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Forbes
2 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
Although Dick Allen And Dave Parker Made The Baseball Hall Of Fame, This Was Awful
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA - JULY 27: A tribute board signed by fans for recently deceased Pittsburgh ... More Pirates outfielder Dave Parker who is being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday afternoon is seen before the game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Arizona Diamondbacks at PNC Park on July 27, 2025 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by) Dick Allen and Dave Parker entered the Baseball Hall of Fame Sunday posthumously when they should have enjoyed their Cooperstown honors while alive and well. This was avoidable, but it also was predictable. They suffered for being themselves. In many ways, Allen and Parker were kindred souls as African American baseball players who operated as free spirits between knocking the daylight out of pitches on a consistent basis. An occassionally stale game, which often was placed on life support after the Yankee dynasty of Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra of the 1950s, needed the colorful jolt of Allen and Parker during their combined decades of the 1960s through the 1980s, but they were rebels in the minds of the naive. The naive? I'm trying to be kind. Let's get the only significant difference out of the way between Allen and Parker, and it was a big one. In January 1979, with Parker fresh from grabbing National League Most Valuable Player honors, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed their right fielder with the potent bat, glove and arm to a five-year deal worth $5 million. Parker became the first professional athlete to receive $1 million per year in Major League Baseball or in any other sport. Allen barely earned $1 million for his career. COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK - JULY 27: Willa Allen, wife of the late Dick Allen, speaks on his behalf ... More during the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Clark Sports Center on July 27, 2025 in Cooperstown, New York. (Photo by) "Baseball was his first love," said Willa Allen, with teary eyes on the Cooperstown stage while delivering the acceptance speech for her husband who died from cancer in December 2020. Courtesy of one of the heaviest bats for a player in Major League history (42 ounces), Dick Allen won the 1964 National League Rookie of the Year award with the Philadelphia Phillies and the 1972 American League Most Valuable Player award with the Chicago White Sox. Allen also made seven All-Star Game trips before he retired after the 1977 season. He hit .292 for his career with 351 homers, 1,119 RBI, a .534 slugging percentage and a .378 on-base percentage. He slammed at least 20 homers in 10 seasons, including six years of at least 30 homers. Among other things, The USA Today said sabermetric stats showed through OPS-plus (on-base plus slugging percentage, adjusted for a player's home ballpark) that Allen ranked ahead of 11 Hall of Fame inductees of his era. 'He used to say, 'I'd have played for nothing,' and I believe he meant it," Willa continued regarding her husband. 'But of course, if you compare today's salary, he played almost for nothing.' She spoke the truth. The average salary for a Major League player this season is more than $5 million, and get this: The February after Allen won his AL MVP award, he received what was then the largest baseball salary of all-time after a three-year deal worth $675,000 from the White Sox. According to Baseball Reference, even if you consider what it called 'incomplete data before 1985' as well as the possible lack of some earned bonuses, Allen made approximately $1 million during a 15-year career through 1977. Parker played 19 seasons through 1991. In addition to his league MVP accolades, he collected 2,712 hits and 339 homers, and he won three Gold Gloves, three Silver Slugger awards and two NL batting titles. He was named MVP of the 1979 All-Star game for two rocket throws from right field, where he became the Pirates' latter-day Roberto Clemente. There also were Parker's two World Series rings. COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK - JULY 27: Dick Parker II, son of the late Dave Parker, speaks on his behalf ... More during the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Clark Sports Center on July 27, 2025 in Cooperstown, New York. (Photo by) Parker died in late June after complications from Parkinson's disease, but he composed a poem to be read during his Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech. It was delivered by Dave Parker II, who looked and sounded like his dad. "Thanks for staying by my side," said Dave Parker II, delivering the words from his father from the podium. "I told y'all Cooperstown would be my last rap, so the star of Dave will be in the sky tonight. Watch it glow. But I didn't lie in my documentary. I told you I wouldn't show." This crowd laughed. Those other ones abused the older Parker, and even the crowds at his home ballpark in Pittsburgh. After Parker signed that monster contract for its time in 1979, the UPI wire service reported fans spent the next two seasons throwing various items his way such as 'a bat, a steel valve and a five-pound sack of nuts and bolts at him.' In 1983, while Parker stood in right field at Pittsburgh's Three