- 5 months ago
"The History of Charging the Mound" keeps on rolling with an episode on one of the best and most accomplished fighters in Major League Baseball history, the one and only George Bell. You saw glimpses of Bell in the last episode. Now, we'll get to know a guy who's often remembered for his most disappointing moments, but is a more complex man and ballplayer than he's typically given credit for.
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00:00In episode 3 of this series, I began a two-part exploration of the encounter between Toronto's
00:04George Bell and Boston's Bruce Keeson on June 23rd, 1985. Having visited Keeson's side of things,
00:10we will now consider the life and times of George Bell.
00:17In the late 1970s, scouts all around Major League Baseball began descending upon the
00:21Dominican Republic, which had suddenly been identified as highly lucrative territory.
00:26The DR was home to countless talented young ballplayers, and those ballplayers, due to the
00:30country's dire economic conditions, were highly exploitable. With the unemployment rate around
00:3440%, teams realized they could sign players for a lot less than American prospects asked for.
00:39And if those Dominican players did happen to get signed by a Major League team,
00:43they were sent to the states, socially isolated by the language barrier and dependent upon agents
00:47who were often crooked and looking to swindle them all over again. A cruel irony recalled by George
00:52Bell, one of those young Dominican players, was that while navigating this labyrinth of shameless
00:56exploitation, he was the one looked at with suspicion. American players found any reason they could to
01:02dislike him. His English wasn't polished enough, he was too this, not enough that, didn't play the
01:06game the right way. In 1982, while playing for minor league Syracuse, Bell stepped in against Lynn
01:12McLaughlin, an 11-year Major League vet, pitching in triple-A ball in the hopes of one last call-up.
01:16In a game years earlier, while pitching for the Cardinals, McLaughlin beamed one New York Mets batter,
01:21then brushed back another three innings later, then hit that batter too. The intent was so
01:25transparently clear that the Mets' Dave Kingman charged the mound straight from the dugout.
01:29McLaughlin did not hesitate to throw at a batter if he had the inclination,
01:32and he seemed to resent George Bell for the same superficial reasons everybody else did.
01:37Bell was a hot dogger, it was decided. McLaughlin drilled him in the face,
01:41fracturing his cheek and jawbones. While his teammates stormed the field to exact revenge,
01:46Bell writhed on the ground, certain that his career in baseball, his one chance at a better life,
01:50was over. He's dead, Bell thought of McLaughlin. Not because Bell would kill him,
01:55or because his teammates would, but because fate would one day catch up with him.
02:00Two years later, McLaughlin lost his life in a fire. His friend was also killed,
02:04with everyone else escaping the home. Bell, who'd fully recovered and made his way to the Majors,
02:09addressed the tragedy sometime after, seemingly unprompted. He expressed his sympathies for the
02:13friends and loved ones of those who died, then said of McLaughlin's fate,
02:17people like that decide it. They have a bad heart. No way they can stay alive.
02:30You might find those words to be callous, even cruel. I mean, I do. Then again,
02:35I doubt either of us have persevered through the circumstances Bell did, only for somebody to
02:39break his face and potentially ruin his life just for playing baseball with a little bit too much
02:43swagger. Baseball was George Bell's one and only chance at a better life, the sort of life we'd wish
02:48for anybody, and he was fiercely, sometimes even violently, protective of that chance.
02:53This defensiveness manifested in ways that, when coupled with his steadily improving but still in
02:57perfect English, made it difficult for him to endear himself to the media. Bell's career-long
03:02struggles with the press begin after the close of the 1984 season, when it comes time for local
03:06baseball writers to cast their votes for Blue Jays Player of the Year, which names the team's best
03:10everyday position player. Here we see all the category leaders highlighted in yellow. In future
03:15decades, advanced metrics will indicate that Lloyd Moseby is the best by a wide margin,
03:19but based on the stats in front of writers here and now, George Bell's case looks great.
03:23In his first full season in the bigs, he led the team in homers and doubles with a solid 292
03:27average.
