Eric Bell Forum

Anyone have a chance to bat against Eric Bell card 383? I played Babe Ruth and High School baseball against him.He threw hard, movement on the ball and that was his gig , he could be wild and then the next pitch could be a strike.He hit the majors and blew his arm out unfortunately  he was never the same i give him props though what young american boy doesnt dream about playing Major League Baseball...Way to go Eric

Sorry to say I've never heard of him (not a big baseball fan), but I do have 1 of his cards a 1988 O-pee-chee. I've played hockey with or against a few guys that made the pros ... and oddly was defence partners in pee-wee with the drummer from the band Barenaked Ladies for part of one season.

I met him (somewhat) when he was pitching for the Newark Orioles in 1983. The Orioles were playing the Oneonta Yankees in Oneonta and my parents and I were up there to visit the HOF (Oneonta is about 25 miles from Cooperstown, and hotels in Oneonta were, and still are, much less expensive than Cooperstown itself) and we were in the same hotel as the Orioles. We went to the games while we were there, and one night was baseball night (free baseball to all as they entered the ballpark). I got one ball signed by the Yankees (Roberto Kelly was the only notable from the Yankees) and got another one signed by the Orioles (since I was in my early teens at the time, they allowed me on the field to go up to the players - a very cool experience). Eric Bell was the only notable Oriole to sign my baseball.

On a side note, my dad and I took the baseballs back to the car so they wouldn't get smeared because it was hot and if any of us held them, it wouldn't have gone well, and even though it was the same person at the gate and we explained that we already had gotten our giveaways (and had taken them to the car), they handed us each another baseball. So we actually got 5 baseballs that day. The old days of the minor leagues. All of the players were super cool and gracious that day. I obviously met Eric, but I honestly don't remember him directly. A shame about his arm injury. Not uncommon, unfortunately.