River Stadium, he had to dodge a battery. He was an easy target at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds. Allen could relate to the hatred. PITTSBURGH, PA - 1976: Dick Allen of the Philadelphia Phillies bats against the Pittsburgh Pirates ... More during a Major League Baseball game at Three Rivers Stadium in 1976 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by) As a 21-year-0ld native of Western Pennsylvania, Allen had to learn how to survive death threats in 1963 while playing for the Phillies' Triple A team in Arkansas. He advanced the next year to the big club in Philadelphia, where all-white teams reigned for a decade after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. The Phillies also were the last NL team with an African American player. Not surprisingly, Allen spent his opening six full seasons in the Major Leagues – all with the Phillies -- battling racial slurs and his version of items hurled his way from the stands, both home and away. It led to the guy much smaller than Parker (5-foot-11 and 187 pounds) taking his spot at third base for the Phillies wearing a batting helmet. Allen and Parker remained themselves. That ranged from Allen letting Sports Illustrated snap a photo for its cover during the summer of 1972 of the White Sox star juggling baseballs with a cigarette in his mouth to Parker becoming one of the first professional athletes to wear an earring during games. It was a two-carat diamond. It was too much for some people. The same went for Parker's cocaine use and involvement in the Pittsburgh drug trials of 1985. So, during his maximum time of 15 years through 2011 on the Hall of Fame ballots of voters from the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA), he never received more than 24.5% of the required 75% to reach Cooperstown. In contrast, Allen was victimized by unnamed sources calling him a troublemaker and a bad teammate, and he never got more than 18.9% from BBWAA voters before he dropped off the ballot after 1997. Dave Parker gave this autographed photo to my nephew, Sam, who worked at one of his Popeyes chicken ... More restaurants in Cincinnati. I never met Allen, but I dealt with Parker up close and personal enough through the decades to know he was a Hall of Famer on and off the diamond. We talked often from the time I first began covering baseball for professional newspapers in the late 1970s through his playing retirement in the early 1990s. He later returned to his native Cincinnati, where I grew up as a teenager and where my brother, Dennis, lives with his family. Parker served for years as the grand marshal to open the Knothole Baseball League in Dennis' community, and my nephew, Sam, used to work at one of his Popeyes chicken restaurants around town. Sam received an autographed photo from Parker that said, 'To Sam. Continue your excellent work ethic. My best, Dave Parker.' I used to check both the names of Allen and Parker on my ballot as a BBWAA Hall of Fame voter, but my vote wasn't enough. It took a special group called the Classic Era Committee to vote Allen and Parker into the Baseball Hall of Fame in December 2024. It should have happened earlier for both players. 'Although he is not physically here to accept the honor, I assure you he is with us,' said Willa of Dick Allen, and Dave Parker's folks were likely saying the same about the man nicknamed 'The Cobra.' They were just thrilled their guys made it. They hadn't a choice.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Dick Allen's Hall of Fame Induction Day, a powerful — and ‘personal' — closing chapter
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — I've been making trips to baseball's magic kingdom for Hall of Fame Induction Day since 1995. But this one was different — because unlike all those others, this one was personal. This wasn't just another story I was covering. This was the closing chapter in the longest-running baseball story of my lifetime. Advertisement On Sunday afternoon at the Clark Sports Center, my eyes welled up as I watched Willa Allen, wife of the late, great Dick Allen, stride to the podium and listen intently as the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, read the words that would appear on the plaque that would define her husband's baseball legacy forever: 'Fearlessly wielded a 42-ounce bat with presence and style, combining plate discipline and power to become one of the game's most intimidating hitters during a notorious pitchers' era.' Welcome to baseball immortality, Dick Allen. — National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) July 27, 2025 It was a beautiful moment nearly half a century in the making. Allen played his last baseball game 48 years ago. He died, before he could make it to the podium, in December 2020. So this was a day his friends and family had long thought would never arrive — until a vote by the Classic Baseball Era Committee last December changed everything. But on this fateful Sunday, I always understood that for most of the estimated 30,000 people in attendance, this would not be remembered as Richard Anthony Allen's Hall of Fame Induction Day. It was a day to celebrate the hitting genius of Ichiro Suzuki, the larger-than-life acehood of CC Sabathia, the triple-digit domination of Billy Wagner. It was a day to mourn the death, just four weeks ago, of Dave Parker. They were all bigger stories, and bolder headlines, for most of this planet, than the induction