Once upon a time, Albert Belle became the highest-paid player in baseball thanks to Peter Angelos and the Orioles. He signed a five-year $65 million deal prior to the 1999 season at age 32.
Of course, his career with the O’s didn’t come close to living up to that paycheck, as he played only two seasons before being forced into retirement by a degenerative hip condition. He did play 302 games over the ’99-00 seasons with the Birds, smacking 60 home runs and driving in 220 runs. He actually homered in the final AB of his career, October 1, 2000 at the Yard.
In an interview last year, Belle called Orioles owner Peter Angelos “an idiot” and said he was basically forced into retirement.
At 34, Belle wanted to keep playing, but his body let him down and according to Belle, so did Orioles owner Peter Angelos.
“I tried to work things out with the owner in Baltimore where I would gradually play myself into shape in spring training,” Belle said. “He was really pushing me to get out there and play and I wasn’t ready. After I played a couple intrasquad games before the spring training games started, my legs were just hurting so bad and I just never recovered. Obviously, I was mad at the owner of the Orioles, because I think he’s an idiot anyway. I never made it out of spring training, so I was upset about that for a while because I wanted to end on my terms but it didn’t work out that way.”
Bugs & Cranks got a hold of Belle again recently, and asked him about his previous comments on Ol’ Petey.
You’d once said you felt that Orioles owner Peter Angelos was “an idiot.” Can you shed some light on why you’ve felt that way about him?
Here’s the thing about Peter Angelos, if you noticed in the last few years he’s let a great baseball person, in Bucky Showalter, make decisions and he’s succeeded, Bucky Showalter’s done a great job in Baltimore. When you look at when Davey Johnson was the manager of the Baltimore Orioles back in 1996, ’97 when he was able to make decisions they were winners, but in between, when the owner gets involved in making baseball decisions things get complicated. Obviously, they had that run where they were losing, but once Peter Angelos figured out “Hey, let me let these great baseball people,” because he’s had some great baseball people, and he’s never let them make decisions, but at one point he was letting them make decisions and they were winning, now he’s letting Bucky Showalter make decisions and they’re winning. If you’re going to hire great baseball people, you have to let them make decisions, and obviously the owner’s going to have final say-so on things, but on day-to-day things on the field and in the dug out, you have to let great baseball people make those decisions.
While Belle might be a bit of a butt-head, I don’t think many O’s fans can disagree with him here.
Speaking of Albert Belle and Orioles connections, let’s all remember the time he did THIS on a ball off the bat of Eddie Murray:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/0i9aIjLcf-8[/youtube]
One Response
No doubt this signing was, first and foremost, a sign of desperation on the part of Orioles management (Ole Petey included) and wound up being the second worst acquisition the Birds ever made, second only to the infamous Glenn “Damaged Goods” Davis trade. Because of that the Orioles have forever renamed their player physicals the “Glenn Davis Memorial Examinations.”