Indians’ Belle Found Guilty of Corking His Bat : Baseball: Outfielder, suspended for 10 days, is first player caught using an illegal bat since 1987.

CLEVELAND — All-Star Albert Belle of the Cleveland Indians was found guilty Monday of corking his bat and suspended for 10 days after a weekend investigation that included a mysterious switched bat.

The American League resolved the case to its satisfaction after X-raying the bat, then sawing it in half. The league said the bat was “found to have been treated with cork.”

Belle appealed the suspension, which will be delayed until his hearing before AL President Bobby Brown in New York on July 29.

“He appealed? I don’t see how he can appeal, but that doesn’t make any difference,” White Sox Manager Gene Lamont said.

It was the first time a player has been caught for using an illegal bat since 1987, when Billy Hatcher of the Houston Astros was suspended for 10 days for corking. Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees was ejected during a 1974 game when rubber was found in his bat.

Lamont voiced his suspicions about Belle’s bat during Friday night’s game between the White Sox and Indians at Chicago.

He said the White Sox staff had noticed that Belle had been hitting a lot of long balls to right field throughout the season and Lamont said he had “heard some things.”

Each manager can ask to have one bat from the opposing team checked each game, and Lamont asked umpire crew chief Dave Phillips to check Belle’s.

Phillips seized the bat and placed it in the umpires’ dressing room for safe keeping.

Or so they thought.

Later, during the game, someone worked their way above a false ceiling from the direction of the visitors’ clubhouse and dropped through the ceiling into the umpires’ dressing room. The thief took Belle’s bat and left another bat in its place. The culprit still has not been identified.

By Sunday, there was another twist. The original bat, or what appeared to be the original bat, was returned. “I didn’t know if it was corked or not,” Lamont said Monday at Detroit. “Once it left the umpire’s office, you kind of took for granted it was probably corked. Evidently they gave the right bat back, I guess.”

Belle, who is facing his fourth suspension in six seasons with the Indians, is two for 12 since the White Sox asked for an inspection of the bat. The 1993 major league RBI leader went one for four against the Texas Rangers on Monday night and is in a five-for-37 slump, batting .348 with 26 homers and 78 RBIs.

Belle’s agent was angry at Monday’s findings. “We are outraged by the claim and feel that it is no more than a well-timed charge concocted by the White Sox in the heat of a pennant race with Cleveland, against the Indians’ top hitting threat,” Arn Tellem said.