of a man whose prodigious prime, as one of baseball's most intimidating sluggers, came way back in the 1960s and '70s. But not for me. And not for a group of baseball lovers from Philadelphia just like me. No, for us, Dick Allen was a life-altering figure. And I'm not exaggerating. Dick Allen was the single biggest reason I became a baseball fan. He was my first favorite player. He was the first player in my life who drew my eyes to the TV screen in a way that men named Judge and Ohtani do now. When Allen kicked the dirt in the box back then, waggling that fabled 42-ounce tree trunk he called a bat, this was not the time to do your homework, or go check what was inside the refrigerator. It was time to plant yourself in front of the TV to await what miraculous thing might happen next. The rest of my life could resume once he was through. Advertisement Was a baseball about to disappear over the distant billboards atop the left-field roof of the Connie Mack Stadium bleachers? Was a line drive about to bore a hole in the 447-foot sign in the center-field fence? Was a Dick Allen rocket about to beat the first Apollo capsule to the moon? I was just a kid, but I knew enough to not rule it out. So he was the single biggest reason I learned to love baseball. And if that's true, I ask myself all the time: If he had never shown up in the city where I was born, would I have grown up wanting to be a baseball writer? Would I have done something totally different with my life? I very well might have. Before he arrived, I thought I wanted to be an astronaut. Then a love affair with baseball fueled an entirely different dream and an entirely different journey. And it all began right there. It all began with the awareness that no one on Earth — or at least no one who I was aware of — could hit a baseball harder or farther than Dick Allen. But here's the important part: It wasn't just me. A friend of mine, Mike Tollin, was there Sunday, too. He, too, has been waiting for this day for decades. He is a filmmaker with a Dick Allen story to tell. That film – tentatively titled, 'Letters in the Dirt' — is being scripted and on its way to life as we speak. As the idea for this film was born and this story unfolded for so many frustrating years, Tollin became one of Allen's closest friends. He came to know Allen and his family in a way that I don't. But it all began for him the way it began for me — with those mammoth Dick Allen home runs, the awe they inspired and the baseball fandom they created. So when we spoke about what this day meant to people like us, Tollin used the same word that was engraved in my brain: 'Personal.' 'Oh man, it gives me goosebumps,' he said. 'I'm thinking two words: boyhood hero. And then I'm thinking: Do kids even have boyhood heroes anymore?' Advertisement I think they do, to be honest. But that doesn't change the meaning of our boyhood hero in our lives. The feelings we felt, when we first watched Allen play baseball, have never left us. We've both gone on to do lots of cool things in life. We've both gone on to live our dreams in ways that many people aren't fortunate enough to do. But there is a lifelong passion for baseball that weaves through it all. And it began with the mesmerizing sight of Dick Allen swinging a bat. On Saturday evening, the Phillies threw a Hall of Fame party they've been waiting forever to throw. Over 300 of Allen's family, friends and former teammates descended on Cooperstown this weekend, to celebrate this momentous occasion. And many of them were there at this party — possibly the most emotional Cooperstown party I've ever attended. Tollin was one of the people who spoke that night. Phillies owner John Middleton was another. One of Allen's favorite teammates, a legend named Mike Schmidt, was the third speaker. Every word seemed as if it flowed directly from their soul to their lips. Tears flowed. These Hall of Fame weekends are normally such happy occasions. This one was different — because the journey to get here was so long, the story was so complicated, the guest of honor was no longer with us and because the waiting had been so hard. 'This was so different from Mike Schmidt's (1995) induction,' Middleton told me. 'That was all goodness stuff. It was a lovefest. It didn't have the sense of this man who was being disparaged horribly, and having to overcome that. And to overcome it with, frankly, the grace and generosity with which he overcame it — that makes it different and special.' After those three had finished speaking, a singer-songwriter named Chuck Brodsky picked up his guitar, stepped to the mic and sang a song that came flowing out of him more than 30 years ago about his own first favorite player — a man then known as 'Richie' Allen. That song, called 'Letters in the Dirt,' helped inspire Tollin's film project. Even more importantly, it weaved together two parallel tales of a misunderstood superstar in a very different era — the first Black baseball star ever to play for the Phillies, coping with racism and ugliness and all that went with it. Advertisement So on one level, this song told the tale of a ballplayer who grew so disgruntled in Philadelphia, he used his spikes to poke at Phillies fans by scrawling the word BOO in the infield dirt. But on another level, it connected the dots to so many young fans in Philadelphia who were too young and naïve to get what that booing was all about. Chuck and I were two of those kids. Brodsky, one of the most devoted Phillies fans I know, has been singing that song since the mid-1990s. But the central character was so important to him, he flew all the way to Cooperstown this weekend to sing it for an audience made up entirely of people who were also there because this was an induction weekend they'd been thinking about for years. 