By Mike Kahn
CBS SportsLine Executive Editor
Nov. 29, 1998

If it didn't keep happening, it wouldn't be so disconcerting. Just as long as a guy can run 40 yards in 4.2 seconds or hit 45 home runs and drive in 150 runs, some organization will pay a lot of money to cope with the indiscretions.

Some

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will, and an increasing number won't.

That leads us to today in sports, where so many are bemoaning having passed NFL Rookie of the Year lock Randy Moss of the Minnesota Vikings and the Baltimore Orioles about to sign Albert Belle.

INDEED, MOSS HAS BEEN SPECTACULAR. His 11 touchdown receptions lead the NFL and the more than 1,000 yards receiving also make his numbers awesome. But he also carried a track record with drugs that caused him to bounce from Notre Dame to Florida State and land at Marshall. Despite speed, size and gaudy numbers that would make him a Top 5 selection, he didn't go until the 21st pick of the 1998 draft to the Vikings.

Coach Dennis Green and Pro Bowl receiver Cris Carter embraced him. They've coddled him and they are coercing him to stick it to every team that passed on him. Reporters across the country are ripping their respective teams for passing on such a talent.

Wrong. The mistakes are irrefutable and unaccounted for, while the excuses are as hollow. To be sure, Green deserves credit for taking a chance on a talent, with hopes of keeping him in line. It's worked to the point Moss and Randall Cunningham have combined to make the Vikings the best story in the NFC.

But just as many kudos should go to the teams that passed on him. This was more than just perception with Moss. He's treated media like dirt all season. His problems were recognized by personnel in predraft interviews. Just because things have been great with the Vikings so far, doesn't mean Moss' attitude won't grow old when the passing game hits some bumps.

We don't know how he'll deal with success and failure in the NFL. So far, he's just a marvelously talented rookie who's been carried around in a glass house.

BELLE'S REPUTATION IS FAR MORE OBVIOUS and deplorable. His track record says he has been the most productive right-handed hitter in baseball this decade. Playing with the Chicago White Sox last season, Belle hit .328 with 49 home runs and 152 RBI and led the AL in slugging percentage (.655). In eight full seasons in the majors, he has a .296 average with 321 homers and 1,019 RBI.

In other words, he's the stud in the middle of the lineup every manager dreams about. He hits for power, average and in the clutch. But he had an out in his contract with the White Sox after the season, and they rolled out the red carpet for him to leave faster than the one he rode into town.

Why? He's a loaner. He's had gambling problems, threw a baseball at a fan and threw a baseball at a photographer. In October, he settled out of court with a woman who held battery charges against him. Need we go on?

His teammates love him? Bull. He complained about the heat in the clubhouse when he was with the Cleveland Indians and nobody else had a problem with it, so he took his bat to the thermostat. When he first began with the White Sox two years ago, and they played the Indians, his former teammates weren't the least bit interested in sidling up to the guy who used to be Joey. Whether anybody likes it or not, Albert/Joey has been suspended six times by Major League Baseball.

STILL, PEOPLE WANTED HIM FOR the $13 million a year he was seeking. Word on the streets has the Orioles signing him for $65 million over five years. A hired gun, if ever there was one. And if they would just admit to that, it would be fine. Instead, you have Orioles manager Ray Miller going on the record with delusional babble about Belle's off-field persona.

"I'm not worried about that," Miller said. "He's a very professional player who goes to the post every night. The only thing I know is that Frank Robinson was supposedly a problem in Cincinnati and when he came to Baltimore he immediately became a team leader."

Ol' Ray must have smoked the peace pipe with Albert or something. Frank Robinson? The biggest mistake the Reds made was when general manager Bill DeWitt called him an "old 31," from which he responded by winning the Triple Crown for the Orioles the next season.

More than that, Robby, who certainly was no sweetheart, was one of the great leaders of an entire generation of baseball. Not only as a player was he a Hall-of-Famer, but he was so well thought of by the baseball community he became both the first African-American manager and front-office member. Comparing Albert Belle to Frank Robinson is like saying Randy Moss is the second coming of, well, Jerry Rice.

THE TALENT IS THERE IN BOTH Moss and Belle. So is the baggage. Lots of baggage. The teams that passed on these guys for the sake of respecting the rest of their players, fans and management deserve kudos. It is for the good of team chemistry and the role of teams in the community.

That's not to be sanctimonious. Both the Vikings and Orioles have valid reasons for their choice of character. At least Green hasn't gone on about what a fabulous person Moss is. He's talked about him working hard and focusing on his role.

But Miller comparing Belle to Robinson?

It's just those delusions that continue to taint the face of professional sports. Belle is one of the great hitters of our time, but don't try and make me like him, and don't compare him to a Hall-of-Fame great. That shows no integrity at all.