Before the money fell. Before the boos. Before he became Cleveland’s villain… Albert Belle gave Jacobs Field one last electric jolt — a no-doubt grand slam that kept the Tribe alive in the 1996 ALDS.

It wasn’t just a home run. It was a chess match. A slow boil. A standoff between Belle and a 23-year-old flamethrower named Armando Benitez.

Belle worked the count with fouls — violent, precise, escalating. He wasn’t just swinging; he was studying. Each pitch told a story, and by the fifth one, he knew how it ended. He knew where Benitez was going. And when the fastball came—up and away, but just hittable—Belle turned on it and sent it screaming over the left-field wall.

It was the 248th home run of his Cleveland career. And it would be his last as an Indian.

This grand slam didn’t win the series. But it won the moment — and 28 years later, the moment still hits just as hard.