Mike Bell, R.I.P.

Minnesota Twins bench coach Mike Bell has passed away of kidney cancer. He was only 46. 

Bell was a third generation player. His grandfather Gus Bell played outfield for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, New York Mets and the Milwaukee Braves during the 1950's and 1960's. His father Buddy Bell played third base with the Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds and Houston Astros during the 1970's and 1980's and would later manage both the Detroit Tigers and Colorado Rockies in the 1990's and the Kansas City Royals in the 2000's. His older brother David Bell played third base with the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers and is the current manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

The younger Bell brother was a first round draft pick by the Texas Rangers in 1993. After toiling in the minors with the Rangers and New York Mets, Bell finally reached the big leagues with the Reds in 2000 playing 19 games. He would spend another five years in the minors with the Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals before joining the Arizona Diamondbacks' organization in 2007 as a minor league manager and later in player development. In 2020, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli tapped Bell to be his bench coach after Derek Shelton was named manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. 

Bell was widely seen as a future big league manager and had interviewed for vacancies in recent years with the Pirates, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. He had a bright future ahead of him. But in January he would be diagnosed with kidney cancer and took a leave of absence to have surgery. No doubt Bell hoped he would be back in the Twins dugout and I'm sure many in the Twins organization thought the same. And now he is gone. R.I.P.