03:28I think his confidence that he'll win the award is justified, and one thing we know about the
03:32man is that he loves his trophies. Maybe it's because trophies are a permanent, material,
03:37irrevocable signifier of the respect that's so often been denied him. Well, about that,
03:43it is determined that the Blue Jays' top position player is Dave Collins, who had a higher batting
03:48average and led the team in steals. As an unbiased observer, I gotta say I'm pretty surprised. In
03:52response, a slighted bell implements a selective media boycott that's gonna last for years. Some outlets
03:58can talk to him for 50 bucks in cash, others he won't speak to at all. Collins, for what it's
04:03worth, is traded days after winning the award. In 85, Bell keeps on mashing the ball while mostly
04:08refusing to speak with reporters, which means that in June, when he runs up on Red Sox starter Bruce
04:13Keeson and kicks him in the jimmies, he has no words to offer in the aftermath. No explanation is
04:17really necessary, though. Although Keeson indicates after the game that he didn't mean to hit him,
04:22he's league famous for aggressively pitching guys up and in. The engine was primed earlier this month,
04:26when Keeson and some Blue Jays traded some heated words during their last encounter. And ever since
04:30having his face shattered in 82, Bell has maintained a no tolerance policy that he's backed up with a
04:35willingness to fight. Bell charged the mound a couple of times in the minors, but he's got something
04:40special in store for his major league mound charging debut. This flying kick right here, in fact,
04:44will create an entirely new subgenre of mound charging. As far as I can tell, George Bell is the
04:50very first of several batters to open his mound charging attack with a kick. Some look a little bit more
04:56impressive than others. Here's Atlanta's Otis Nixon in 1991, who runs up on Philadelphia's Wally
05:01Ritchie and tries to kick him like an extra point. It's not an effective strike, but Otis recovers by
05:06taking him down and reverting to a good old-fashioned ground and pound. The next year, check out Sandy
05:10Alomar, who is sat down on the dirt, springs right back up, and sprints at John Doherty with a fully
05:15outlined plan of attack. His flying kick to the hip deposes Doherty all the way off his mound. This right
05:21here is a stone-cold defenestration. In 94, the Cardinals Geronimo Pena demonstrates that the true
05:26utility of the flying kick isn't necessarily the kick itself, but the flying. Colorado's Darren
05:31Holmes tries to counter with a mere standing kick, but since Pena also mashes the B button to spring
05:36himself into the air, he can use his weight to deliver a forearm to the face when he comes down
05:40on Holmes. And to round things out, we got Boston's Darren Lewis, who you saw in Episode 2. Like Pena's
05:45kick,
05:46Lewis's kick is secondary, as he brings down his elbow to knock down Jarrett Wright. Back in 85, though,
05:50George Bell brings a little bit of something extra to the table. After kicking Keeson aside,
05:54he then demonstrates his skills as a stand-up fighter. I don't mean to single out Sox catcher
05:59Rich Gedman here, but he's like the vast majority of baseball players in that once he steps out of
06:03the baseball realm and into the arena of battle, he's a jobber. He's a putty. He's the foot gland.
06:08Only a very select few baseball players have ever shown true, technically sound fighting ability,
06:14and George Bell is one of those men. Bell squares up with Gedman, jukes right, then delivers a clean one
06:19two that knocks his helmet off. From here, Bell shoves another would-be accoster aside before
06:24tagging himself out on allowing his teammates to continue about 10 minutes of on-again and off-again
06:28fighting. This fight is one of just 19 mount chargings in this sample that I've judged to be
06:33worthy of a perfect 5 out of 5 rating on the main event scale. Between the electrifying creativity of
06:38the jump kick and the perfect left-right combo, Bell delivered one of the most impressive individual
06:43fight performances ever seen in baseball. And because the subsequent melee took a full 10 minutes to break up,
06:49it registers a 4 out of 5 in the group project category.
