It’s graduation season! A lot of honors handed out (unless you’re Obama).

So what better time to tackle a topic like Albert Belle’s Hall of Fame candidacy? No better time, says I.

There are two ways to get into the Hall: You’ve got to be very good over a long peroid of time and rack up counting stats, or you’ve got to be dominant.

The chief knock against Belle’s HOF case is that he didn’t play long enough, and therefore didn’t reach any of the milestones that equal automatic HOF induction. No 3,000 hits. No 500 home runs. No 1,500 runs batted in.

But he was pretty dang dominant.

Belle played 12 seasons, longer than Kirby Puckett, Sandy Koufax, and Ralph Kiner. He didn’t quit because he couldn’t hack it. He was forced out by an arthritic hip. He played in 10 full seasons (and parts of two others) and during that peak decade he averaged 37 HR, 120 RBI and a roughly .360 OBP. In 1995 he became the first player to hit 50 doubles and 50 home runs in a season. Even in his last season, when he was hobbling around the bases, he hit .281 with 23 HRs and 103 RBI.

Belle had a better OPS+ than Harmon Kilebrew, Reggie Jackson, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Jim Rice (even if you ignore Rice’s pedestrian final three seasons). And if you’re interested in hardware, Belle made five all-star teams and won five Silver Slugger awards and surely should have won the 1995 AL MVP, except the voters hated him and instead awarded the MVP to Mo Vaughn, who had vastly inferior stats.

I’m not gonna blow smoke up your butts. I know Belle isn’t a slam dunk Hall of Famer. But surely he deserved better than the 3.5% of the vote he got in 2007, which was not enough to even merit another year on the ballot. When Belle retired in 2001, NY Daily News bloviator Bill Madden famously wrote:

Sorry, there’ll be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle… Belle was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he’s a hurt surly jerk… Belle’s boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame.

And they did.

Of course Belle was a jerk. But I don’t care about that. Count me among those who think the Hall of Fame should get rid of its character clause. Sports writers, as Joe Posnanski says, should not be in the business of making character judgments.

Belle should be measured by his on-the-field achievements, and they were numerous.

I mentioned in a recent post that I thought there was a decent case to be made for Albert Belle’s induction into Cooperstown. Apparently, I’m in the minority. Yesterday, Bell got bounced from the Hall of Fame ballot after receiving 21 fewer votes than the previous year and less than five percent of the total votes cast.

But I’m here to defend Albert. Sure, he was no saint. All right, let’s just come out and say it. He was and remains one of the all-time assholes in sports. You know what that means? It means we should put his plaque next to Ty Cobb’s.

If we’re going to judge Belle based on his play (which is the only way a player should be judged, in my opinion), he deserves serious consideration for the Hall. He certainly deserves more than five percent of the vote.

Hall of Fame inductees should demonstrate two things: that they were consistently great and (for at least a while) dominant. Belle did both.

He was consistently great. Over the ten main years of his major league career (1991 to 2000) he averaged .295, 37 home runs and 120 RBI a season.

He was dominant. He didn’t win any MVP awards, but the now accepted wisdom is that his strained relationship with the media cost him the 1995 MVP trophy. Belle finished second in the media voting to Mo Vaughn, despite having led the AL that season in runs scored, home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, and total bases, and despite outpacing Vaughn head-to-head in every important offensive category except RBI (both men had 126). How good was Belle in 1995? That year, he became the first player in the history of the major leagues to hit 50 homers and 50 doubles in the same season: the last player to reach 40 in both those categories in a season was Willie Stargell in 1973.

1995 was the closest Belle ever came to an MVP award, but he was in the running several times. He finished 3rd in the MVP voting in 1994 and 1996 and had two other top ten MVP finishes, in 1993 (7th) and 1998 (8th).

Still going to hold Belle’s lack of an MVP trophy against him? Well, I say remember this: money talks. Belle twice signed the game’s richest contract, once with the White Sox and again with the Orioles. You don’t get paid that kind of cash without some serious skills and Belle certainly wasn’t getting any extra-credit cash for being a clubhouse leader.

