Alomar -- What a Homer : The Belle Doesn't Toil for Them

By ROSS NEWHAN

July 9, 1997 12 AM PT

CLEVELAND — American League center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. played all nine innings of Tuesday night’s All-Star game.

Albert Belle watched all nine.

Watched as Sandy Alomar Jr., a former Cleveland Indian teammate, won it for the American League, 3-1, with a two-run homer in the seventh inning as a partisan crowd of 44,916 roared approval.

Belle? Well, he took up room on the bench and a valued spot on the American League roster.

Told Manager Joe Torre that he preferred not to play.

Didn’t want to be subjected to the jeering he received from Jacobs Field fans when he returned to his former asylum with the Chicago White Sox on June 3 and drew a $5,000 fine simply for remaining in character and responding with an obscene gesture.

Called the fans “village idiots” in a Chicago Tribune story Tuesday. Called them “cheapskates” for throwing only small change at him in June.

How nice.

Making $10 million a year and doesn’t want to play in the All-Star game.

Wouldn’t even join American League teammates for the traditional team picture after batting practice Tuesday.

His explanation?

“He didn’t stop long enough to give me an explanation,” said the AL’s snubbed vice president, Phyllis Merhige.

So Belle showed up late for Monday’s workout and left early, choosing not to participate, and made his only significant appearance during Tuesday’s pregame introductions.

He stood on the third-base line and responded to the anticipated jeers by raising both arms and making a victory sign with the index and middle fingers. It was an improvement on his use of fingers in June, but it was all there was from Belle.

Swell.

How do you think Tony Clark, the young Detroit Tiger first baseman, felt, sitting home with his 71 runs batted in?

Or Angel center fielder Jim Edmonds, who has played hurt and played so spectacularly?

What did a gamer named Tony Gwynn think of Belle’s reluctance.

“I’d probably want to play, but that’s just me,” Gwynn said. “I also understand [Belle’s reasoning]. I wasn’t here and didn’t see what happened [in June], but it’s not fun to go out there and have people call you names and throw garbage.

“It’s bad enough during the regular season, but worse in the national spotlight of an All-Star game.

“It’s probably best that he just goes out for the introductions and leaves it at that.”

Will Belle be fined again?

“Nothing we can do because there’s nothing mandatory about the All-Star game,” a league official said.

“Unfortunately, if he had told us he didn’t want to play we might have chosen someone who did.”

American League President Gene Budig, approached before the game, displayed a condescending demeanor and said of Belle:

“He’s available to the manager if the manager needs him. I have no comment otherwise. Let’s play baseball.”

They did, fashioning a game dominated by pitchers and won by Alomar, providing a great touch for Indian fans, who preferred cheering their catcher to booing their former left fielder, and a great moment for Alomar, who has a 30-game hitting streak and a .375 batting average and is enjoying a career year after so many of his early expectations were erased by injuries.

“Two pitches before he hit it,” Cleveland manager and AL coach Mike Hargrove said of the homer, “[New York Yankee outfielder] Paul O’Neill said to me, ‘If all things were fair, Sandy would hit it out.’

“When he did, I turned to Paul and said, ‘I need you to write the script more often.’ Sandy has been a special player and good people. He’s had a difficult time and had to work hard to overcome the injuries.

“His knee still bothers him a little, but not like it had been. He deserves the year he’s having and he deserves [what he did tonight]. Forty years from now, people here will look back on it as a Ruthian effort.”

Alomar was most valuable and Belle least visible.

Did Torre, who initially wanted Belle to replace the injured David Justice as the left-field starter, regret choosing him among the reserves?

“No,” he said. “He deserved being here. He’s having an All-Star year.”

Did he try to talk Belle out of his reluctance to play?

“No, because I know he was uncomfortable about what happened here the last time,” Torre said. “I’m managing here because we [the Yankees] won the World Series. I’m not here to motivate people.

“He thanked me for choosing him and I thanked him for not turning it down. When Frank Thomas [who declined an invitation to be a first-base reserve because of injury] couldn’t come, Albert felt obligated to come [as the White Sox only representative].”

And the bottom line, Torre said, is that Belle didn’t say he wouldn’t play, only that he preferred not to.

“He’d have played if we’d needed him, but we didn’t need him,” Torre added. “He was our safety valve. You have to hold someone back anyway in case there’s an injury or the game goes extra innings.

“Ideally, in this type game you should be able to bring a player back if you need to after he leaves the game, and I think you may see that enacted in the future.”

A plane flew over Jacobs Field before the first pitch Tuesday night trailing a banner that read: “Will Rogers never met Joey Belle.”

Will Rogers claimed to have never met a man he didn’t like, but he never met Albert Jojuan Belle, formerly Joey.

And he wouldn’t have seen much of him during these All-Star proceedings in the city he formerly called home.