Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Tim Lincecum loved nicknames.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a ballplayer who should be a Hall of Famer, but didn’t get voted in because he had a shitty personality.

Albert Belle wasn’t known for being a nice guy — pretty much the opposite.

Without a doubt, the most famous footage of him is this video where he “broke up the double play” by completely annihilating Fernando Viña.

But this wasn’t an isolated incident — Albert was known to snap, and often turned violent. 

In the early 90’s, he was convicted of a domestic violence-related assault stemming from something that happened in ‘88.

Then in ‘92 and ‘93, he was suspended for charging the mound two different times.

In ‘94, he got suspended again after the now infamous bat heist went down.

Buster Olney said Belle threw tantrums so often that the Indians used to bill him $10,000 a year for the damage he caused in clubhouses at home and on the road.

Then in ‘95, he had the season of his life.

That year, he became the first player in MLB to hit 50 bombs and 50 doubles.

He also had a .317 batting average, .690 slugging percentage, and only finished second in the MVP voting because everyone thought he was an asshole.

During the World Series that year, Belle went on a profanity-laced tirade attacking reporter Hannah Storm; that certainly didn’t help his rep.

MLB slapped him with a $50,000 fine (the biggest ever at the time) and ordered him to go to anger management courses.

Even after all of this, he signed a $55 million contract with the White Sox in the Winter of ‘96.

The next year, he admitted to losing $40,000 on sports betting and that opened a whole different can of worms.

Belle definitely had the numbers to be in the Hall of Fame, and if it wasn’t for the way he represented himself during his career, he probably would be.

In ‘06, the first year he was eligible to be voted into Cooperstown, he only received 7.7% of the vote.

The next year it was even worse — less than 4% — effectively guaranteeing that he would never get in.

POUR SOMETHING SMOOTH

Dugout Mugs is the maker of the world famous Bat Mug.

And for those of you who like to party, they also make these knob shots - they’re the perfect stocking stuffer.

The knob shots are on the house tonight for Dead Legends subscribers, all you gotta do is cover the shipping and handling (Only $8.95).

BASEBALL TRIVIA

Find the answer in the bottom of this email!

WHAT TO WATCH

Streams on: Netflix

Why it’s awesome: Without a doubt, Yogi Berra is one of the most legendary players in the history of the game. He won 10 World Series rings during his career, and played on some of the greatest teams baseball has ever seen.

I love that the documentary acknowledges the fact that some of Yogi’s accomplishments on the field got overshadowed by his big personality.

It features commentary from folks like Bob Costas, Vin Scully, and even his granddaughter Lindsay Berra.

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Unfortunately, Tony lived up to his name; his numbers in the show were absolutely terrible.

He played most of his major-league games for two different teams in the Union Association - a defunct league that was only in existence for one year.

By the end of 1884, Suck was out of the big leagues, but he continued playing minor league baseball for the rest of his life.

He died at 36 of of pneumonia.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Superfan: Wild Bill Hagy’s Story

• The Long Road: From prison to the big leagues

• The Fall: Hall of famer’s mysterious death is still unsolved

BASEBALL TRIVIA ANSWER: Tony LaRussa