bats. In 1994, he was caught using a corked bat and was suspended seven games. Years later, his former teammate Omar Vizquel said about the Indians effort to switch Belle’s bat, “The problem, of course, was that all of Albert’s bats were corked.”