06:57This fight helps to burnish George Bell's image as a heel, and he only draws more ire when,
07:01upon helping to lead the Jays to the American League Championship Series in October, he accuses
07:05the umps of bias against him and his team. Even impartial observers acknowledge that Toronto's been
07:10getting a raw deal from the umps all-series, and for Bell, it comes to a head when he's called
07:14out
07:14at third in Game 5. Now why he took an approach toward third baseman George Brett's side of the bag
07:19and why he risked violating the Cardinals' sin of making the first out of third base are
07:22questions worth asking, but he does look pretty safe. That was a pivotal out that might well have
07:27kept Toronto from winning Game 5 and clinching the series. Instead, the Royals won this one and
07:31the Knicks two to deny the Jays the distinction of being the first Canadian team to reach the World
07:36Series. And Bell charges the umps of working the games against them as part of an orchestrated
07:41effort to keep them out for this exact reason. I can pretty confidently say that this was not the case,
07:46and that the terrible umpiring in the 85 postseason was not part of any grand conspiracy.
07:50I can nonetheless imagine how it might have felt that way to Bell, the prototypical outsider who'd
07:55so often found the decks stacked against him. He'd grown up in the Dominican Republic and spent his
07:59entire Major League career playing for a Canadian team, meaning that he was a lot less tethered to
08:04America than pretty much any other star player Major League Baseball had ever seen to that point.
08:08During the brief time he did spend in the States, he hated it for reasons that are pretty easy to
08:13understand. Let's appreciate that for a moment. This detail hits the papers in the middle of a 1987
08:18season that's gonna end with Bell, by way of his 47 home runs, winning the American League MVP award.
08:24So George Bell is now a superstar baseball player who not only is not from America and whose team is
08:30not
08:30from America, but who doesn't really like America. You gotta love that about the guy. You don't gotta love
08:36everything about the guy.
08:43Sometimes his point of view isn't worth trying to understand because he's just being a dick.
08:47During this same 87 MVP season, while speaking to a group of reporters at his locker, he notices WFAN
08:53reporter Susan Waldman join the group out of the corner of his eye, and Bell is incensed by the sight
08:59of a woman in the locker room. So George, you've got a misogynist attitude about this. That's not that
09:04surprising because you're a baseball player in the 1980s. There are lots of stories of ballplayers in
09:08this time treating journalists like shit because they're women. But listen man, this is somebody
09:13who has every right to be here, who worked very hard to get here, and who surely had to overcome
09:17all kinds of unfair obstacles most did not to get here. Does that sound like anybody you know? Could
09:24you put aside your bullshit for long enough to see some of your story and hers? Nope. Bell starts bellowing
09:30at her, berating, insulting, yelling, screaming. After years of being unfairly vilified, he now
09:35becomes the vilifier. Waldman eventually has little choice but to make her exit. As she walks away
09:40defeated, it's left to Bell's teammate Jesse Barfield to patch things up. Barfield pulls somebody aside,
09:46gets Waldman's name, then calls her over to his locker with a smile. He doesn't try to comfort or
09:50patronize. He simply picks things up with a smile as though nothing ever happened and gives her every
09:55bit of A material he can think of, even making up some dumb poetry on the fly just to give
09:59her some funny
09:59stuff to write. There's no reason on earth that George Bell could not have been that guy. See,
10:05reporters had recently started to come around on Bell. They were starting to describe him as a
10:10passionate yet misunderstood guy with a good heart. Maybe so, in fact probably so, but this story of
10:16George Bell, Jesse Barfield and Susan Waldman in the locker room which spread so far and wide that I
10:21read about it in a book when I was a kid will eclipse all of that. A lot of people
10:25don't remember him
10:26for his MVP season or all the baseball equipment who would fly back to the kids in the DR or
10:31any
10:31of his highly entertaining fights. They remember him for this.
10:40Within the arena of mound charging, Bell had a short fuse, but he was deliberate. Unlike quite a
10:45few of the mound chargers you see out here, he always made a case for going to war that was
10:49more
10:50elaborate than, this guy just happened to hit me with a pitch right here, right now. Bell was hit
10:54by a pitch 49 times throughout his career, which is about right for somebody who played as long as
10:58he did, and he only charged after three of them. He knew most were not on purpose, like this one
11:03in 86
11:03from Baltimore's Mike Boddicker. Now, I doubt what you're about to see is the only time it's ever
11:09happened, but it's the only time I can remember it happening. Bell has no interest in taking one for the
11:13team, which is understandable given his history, so he goes downstairs, but he forgets his bat upstairs.
