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.

The Four MLB Ballparks That Need to Not Be MLB Ballparks

Thankfully, in recent years, there has been a renaissance of beautiful new ballparks, and many of baseball's most objectionable venues have met their demise. However, a few (four, in my view) of these atrocities still remain in the Majors, much to the chagrin of myself and, presumably, baseball purists everywhere. To be fair, I've never been to any of these ballparks (nor do I particularly want to), but they do make my TV viewing experience less enjoyable. My negative judgments are based primarily on the presence of artificial turf, domes, and ballparks that are actually football stadiums. Feel free to respond with your thoughts in the comments.



4. Overstock.com Coliseum, Oakland, CA
First of all, this place is called the Overstock.com Coliseum. Well, no; maybe that's not first of all. First of all is that this is a football stadium, and watching a baseball game here is painful. Especially when there are 63,000 seats and the A's pull in 17,511 (2010 average attendance). I also hate the 50 miles of foul territory on the first and third base sides.



3. Sun Life Stadium, Miami, FL
At least this one won't be a Major League ballpark much longer. This building has 75,000 seats; the Marlins' average attendance in 2010 was 18,953.



2. Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON
While the former SkyDome does have a retractable roof, it's still a dome, and it's cursed by the #1 most damning feature a ballpark can have, artificial turf. It's also too round and symmetrical.



1. Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, FL
I don't think any explanation is needed for this one. The turf, the lighting, the roof, the friggin catwalks. Please, for the love of god, will someone tear this place down so I don't have to watch the Red Sox play ten games here every year.