It’s a shame that Dick Allen won’t be in Cooperstown, New York, on July 27.
Allen died in Dec. 2020, at age 78. For decades, after playing his 15th and final MLB season, with the Oakland A’s in 1977, the Wampum, Pennsylvania, native waited for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to call.
This past December, four years after his death, Allen earned a place in Cooperstown. The Classic Baseball Era Committee, a collection of 16 members of the media, historians, executives, and Hall of Famers decided Allen’s professional legacy with an 81.3 percent vote. Seventy-five percent from the Hall of Fame selected committee members is necessary for enshrinement.
This is another addition to the Hall of Fame’s roll call that has its share of Allen supporters wondering: What took the process so long to vote him in?
From a statistics standpoint, Allen, who spent nine of his 15 MLB seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, was among the very top of offensive threats to pitchers in both the American and National Leagues. National League Rookie of the Year in 1964 with the Phillies, American League MVP as a Chicago White Sox in 1972, seven times selected for the All-Star Game, when Allen was dialed in on his game, there were few, if any, who could launch a baseball as far and as fast in a stadium.
Just how fast was Allen on the base paths? When with the White Sox, on July 31, 1972, Allen cracked two inside-the-park home runs. In a game at Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota, Allen’s two home runs came in the first and fifth innings against future Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blyleven of the Twins. He is one of only seven players to have accomplished this feat.
From a financial standpoint, Allen was so dominating with his bat that still within a couple of years before free agency would find its way into baseball, he became the highest paid player in the game. As the White Sox were beginning spring training in Sarasota, Florida, it was in February 1973 that the club announced a three-year contract with Allen for $675,000.
For as some saw Allen’s approach to the game and life as controversial, his teammates liked him, and believed he could decide a game’s outcome with a single swat of his 40-ounce bat.
Allen “was the greatest player I’ve ever seen play in my life,” Hall of Famer Richard Michael “Goose” Gossage said in 2008 to reporters at his induction ceremony.
Despite the bad boy image some had of Allen, whether he was smoking a cigarette in the dugout or arriving late to ballparks on game days, he was always in good standing with his teammates.
Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Kaat (class of 2022) spent parts of three of his 25 MLB seasons with Allen. During the 1973 and 1974 seasons with the White Sox, it was Kaat’s belief that having a well-respected, mild-mannered Chuck Tanner as their manager had a positive effect on Allen’s play. Kaat spoke to The Epoch Times on July 11 by phone from his Vermont home.
“Chuck was from Western Pennsylvania. He handled Dick like a son. Chuck knew what Dick had been through early in his career; the racism in the minors and when he came up with the Phillies in 1963. Dick may not have wanted to take batting practice, or he might have shown up in the ballpark only a half hour before the game was to start. But, Chuck’s philosophy was he had 25 players on the team, and 25 different rules for them. With Dick, Chuck gave him a long leash.”
Kaat, also elected to the Hall of Fame by an Era Committee, broke into the big leagues in 1959, as a 20-year-old with the Washington Senators. He would pitch for MLB clubs until 1983.
“I think in 1976, when we were with the Phillies, and Dick was coming to an end with his playing career, he seemed to be more comfortable out on the field,” Katt explains of Allen, who in 1960 signed with Philadelphia for $70,000. “We had Gary Maddox, Tony Taylor, and Dave Cash; several black players on the team. When Dick was there (Philadelphia) in the 1960s, there were few blacks on the ball club.”
Living in the same apartment complex during the Phillies’ 1976 season, and sharing a love for race horses, Katt and Allen spent many hours together away from stadiums.
“When I was elected in 2021 to the Hall of Fame, the next morning I received a call from Dick’s widow Willa,” Kaat said. “Willa said that Dick would be so happy for you.”
At times during Allen’s career, he often shared different first names in media headlines. Some called him Dick, others addressed him as Richie Allen.
“The times that I was with him, it was always Dick. I never called him Richie,” Kaat says.
Allen, the pride of Wampum High School, along with his two brothers Hank and Ron who also both made it to the MLB ranks, is finally getting the official recognition he deserves from the “baseball lords” in two weeks.
Willa, his bride of 33 years, and Dick’s two sons—Richard Jr. and Eron, no doubt will be front and center at the Clark Sports Center grounds in Cooperstown on Induction Day.
Allen’s place in the Hall of Fame is long overdue. His accomplishments never changed, just the people who would be deciding his Cooperstown eligibility were shuffled. The wait is almost over for Allen to receive baseball justice.