'We've been waiting for so long for this day,' Brodsky told me. 'I know you have. I know Mike Tollin has. I know John Middleton has. This is very personal. We loved him as children, and we have loved him all of our lives and thought that this day would have come years ago. And we had to live with the disappointment that it didn't happen all through those years. But it finally did. 'So this is the most meaningful baseball event of my life. Honestly. Even more so than the Phillies winning the World Series — because I've lived with this love of Dick Allen every bit as long as I've had a love for the Phillies. Plus this is the writing of a historical wrong. And I think that makes it bigger than a typical induction.' I should admit here that I was one of those baseball writers who never voted for Allen during his time on our ballot. It's a reminder — to me and to you — that people in my line of work aren't fans the way that you are. I was a sportswriter at The Philadelphia Inquirer back then. So I didn't root for the Phillies. I covered the Phillies. So when it came time to vote for the Hall of Fame, I wasn't voting with my heart, for my first favorite baseball player. I was voting for a player who didn't fit the definition, back then, of a Hall of Fame 'slugger.' There was no such thing as OPS+ to put Allen's numbers in perspective in the '90s. The standard was 500 homers — and Allen was a man who finished his career with 'only' 351. Modern metrics have given us a much better understanding of how feared and productive a hitter he truly was. But I couldn't convince myself to vote for him — not once — based on what I knew then. So I've had to live with the mixed emotions of all that for many, many years. Advertisement I hoped that some Veterans Committee would eventually come along to right this wrong. Instead, he missed by one vote in two elections — in 2015 and 2022. Those elections came with so much heartbreak for his friends and family, and for thousands of the kids from my generation, who now saw this story through such a personal lens. 'In the big picture, we're just part of a tiny little group,' Tollin said. 'I don't want to call it a cult, but it's definitely a clique. And we need to hang onto each other to validate our worship. Like: He really did hit that ball over the Coke sign, right? And he really was the greatest player you ever saw, right? And there are going to be so many guys like us who can just never let go of this guy.' But on Sunday night, they hung Dick Allen's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And now it will be there, to tell his story, forever. But some of us know there is more to that story. It's not just about him. It's about that feeling he evoked in all of us. 'I can't even talk about this without choking up,' Middleton said. 'Dick Allen, man — he was our hero,' Brodsky said. 'He was our absolute hero. And we waited so much longer than your average fan of a superstar would wait for their induction. So for us, this is something we can finally put to bed. The quest for his induction, the wait for his induction, has finally been fulfilled.' So as that wait counted down to its final hours Saturday, I asked Willa Allen if she could describe her emotions just thinking about the fact that her husband's plaque would now hang in the Hall of Fame forever. As she composed her thoughts, she glanced over at the nearly life-sized poster of the young Dick Allen, a Phillies helmet atop his afro, his huge hands gripping the world's most humongous bat. Just seeing this photo there,' she said, 'it almost brings tears.' She paused again to control her emotions, then uttered the five words that bonded Dick Allen fans everywhere this weekend: 'I think it's about time.' (Top photo of Willa Allen with Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch: Gregory Fisher / Imagn Images)
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Column: City Series and Dick Allen's Hall of Fame induction highlight a great Chicago baseball weekend
Another intriguing City Series, along with Dick Allen's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, highlighted a fun baseball weekend for Chicago Cubs and White Sox fans. The Cubs took the series with a 5-4 win over the White Sox in Sunday's finale, while Allen's widow, Willa Allen, delivered an emotional speech honoring the former Sox slugger at the Hall of Fame ceremonies in Cooperstown, N.Y. Here are the best and worst from the City Series and Dick Allen's posthumous induction into the Hall: Best dressed: The Sox bring out the all-black caps from the 1950s and early '60s for Hall of Fame weekend. The cap features a diagonal white 'SOX' logo with red trim, and is the one they wore during the 'Go-Go Sox' era from 1951 to 1963. Hopefully the Sox bring it back again. It's the best retro idea they've had in years. Worst pitching move: Cubs third baseman Jon Berti pitching in the ninth inning of Friday's Sox rout. Using Berti to save the bullpen is both tired and repetitive, especially with an eight-man relief staff. Manager Craig Counsell should be able to find at least one reliever to suck it up for one