11:18When the ball hits the bat, it legally becomes a batted ball and in an awful stroke of luck,
11:23it pops right up and into the waiting glove of the catcher. This might be the insidest pitch
11:28that has ever resulted in an out. Coincidentally, that catcher is Rick Dempsey, who once charged
11:34the mound to fight Gene Nelson, who George Bell now bats against on May 2nd, 1989. With the Blue Jays
11:40down three runs to the Oakland A's, there are two outs in the bottom of the ninth with nobody on
11:45base.
11:45And with victory all but sewn up, the one thing on earth Nelson does not want to do is give
11:49Bell
11:49a free pass to first, especially with the count one and two, one strike from a win. This pitch
11:54clearly just got away from him. Look at Nelson punching his mitt. This is not what he wanted.
11:57There's no ill intent here. Bell, at first, acts accordingly. And then he appears to take a brief,
12:03but thorough, journey into the past. Let's come along with him and mainline every last frustration,
12:09big and small, that has led George Bell to this moment.
12:16Minutes ago, in the top of the ninth, Mark McGuire demolished a grand slam some 20 rows deep,
12:21erasing the Jays' lead and ultimately ensuring they would blow this game in the final inning.
12:25In the previous game against the Angels, they lost another game in the 11th and final inning on a walk
12:30off. Hours before that game, they learned that Jesse Barfield, the heart and soul of the 1980s Blue
12:34Jays had been traded. The night before that, they lost on another walk off. These three consecutive
12:40heartbreakers have dropped the Jays, who enter this season with World Series expectations to 9-17.
12:46You are looking at the worst April the Blue Jays have ever had. It's never been this bad, this early.
12:51Not even in the earliest seasons of the Toronto Blue Jays, which we survey as we travel much,
12:56much further down the path of assorted grievances. Those early struggles were to be expected though.
13:01Their road to contention has arguably been much more frustrating. George Bell's first full season
13:06came in 1984, just as the Jays were set to become perennial contenders for the AL East title. In 85,
13:12they won it, only to get umpired out of the playoffs. Their follow-up performances have been
13:16disappointing in distinctly different ways. In 86, they rallied late, then fell apart in September.
13:21In 87, they just about had it locked up before choking and losing every one of their last seven games.
13:26Last year, they made a furious late charge and they just ran out of time. And now, after their worst
13:31April on record and the loss of a team leader, it looks like the window might well be slamming shut.
13:36Feeding further into Bell's personal frustrations is the person who he blames for 86 and who I blame
13:41for 87, manager Jimmy Williams. This is a man who spells his name Jimmy with one M just for the
13:47sake
13:47of being weird. That's endearing. Less endearing is his inexplicable decision to try to reimagine
13:52foundational staff ace and secret base legend Dave Steeb as a relief pitcher smack in the middle of the 87
13:58playoff race, which I think might have cost him the division. The man sometimes just seems to love
14:03making decisions for the sake of making them. And when he tries to permanently move George Bell
14:07from defensively mediocre outfielder to designated hitter, in other words, a player who bats in place
14:12of the pitcher and doesn't field, all hell breaks loose for a solid couple of years. Earlier in this 87
14:18season, Jimmy's idea is to quietly pencil Bell in at DH without telling him, which results in Bell going
14:23so nuclear in the clubhouse that Jimmy just as quietly pencils him back in at right field.
14:28Bell is insulted by the request as he sees that DH is a position for old guys who can't field
14:32well
14:32anymore, but Jimmy tries to pencil him in at DH again the following spring training. The Toronto
14:37star busted out a font size they probably hadn't used since the moon landing to describe what happened
14:41next. When it was Bell's turn to step to the plate as DH, he simply refused to go out there,
14:46and sat around in the bullpen instead. A reigning MVP and home run champ who refused to bat.
