American baseball player Albert Belle showed off his arm by hitting Sports Illustrated photographer Tony Tomsic in the hand prior to a game
The legends of Albert Belle are vast and unbecoming. There was the time he threatened to kill trick-or-treaters as he ran them off his lawn in a car.
**"Read More" BELOW for the complete story**
Or the time a teammate turned down the temperature in the clubhouse and Belle, who liked a sub-60 temperature, stood up, turned it back down and then smashed the thermometer with his bat.
And most famously, he cursed out Hannah Storm and other reporters before Game 3 of the 1995 World Series. But on this day in 1996, Belle took it a step further with the media, hitting a photographer with a baseball.
The legend goes that Sports Illustrated was writing a feature on Belle, who told SI writer Michael Babberger that "Sports Illustrated can kiss my black ass."
Even though Babberger didn't get an interview with Belle, SI photographer Tony Tomsic still needed to get pictures of the slugger.
Tomsic tried to get a few as Belle warmed up on April 6, but Belle, a notorious control freak who hated doing pregame interviews because they interfered with his routine, told Tomsic to stop.
Tomsic complied, but Belle still decided to throw two balls at the photographer. One of them cut Tomsic on the hand after he raised it to protect his face.