inning of mop-up duty. Worst cutaway: CHSN showing Sox vice president of marketing Brooks Boyer cheering in the stands Sunday after Andrew Benintendi's three-run, eighth-inning home run pulled the Sox to within one run. Even Marquee Sports Network wouldn't be so bold as to focus on Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney cheering in the stands at one of their games. The men in charge of the telecasts should stay off the telecasts. Best performance: Cade Horton's 6 1/3 shutout innings in Saturday's 6-1 Cubs victory provided a huge lift for a team that had lost four or five and watched Shota Imanaga implode in Friday's loss. Had the Cubs lost the series, panic no doubt would've ensued before the big three-game showdown in Milwaukee, which begins Monday. Worst news leak: Bulls coach Billy Donovan's contract extension being announced by ESPN before the series finale, over a month after reports that it basically was a done deal. No terms were announced and no one was made available for comment. Making an important personnel decision and not explaining why is a classic Reinsdorfian maneuver. Best interview: Sox starter Adrian Houser tearing up after Friday's win during his postgame media session, thinking about his infant daughter getting to see him pitch for the first time. A class act, Houser did the job he came here to do, and should soon be rewarded with a trade to a contender. Worst managerial take: Sox manager Will Venable on the trade rumors affecting players: 'I hope people don't want to leave here. With what these guys have built and that clubhouse and how they get along, the type of baseball that we're playing, this is a place that people want to be.' Yes, but the Sox aren't going to be truly competitive for at least a year or two, so any veteran should relish a chance to be traded to a contender this week. Worst baserunning. Lenyn Sosa, take a bow. Sosa was thrown out at third Sunday after Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner baited him by letting an infield fly rule popup drop. Instead of staying put, Sosa gets nailed at third, squelching a potential rally. 'Not a real good baserunning play by Sosa,' CHSN's Steve Stone says in obvious disgust. 'A little bit of a mental error there where he didn't see the call being made,' Venable said, adding 'we have to look ourselves in the mirror and figure out a better way to coach that.' Sosa might also need to look in a mirror. Best monster truck impression: Hoerner kept a rundown going Sunday after being picked off first, before Ian Happ's big collision at third with Colson Montgomery brought home the eventual winning run on an interference call. Wise guys called it Happ's biggest hit of the season. Best line: MLB Network's Harold Reynolds on Allen's Hall of Fame plaque: 'Just missing the cigarette.' Reynolds was referring to the classic Sports Illustrated cover with Allen juggling baseballs in the Sox dugout while a heater dangled from his mouth. Best tweet: In what was labeled 'an ode to Dick Allen,' a White Sox social media post showed Jonathan Cannon, Grant Taylor and Sean Burke juggling baseballs in the dugout. Worst programming decision: How does CHSN virtually ignore Allen's induction into the Hall of Fame? They had all year to put together a short documentary on the man who helped save the franchise from moving in 1972. It would've been great viewing before or after Sunday's game. Someone dropped the ball. Worst hit by pitch: Cubs closer Daniel Palencia plunking Luis Robert Jr. in the arm in the ninth inning Sunday might have put Sox general manager Chris Getz into therapy with four days left before the trade deadline. The oft-injured outfielder sat through minor soreness in the first two games before talking Venable into letting him DH on Sunday. Best scene: The concourse all weekend was filled with fans of both teams enjoying the food and conversation. It was as good an advertisement for coming out to the ballpark as anyone could've written, and reminded us once again that Sox Park comes alive when it's full and energized. With the Sox playing a better brand of baseball since the All-Star break, it'll be interesting to see if it pays any dividends at the box office with the Philadelphia Phillies coming to town Monday.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Baseball legend makes hilarious confession about former team during Hall of Fame speech
Fans, writers, and legends flocked to upstate New York to induct the latest crop of icons into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But one of the honorees gave a hilarious confession about one of the final teams he played for. Gathering in Cooperstown on Sunday, five legends of the game had their plaques unveiled - which will hang in the museum forever. The five honorees included the late Dick Allen and Dave Parker - as well as Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner. While each speech was heartfelt, it was Suzuki's admission about one of the final teams he played for which drew laughs. Suzuki is best known for his career with the Seattle Mariners, but he also had short stints with the New York Yankees and the Miami Marlins. But speaking to the crowd, Suzuki admitted that he wasn't familiar with the Marlins - even when they tried signing him. "And to the Miami Marlins-- Honestly, when you guys called to offer me a contract for 2015... I had never heard of your Team." 