The Sad Story Of Mel Hall
When I was a kid, there was a outfielder for the Cleveland Indians who used to put batting gloves in each back pocket so that when he hit a home run, he could “wave goodbye” to the other team. In the parlance of the day, Mel Hall was a “hot dog.”
Funnily enough, he never got to wave goodbye to the other team more than 18 times in a season, so the gimmick may have been lost on the masses.
The Chicago Cubs selected Hall in the second round of the 1978 draft out of Port Byron High School in New York, which is about 30 miles west of Syracuse. Three years later, on September 3, 1981, he made his MLB debut, flying out to right field against Doyle Alexander of the Giants. He would get into ten more games the remainder of the year, collecting one hit in twelve plate appearances.
Hall became an everyday player for the Cubs in 1983, slashing .283/.352/.488 for a 128 OPS+, which was good for third place in Rookie of the Year voting.
The Cubs traded the outfielder to the Indians in mid-June of 1984. And while his numbers with Chicago were better than with Cleveland, he was still a solid performer for his new American League club (104 OPS+).
A car accident kept Hall out of nearly the entire 1985 season. He came back in 1986 and slashed .296/.346/.493, with a then-career-high 18 home runs. 1987 and 1988 were more of the same.
Prior to the 1989 season, Cleveland traded the outfielder to the Yankees, and that is when and where the real trouble began. During spring training, he brought both his wife and his girlfriend to the team hotel and then proceeded to watch them get into a fight near the pool. While on the injured list, he got into a violent wrestling match with Rickey Henderson. And then he brought a gun into the clubhouse. In the years before “Manny being Manny,” the team seemed to shrug it all off, with Hall stating, it’s “me being Mel Hall.”
He still played in 113 games that year for the Bombers, hit 17 homers and had a 103 OPS+.
His production was roughly the same in 1990. 1991 was up there with his best seasons, as he slashed .285/.321/.455, setting a career-high with 19 homers and 80 RBI. In 1992, he did it again, putting up about the same numbers, including his all-time high of 81 RBI.
And yet, when his contract with the Yankees expired, no MLB team wanted him. So, Hall took his talents east, and signed a two-year, $4 million contract to play for the Chiba Lotte Marines in the NPB. He then played for the Chunichi Dragons, before coming back stateside in 1996 with the San Francisco Giants. That experiment lasted a month, as the club released him after he got three singles in 25 at-bats.
Not willing to give up, he signed a minor league contract with the White Sox, but that lasted only twelve days. Years later he would try his hand at independent ball, but that didn’t lead anywhere.
While playing in New York, Hall was known to have two great passions: spending money and chasing women. That, unto itself, made Hall like many athletes. Unfortunately, Hall had a proclivity for young women. It started with him inviting a 15-year-old (and her family) to a game at Yankee Stadium in 1989. And then there were others. It took until 2007 for Hall to be arrested. It happened in Texas, where he was charged with two counts of sexual assault and of having sex with a woman under the age of 17. During the investigation, a second victim – under the age of 14 – was identified. A twelve-year-old girl was determined to have been raped by Hall.
He was ultimately convicted of three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison, where he currently resides. His earliest possible parole would be in late 2031, when Hall will be 71 years old. Based on his actions off the field, that simply may be too soon to let this predator free.
Hall could have made a name for himself as an irreverent player and a fan favorite. Instead, he became a clubhouse cancer, a pariah, and a convicted felon.
It will be a long time until Mel Hall can ever again… PLAY BALL!!