14:53Extraordinary. Bell was suspended but ultimately won the war as he ended up keeping his outfield spot
14:58most of the time. When Bell commits a key throwing error from out there, Jimmy throws a back in his
15:02face and the two engage in one of many dugout shouting matches. Bell says that during one of them,
15:07Jimmy suggests he should be grateful, saying that if it weren't for baseball, he'd be back in the
15:11Dominican Republic cutting sugar cane. Jimmy denies saying this. What we do know is that Jimmy is
15:17riding the guy hard, shouting at him and making him miserable. This is no way to manage your players.
15:23I feel a little bit bad for Bell. I'd feel more bad if he himself didn't do the exact same
15:27thing to
15:28other people. Anyway, something's gotta give. And yet, after about two entire years of this red hot
15:34player manager feud, nothing has. In this moment, Jimmy is still the manager. So George Bell resents his
15:40manager. He resents that his team has invented a new way to be disappointing. He resents the feeling
15:45that the American baseball world seems to have it out for a Dominican player and his Canadian team.
15:49These are all ambient grievances that in this moment seem to be rolling up into the bigger,
15:53more acute grievance that once again, somebody has thrown a baseball at his face. That's the only way
15:59you can explain the delayed fuse and instantaneous eruption. Look at this. The man relives five years of
16:05frustration in 1.9 seconds. He's hit. He seems to keep it in stride for a moment. And then,
16:10wartime. If Gene Nelson had watched the tape on Bell, he would know not to go low here. But
16:15fortunately, Bell does not open with a flying judo kick this time around. Instead, he opts for
16:19some standing strikes, which pay off quite well. But later tonight, while talking to reporters in the
16:23clubhouse, something else will strike Nelson, a story from long ago that everyone had long since forgotten.
16:35Almost exactly 10 years ago, to this very night, on May 3, 1979, Gene Nelson was an 18-year-old
16:42pitcher
16:43for the single-A Asheville Tourists. He had the game off, so we got to take in the whole spectacle
16:47from
16:48the dugout. In a spectacle it was. There were lots of heated arguments, multiple bench clearings,
16:52eight ejections. Some kid even jumped out of the stands and threw a baseball at the right fielder
16:57for no apparent reason. Somewhere in there, a Spartanburg Phillies batter charged the mound.
17:02Nelson recognized him, because that same guy had also charged the mound against his team
17:06earlier that season. On that first occasion, he charged after being hit by a pitch with a bases loaded,
17:12which everyone knew a pitcher would never do on purpose. So, in disgust,
17:15his Spartanburg teammates declared that if he ever charged the mound again, they wouldn't run out
17:20there to back him up. Word of this spread so far that it even got to Nelson on the other
17:23team.
17:24Sure enough, this batter charged the mound again on this evening and Nelson took in the bizarre
17:29spectacle of a guy running up to fight the pitcher and disappearing into the swarm of opposing players
17:34without a single teammate joining him. That batter was a 19-year-old George Bell. They left him out
17:40there to wage war all by himself, something that I can attest you virtually never see.
17:45The sheer loneliness and hopelessness of the situation he'd created for himself is something
17:49that's stuck with Gene Nelson all these years later. As Bell is swarmed by a gaggle of athletics,
17:55it at first looks like that's what's happening again. But George Bell has found a second family
18:00up here in Canada. Third base coach John McLaren is the first to arrive, and immediately after,
18:05the rest of his Toronto brothers fly in. Everybody pours out. Guys from way out in the bullpen,
18:10coaches in jackets, a guy in a raincoat. You know your whole team's behind you when even the raincoat
18:15guy shows up for you. George Bell and these Blue Jays are united. The thing that unites them is
18:21perhaps not ideal. Years of shared disappointment, anguish, frustration. Many poured in a storm,
18:26though. At least they got each other. This fight registers a three out of five in the charger-pitcher
18:33category. Because significant blows were landed, it scores a two out of five in the group project
18:37category because the bench has cleared and some pushing and shoving was had.
18:47Days later, Jimmy Williams was fired. The Jays rallied from their awful start and made it all
18:52the way to the ALCS where they were packed up by Gene Nelson and the athletics. After the 1990 season,
18:57Bell entered free agency and signed with the Chicago Cubs, where he spent a year before being
19:01traded across town to the White Sox. This trade, in which Bell was sent to the Sox for a package
19:07including
19:07a 23-year-old Sammy Sosa, is one of the most ill-advised trades in the history of baseball.