🤣🤣🤣 — Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 27, 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Ichiro Suzuki admitted he never heard of the Miami Marlins before agreeing to play some of his final years in the major leagues with the franchise 'To the Miami Marlins... Honestly, when you guys called to offer me a contract for 2015, I had never heard of your team,' Suzuki said - drawing laughs from the crowd. At the start of his speech, Suzuki said that being inducted into the Hall made him feel like a rookie again - but told his teammates, 'I'm 51 years old, easy on the hazing'. Elsewhere in his speech, he called out the one writer who didn't vote for him to get into the Hall - preventing him from being a unanimous inductee (Yankees great Mariano Rivera is the only player to have every writer vote for him). Suzuki previously extended an invitation to get dinner with the unnamed writer, but said in his speech that his offer 'has now expired'. Suzuki was inducted into the Hall as a Mariner - the third in team history, alongside Ken Griffey Jr and Edgar Martinez. His plaque reads: 'With extraordinary work ethic and unparallelled bat control, brought record-setting hit totals to Major League Baseball as its first Japanese-born position player. 'Electrified 2001 Mariners to record 116-win campaign, earning A.L. Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors. The only player with 10 straight 200-hit campaigns, 2001-2010. 'Set all-time single-season hits record with 262 in 2004. An All-Star and Gold Glove outfielder throughout his first decade in the majors, led A.L. in hits seven times, won two A.L. batting titles after capturing seven consecutive in Japan. Totaled 3,089 MLB hits and 509 stolen bases.'
CBS News
2 days ago
- Sport
- CBS News
Former Phillies, White Sox great Dick Allen posthumously inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame
Former Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox great Dick Allen was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday in Cooperstown, New York. Allen, who died in 2020 at the age of 78, played for five MLB teams during his 15-year career, but spent the majority of his time in Philadelphia, where he played for nine seasons. He also played in Chicago for three seasons with the White Sox from 1972-74. "For Dick, the fans meant everything," Allen's wife, Willa Allen, said at his induction ceremony. "He always wanted to show, especially the young ones, that it's not about where you come from, but where you're determined to go." Allen, a Wampum, Pennsylvania, native, slashed .292/.378/.534 with 351 home runs, 1,119 RBIs and a .912 OPS in his 15-year MLB career. He was a seven-time All-Star, the 1972 American League MVP with the White Sox, and was named National League Rookie of the Year with the Phillies in 1964. He played first base, third base and left field. Allen had the fifth-most home runs (319) over an 11-year span (1964-74) behind four Hall of Famers: Hank Aaron (391), Harmon Killebrew (336), Willie Stargell (335) and Willie McCovey (327). His .940 OPS during that time was second to Aaron's .941. Allen led the AL in home runs in 1972 and 1974. In the 1972 season, he also led the AL in RBIs. Allen hit at least 20 homers in 10 of his 15 seasons, and had a stretch from 1964-72 where he recorded at least 20 home runs in nine consecutive years. "When he was just a child, his teacher asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up," Willa Allen said. "Dick stood up and said, 'I want to be a Major League Baseball player.' Then, he sat down. The other kids laughed because at that time, there weren't any Black players in the major league. But he didn't laugh. He believed it. And now, look at him." It's been a long time coming for Allen to finally get his plaque in Cooperstown. Before getting inducted into the Class of 2025, Allen had fallen short of making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame on two separate occasions in 2014 and 2021 by one vote. The Phillies retired Allen's No. 15 in a ceremony at Citizens Bank Park in 2020, months before he died. At the time, Phillies managing partner John Middleton said he broke the team's longstanding "unwritten" policy of only retiring the numbers of players who are in the Hall of Fame. "I thank the city of Philadelphia. Even though it was rough, I've made some friends along the way," Allen said at the ceremony. During his nine years with the Phillies, Allen fought against racism amid a tumultuous time in the country. He played in Philly from 1963-69 and came back for two seasons in 1975-76. At the ceremony, Phillies Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt said that Allen was an amazing mentor who was wrongly labeled a "bad teammate" and "troublemaker." "Dick was a sensitive Black man who refused to be treated as a second-class citizen," Schmidt said in his speech in 2020. "He played in front of home fans that were products of that racist era (with) racist teammates and different rules for Whites and Blacks," he added. "Fans threw stuff at him and thus Dick wore a batting helmet throughout the whole game. They yelled degrading racial slurs. They dumped trash in his front yard at his home. In general, he was tormented, and it came from all directions. And Dick rebelled." Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner and Dave Parker were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with Allen as a part of the Class of Associated Press contributed to this report.
