Article: Blue Jays Opening Day Rewind, 1988: A Disgruntled George Bell Hits Dingers

[Mac]

The trouble started the day George Bell signed the contract.

George Bell and the Toronto Blue Jays were discussing a long-term deal in the lead-up to the 1988 season but had remained in a standoff, leading to an arbitration hearing. Fresh off winning the American League MVP award in 1987 and one season away from free agency, Bell wanted a yearly salary of over $2 million, more than Toronto was willing to settle for. Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick told Bell the team would only sign onto a multi-year pact if Bell became the team’s full-time designated hitter, which Bell agreed to – if his salary demand was met.

Tom Henke jokingly told Bell and Tony Fernandez to "get a gun" for their cases following his arbitration hearing a week earlier, one Henke lost to Gillick and the Jays. (Toronto Star)

A last-minute deal seemed unlikely, but less than an hour after the hearing was to begin, Bell emerged from the midtown Manhattan offices smiling, having avoided the sourness of the arbitration experience by signing a new three-year contract. Gillick agreed to pay Bell a guaranteed salary of $1.9 million in 1988 and 1989, with an extra $200,000 in incentives attainable each season to reach Bell’s arbitration ask. Gillick believed he locked up manager Jimy Williams’ designated hitter, but to George Bell, just short of becoming baseball's first $2 million man, that deal was off. He was not going to DH.

Yet on Opening Day in Kansas City, Bell was in Williams’ lineup as the designated hitter, although not without protest. The issue had boiled over a few weeks earlier during a spring training game on St. Patrick’s Day. Bell was scheduled to be the designated hitter, but upon finding out, he told hitting coach Cito Gaston he would not play. Gaston informed Williams, who, sans conversation with Bell, put him in the lineup anyway. When Bell’s name was announced to the plate in the first inning, the MVP was sitting hundreds of feet from the plate in Toronto’s bullpen, earning him a day’s suspension.

Bell’s stunt turned the spat into an even bigger story as the 1988 season drew near, but he wasn’t the only Blue Jay player miffed in a new position. When Lloyd Moseby arrived for spring training, Williams told the centrefielder he was shifting to Bell’s previous spot in left, leading Moseby to say he’d "rather play on Mars.” The changes would allow Williams to try two rookies, Rob Ducey and Sil Campusano, in centre. While Bell was unhappy with the Blue Jays, he was seen working extensively in the batting cage with a struggling Campusano, who would rebound, make the team, and bat ninth on Opening Day.

That meant Williams proceeded as planned on Opening Day with Moseby in left and Bell DHing. The two changes were the first things Fergie Olver mentioned on-field from Royals Stadium to lead off CTV’s Labatt’s Blue Jays Baseball. He cautioned fans to get set for what had “started as the most controversial season in Toronto Blue Jays history.” As a pretaped interview by Olver with Williams discussing Bell aired to start the second inning, Bell took the first pitch from Bret Saberhagen over the wall in left. His second home run of the day came in his next at-bat in the fourth inning, scoring Moseby and giving Toronto a 3-2 lead.

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Bell faced Saberhagen for a fourth time in the eighth inning, with the Jays now leading 4-3. On a 2-0 pitch, Bell popped up a ball towards the home plate side of the first base dugout. Saberhagen lost his hat while sprinting for the potential final out of the inning, but the ball landed foul. Bell might have given himself a second life when his backswing struck Royals catcher Mike Macfarlane in the shoulder. Macfarlane, the closest player to the ball, did not give chase after being struck by the barrel of the bat, and following a brief delay to check on the catcher, Bell made history on the next pitch as the only player in major league history to hit three home runs on Opening Day, powering Toronto to a 5-3 win.

After the historic performance, Bell stood before reporters and told them he was really happy. As the silence lingered for a few seconds, Bell dropped the face and admitted he had “too many things on (his) mind to be happy right now.” He went 5-for-5 the next night (back in left with Moseby banged up) and homered in Minnesota before the Blue Jays returned to Toronto for their home opener. Bell thought the home crowd would boo him, but he ended up acknowledging cheers all afternoon with three doubles in a 17-9 win over the Yankees.

Bell DHed the next two games, but Williams would bench a struggling Campusano from the starting lineup, although the lineup reset came one day after the rookie hit his first major league home run. This shifted Bell and Moseby back into their spots in the famed outfield trio with Jesse Barfield, which mainly stayed intact for the rest of the season. Bell would play in left field 149 times in 1988, the most out of anyone in the American League.

Campusano managed a 79 OPS+ in 142 at-bats for Toronto in 1988, his lone season as a Blue Jay. He spent the next season in Triple-A and was taken by the Phillies as a Rule 5 pick in 1990. He played his final two major league seasons in Philadelphia as a deep reserve for two managers who would become future Blue Jays - Nick Leyva and Jim Fregosi.

This did not mean that the player and manager patched things up. As the season went on, Bell asked for Williams to be fired, and Gillick responded by openly trying to trade Bell. In the middle of this, Williams yanked Bell out of a game after an errant throw and vowed to bench Bell indefinitely, a stretch lasting all three days. Williams was eventually fired in 1989, and the animosity fueled by the manager trying to remove Bell from the outfield never went away, except for nine innings on Opening Day 1988.

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[Spanky99]

Fans can kiss my purple butt... George Bell - Legend!