Albert Belle Apparently Justified in Decking Fernando Viña on the Basepaths

Just something that caught my attention during ESPN's broadcast of the Yankees-Cubs game on Sunday night: sometime during the middle innings, commentators Dan Shulman, Orel Hershiser and Bobby Valentine came onto a discussion (I can't remember how) of a 1996 incident on the basepaths involving a collision between the Cleveland Indians' Albert Belle and Fernando Viña of the Milwaukee Brewers. Regarding the collision, Hershiser stated that Belle had done the right thing as a runner, and Viña the right thing as a fielder, and that the result (Viña lying on his back on the infield) was just a matter of Belle being a larger man than Viña.

Here is the incident in question:



Clearly, the right thing to do when running from first to second on a ground ball on the infield is to elbow the second baseman in the face.