19:13In 1993, Sosa begins to emerge as one of the greatest hitters of his generation. The Blue Jays,
19:18unbelievably, are defending World Series champions. George Bell is still in Chicago, limping through one
19:25final terrible season. And when I say terrible, I mean one that, according to Wins Above Replacement,
19:30is one of the 50 worst seasons a position player has ever had. This is a metric that punishes players
19:36who
19:36underproduce while playing positions associated with high production, and Bell now serves exclusively as
19:42a designated hitter. It's the only position he can physically play now, his knees are shot. As it turns out,
19:48when Jimmy Williams insisted on trying to play him at DH, he was right. He was, at least in this
19:54specific case,
19:55looking out for Bell. He wanted to save his knees. Bell had had trouble with him since before he even
20:00broke into the
20:00major leagues. In fact, he underwent knee surgery around the same time they repaired his broken jaw in 82.
20:05Moving to DH would have saved him the wear and tear of 150 games a year stomping around in spikes
20:10on
20:111980s artificial turf that might as well have been papered over concrete. By refusing a position he felt
20:16was for older guys with limited mobility, he has himself become a guy with limited mobility sooner than
20:22he should have. But he does have one grand finale in store.
20:32With about a month left in his career, Bell steps in against Boston rookie Aaron Seeley.
20:36After Bell falls into an 0-2 hole, Seeley knocks him down by going up and in. He'll say after
20:41the game
20:41that he was intending the exact opposite and lost control, an explanation he'll also use for the next
20:46pitch that sails right up near Bell's cheekbone. I think everybody in the building knows what comes next,
20:51but George, you don't have to do this. Unless you're Nolan Ryan, which you are not,
20:55mount chargings are a young man's game. Remember all those years ago when an old Bruce Keeson on
21:00the verge of retirement was thoroughly outmatched by a young man and his flying karate kick?
21:04You're him now. This will not look good or turn out well, just forget it and move on, man. Move
21:09on!
21:10Move on! Move on! Move on! Move on! Move on! Move on! That gigantic inscrutable mass flying across your
21:15screen right now is star first baseman and home run masher Mo Vaughn, aka The Hit Dog. He's listed at
21:206'1", 225, but those of us who watched him play as kids remember him as something closer to 7
21:25'8",
21:25450. Vaughn has never and will never charge the mound as he is categorically opposed to it. He prefers
21:31to play peacemaker and come to the defense of his teammates, in this case his rookie pitcher. And here,
21:35he flies from first base to the mound faster than you've ever seen anyone fly and he absolutely lays
21:41out George Bell. Some will try to claim that Bell's momentum from his missed punch did most of the work
21:46here. No. Bell has clobbered so hard that before he even knows it, he's in just about the only
21:51position that could be as embarrassing as a kick in the jimmies. Perfectly. Ass up. I'll admit here
21:56that my grading system was unequipped to properly appreciate the spectacle of this particular fight.
22:01It only offers a 1 on the charger-pitcher scale because Bell was intercepted and a 2 because the
22:06extracurricular activities were limited to pushing and shoving. It deserves much better than this,
22:10I know. Bell was ejected. In the remaining 20 games of his career, he hit 138. Consequently,
22:16when the White Sox made the playoffs, manager Gene Lamont benched him to give his DH spot to Bo
22:20Jackson. Bell then declared that he had no respect for Lamont as a man, which guaranteed that the
22:25White Sox would not offer him another contract after the season. Nobody else did either. In the ALCS,
22:30the Sox encountered the Blue Jays. When the series came to Toronto, Bell received showers of booze,
22:35despite never taking the field. Those Jays went on to win the World Series again.
22:39It didn't take him long to be welcomed back to Toronto in retirement, though.
22:43Bell has shown up for team reunions, first pitches, awards presentations, whatever they need him for,
22:48really. Taking time off from his successful businesses to fly in from the Dominican Republic
22:53every time. It's probably a direct flight.
23:15I'll see you next time, everybody.
23:15Great part.
23:37You're welcome.