The big reason to withhold a vote for Belle is that he didn’t break any records. His career didn’t last long enough for him to pile up any gaudy home run or hit totals. He finished with 381 HR and a .295 AVG. Not bad, but not staggering. But before an arthritic hip forced his retirement, Belle was absolutely one of the dominant forces in baseball over the course of a decade. He was good enough for long enough to have earned a spot in the hall. So why no love for Albert?

I was reading Philadelphia Inquirer baseball writer Jim Salisbury’s Baseball Notes column today. Salisbury (unlike David Aldridge and 67 other Philly newsroom employees) still has a job at the Inky. For better or worse.

Salisbury notes in his Notes that tomorrow is the day we find out which players will be in the 2007 Hall of Fame class. And for his part, Salisbury voted for nine guys, none named McGwire:

Nine players got a check mark next to their names on this scribe’s ballot – Ripken, Gwynn, Goose Gossage, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Jack Morris, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven and Albert Belle. McGwire didn’t get one. He remains under review until we learn more about the steroid era and his place in it.

Whoah, take a step back there, Jim. Albert Belle? Really?

Here’s the thing about Albert Belle: I think there’s a legit argument to be made that Belle belongs in the Hall. But I’m not sure you can withhold a vote for McGwire, because you suspect he used steroids, but vote for Bell, who we know corked his bat, stalked his girlfriend, and, come to think of it, probably also used steroids (as the Sports Guy points out, all the signs were there).

Belle was a cheater and a total delinquent. He embarrassed the game on a regular basis. How can one possibly argue in favor of Bell, but against McGwire? It’s impossible. It can’t be done.

On a random note, Salisbury’s column includes one totally awesome tidbit. Apparently the Phils have a pitching prospect in their system named Josh Outman. Is that not one of the all-time great names for a pitcher? Just one question: When Outman makes it to the bigs, what will his fan club be called? We had Wolf’s Wolves, Thomie’s Homies, and Sal (Fasano)’s Pals. Is Outman’s Outmen too obvious?

Here’s an update on a story we lifted reported last month.

Former Orioles/White Sox/Indians slugger Albert Belle (mugshot from deadspin.com) was denied bond after a second arrest on stalking charges:

On Friday, he appeared before Judge James Keppel to request release from jail. Keppel turned him down.

In his ruling Monday, Keppel wrote, “that the state has shown that proof is evident or the presumption great that the defendant did commit the offense of stalking while he was on release.”

Critics be warned, Belle wants to inform you all that he’s still all business.

The alleged victim admitted at Friday’s hearing that she had once been a licensed escort; Belle maintained that their relationship was “clearly business.” The woman filed a complaint against him in January; he was charged with stalking and released on $108,000 bond.

Albert, what’s going on? This is totally out of character:

Albert Belle was arrested on a new stalking charge for allegedly making phone calls to a woman he already was charged with harassing.

The 39-year-old former baseball star was arrested by Scottsdale, Ariz., police at his home Wednesday after they investigated new allegations that he made calls to his ex-girlfriend, Sgt. Mark Clark said. Belle is set for a court appearance Thursday in Scottsdale.

Belle was awaiting trial on a felony stalking charge filed in February. The police probable cause statement in that case said his former girlfriend discovered a GPS device that had fallen off her car in January, and that he had threatened her. He was released on bail, subject to electronic monitoring and ordered not to contact her.

Last month, the former girlfriend called police and said she was receiving hang-up phone calls, Clark said. Detectives began an investigation and checked phone records, which showed the calls were coming from Belle. Last week, Belle called and spoke with the woman.

Sure, Belle was involved in a few controversial incidents as a player. In 1986, he went after a heckler in the stands who was shouting racist insults at him, and was suspended while his team played in the College World Series. As a major leaguer he threw a baseball into the stands, striking a fan who had been taunting him about his alcohol rehab. He was suspended in 1994 for using a corked bat. He was fined in 1996 for knocking down Brewers infielder Fernando Viña, who had blocked his way on the basepaths. Then there was the time that he chased down a group of trick-or-treaters who egged his home, bumping one with his car.

But stalking his ex-girlfriend? I didn’t see that coming.