COMMENTARY : THE TIME IS OVERDUE FOR BELLE TO GROW UP.

Byline: Gary Nuhn Dayton Daily News 

So here we are again, six months later, slopping again at the same trough with Albert Belle.

On that occasion, Albert the Terrible was cussing out TV's Hannah Storm during the World Series because Ms. Storm failed to leave the Cleveland dugout when told to by Mr. Belle.

The fact Storm had every right to be there muddied the issue enough that it took the Indians' public relations' staff two days to write a phony apology with Belle's name attached.

``I apologize for nothing,'' Belle said four months later after baseball thundered to Storm's defense with a $50,000 fine.

Sorry. If you pay someone $5.5 million, you don't teach him a lesson with anything less than an electric prod.

That eventually blew over, as did the Halloween incident when Albert the Terrible chased two kids who egged his house, allegedly running into one of the kids with his truck's bumper.

But antisocial behavior and Belle are never far from the headlines. Last month Our Hero threw a ball that hit a Sports Illustrated photographer who was taking his picture prior to a game. The ball cut the man's hand.

Since Belle won't talk about the incident, it's conceivable that he believes if you take his picture, you take his soul.

I don't know. I'm trying to help here.

I called a couple of columnists from The Plain Dealer of Cleveland and asked for their Memories of Albert.

Bill Livingston said Belle's denials that he was intentionally throwing at the SI photographer ring hollow since he has previously thrown balls at photographers both in Double-A ball and at a Plain Dealer photographer, hitting neither but sending his message clearly.

Livingston said he was in the Indian clubhouse last year when Belle went to the players' stereo and punched the play button on the tape player. When Latin music began playing, Belle ejected the tape, spun around and flung it at Livingston and another writer. It exploded against the wall above their heads.

Livingston and fellow PD columnist Bud Shaw told me other horror stories of Life With Albert that fit the self-portrait he has painted, starting with the numerous outbursts that got him thrown off his college team through when his Mexican team fired him and told him to leave the country.

One string runs through all: Belle is a perpetual pot of water on the stove, the burner turned to high, ready to boil over at any moment.

Eventually, who knows? There is nothing he could do that would surprise. He is a time bomb of a manchild, lurching on, his destructive behavior a cannon shot across the bow of a boat that won't stop.

He is clearly incapable of controlling his anger, yet his team and his sport are equally incapable of controlling him.

The Indians take the path of least resistance. They wring their hands and say there's nothing they can do. Winning supersedes moral issues.

Livingston said he was talking with an Indians' official a few years ago back at the old stadium after the club had moved the fences in.

``Are you bringing them in so they won't drive Albert crazy?'' Livingston asked.

``You wouldn't have to drive him far, would you?'' the official said.