Dick Allen’s is a strange case. It’s generally accepted among those who care about such things that the former Phillies slugger is the most deserving player still without a plaque in Cooperstown, and just as generally accepted that this is a result of the fact that, hey, tough break for him being such a jerk and alienating voters and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Which, when you get a little deeper on it — Allen was a tough, defiant black dude playing in Philadelphia at a time when the city in general and its sports media in particular had some serious racial issues — is kind of fucked. Because born-at-age-62 jerk Bill Conlin doesn’t like your attitude you can put up numbers like these and get passed by the Jim Rices and Orlando Cepedas of the world?
That Allen’s alleged jerkiness is generally accepted as the reason for this fairly obvious injustice is weird enough, but kind of par for the course in baseball’s flagrantly subjective Hall of Fame discussion. But Wall Street Journal sportswriter Allen Barra isn’t buying it. Any of it — not the undeserving stats part, and not the jerkery part, either. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Barra re-opens the docket on Allen and finds a player who eminently deserves both a ticket to Cooperstown and a fresh look.
Let’s put his career in perspective: From 1964 through 1972, Allen was the best hitter in baseball. He may be more than just a player who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. At his peak, he might have been better than any other player – Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose not excepted – who doesn’t have a plaque in Cooperstown. He was a much better player than Jim Rice, who was voted in this year.
Unfortunately, Allen was also what William C. Kashatus, author of September Swoon: Richie Allen, the ’64 Phillies, and Racial Integration, called “the wrong player in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The long, rancorous history of Allen’s relationships with an all-white Philadelphia press – most notably Bill Conlin and Larry Merchant, the latter regarded by many of the Phillies as a “throat-cutter” – was summed up best by Kashatus in comments to me: “Dick had a very undeserved reputation as a malcontent. For his first seven seasons, he clashed with the Philadelphia press, the toughest in the country, and the fans believed what they read. The fact is that nearly all of Allen’s teammates and managers liked him and regarded him as a hugely valuable player.”
The incident that most defined Allen’s war with the local press was his fight with teammate Frank Thomas in 1965, a clash sparked by Thomas’ racial gibes, which Philadelphia sportswriters, particularly Merchant, vehemently denied at the time. Thomas, an aging and unproductive player, was subsequently sold. No matter how well Allen played after that, he was subjected to lethal booing, not just in Philadelphia and much of it tinged with racial slurs.
Wait, that Larry Merchant? Yes, that Larry Merchant. How could the opinions or biases of this gin-pickled doof be keeping anyone out of anywhere?
I hadn’t realized how much better Allen’s OPS and OPS+ were for his career than Dave Kingman (who I also feel pretty strongly belongs in the HOF). Although if anybody was ever enough of a genuine asshole to have it keep him out of Cooperstown, it was Kingman.
Right. Although Kingman’s unsurpassed dickery was so far beyond anyone of his generation that it almost comes around and becomes a HOF qualification. Out of curiosity, what’s your case for Kong as a Hall of Famer?
Well, it certainly isn’t because I bought a “Dave Kingman” model bat at a garage sale when I was 10 and called it my “lucky bat”, that’s for sure. That would be a silly reason. But looking over his baseball reference page, maybe that is the reason, because his numbers aren’t as good as I seem to have thought they were. How embarrassing. Still, for a guy who only played 150 games once and 140 or more 5 times, he put up some huge counting stats. Guess I was overawed by anecdotes about his potential (What if he hadn’t always been hurt/angry/crazy?) and that monster year he had for the Cubbies. So I’m walking away from this post convinced Allen belongs in the HOF and Kong doesn’t.
Kingman is not in the same class with Dick Allen. Kingman could hit 35 homers, but only drove in 100 RBIs once. His fielding was awful and was good for at least 125 strikeouts and bat below .250 each year. From 1964 to 1974, Allen put up stats comparable to Stargel, Yastrzemski, Frank Robinson, Aaron, Mays, Killabrew, etc. He was the only player (prior to free agency) to hit 30 home runs for 4 different teams (Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, White Sox). Old Busch Stadium and Dodger Stadium were not known to be favorable to home run hitters. Hell, he prevented the White Sox from moving from Chicago with his MVP year of 1972; yet his likeness does not embrace the walls of Cellular (Cominsky) Field. He played several positions and was a all-star several times. Bill Conlin, like Dick Young in NY, was a bully with a pen and used his personal disdain to tanish Allen’s image. If you are using the pre-steroid era to make an argument to enstrine Jim Rice, then use the time period of 1964 to 1974 with such pitching greats of Gibson, Koufax, Drysdale, Seaver, Marchial, Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, Palmer, Ryan, Hunter, Spahn, Phil Niekro, Sutton; all HOFs who he faced and performed against brillantly. Cepada played in the same era and the stats are comparable. Put him in the Hall of Fame!