Cooperstown, New York will be the site of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Induction ceremony this Sunday and it’s a special time for me. Two members of our local Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame, Billy Wagner and Dave Parker, are going into the big hall, as well as my all-time favorite player, Dick Allen.
Unfortunately only one of the three will be giving an acceptance speech, Wagner. Allen died in December of 2020 and Parker passed just a few weeks ago. Dave’s son will be reading a speech he had written years ago, hoping to be named to the Hall of Fame, and I assume someone will be there representing Allen as well.
Wagner’s speech should be a good one. Billy, who pitched for Ferrum College, was inducted into our Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003 and his speech at the Salem Civic Center is one of my all-time favorites. Pointing to a group of Ferrum players sitting at the back of the room, he talked about how a kid from a small college in southwest Virginia could make it into our Hall of Fame. Tears started coming down his face as he talked and I’m thinking, here’s a guy who’s one of the best pitchers in the Major Leagues and he’s thrilled to be in “our” Hall of Fame. That was special, and he went on to pitch seven more seasons and returned to be the guest speaker for our Hall of Fame induction ceremony a couple years ago.
So, if he was so emotional going into our Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame, what’s he going to be like Sunday? Expect the tears to flow.
I wrote a column about Parker a couple weeks ago when he passed from complications from Parkinson’s Disease. He was an inaugural member of our Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1992, and his record speaks for itself. It’s a shame he won’t be here to enjoy the ceremony, but at least he knew he was going in before he died.
Then we have Dick Allen, a member of my personal Hall of Fame. He’s right at the top.
Allen was a rookie with the 1964 Phillies, when I was a kid growing up in southeast Pennsylvania. Right off the bat, so to speak, I loved the guy.
He was your consummate power hitter. The ball jumped off his bat and went long distances. He hit home runs off the billboard signs above the leftfield roof at old Connie Mack Stadium. The old ballpark had one of the deepest centerfields in the big leagues and he could hit line drives into the area out there where they kept the batting cage. No one went to the restroom if Allen was scheduled to bat during the inning.
Unfortunately, he came up in an era where minorities were still struggling to gain equal footing with the white folks. Years later I read his book “Crash, the Life and Times of Dick Allen,” and it was sad what he had to go through in the minor leagues. The Phillies had a minor league team in Little Rock, Arkansas and he was the first black player on the team. He faced death threats and had to stay at different hotels and eat at different restaurants than his teammates. You can read about similar circumstances for many other famous players growing up in that time period.
In ’64 Allen, nicknamed “Crash” but then known as “Richie,” made the big league club and had one of the best rookie seasons ever. He led the entire National League in runs (125), triples (13), extra base hits (80) and total bases (352) while Allen finishing in the top five in batting average (.318), slugging average (.557), hits (201) and doubles (38). And, what’s more, the traditionally bad Phillies started winning games at a surprising rate.
But 1964 didn’t end well for the Phils. They had a six and a half game lead in the National League with 12 games to play and lost 10 in a row, enabling the Cardinals to pass them on the last weekend of the season. Late in the summer Allen got into a scuffle with Frank Thomas(not the Big Hurt), a big, white Southern boy who the Phillies had picked up late in the season for his bat. Apparently, Thomas was needling Allen with racist overtones and the two went at it around the batting cage. Thomas was released the next day but the incident didn’t sit well with some fans, who sided with the white guy and started to boo my favorite player.
I hated it when Dick would come to bat to a chorus of boos, which often turned to cheers after a long home run. He hit a ball completely out of Connie Mack Stadium that went an estimated 529 feet, inspiring Willie Stargell to remark, “Now I know why they boo Richie all the time. When he hits a home run, there’s no souvenir.”
He was my favorite player. I wanted his number 15 on my Little League uniform. I hoped I would get his baseball card every time I opened a pack. I tried to imitate his stance during Little League games but the results were far from comparable.
I was heartbroken when the Phillies traded Allen to the Cardinals prior to the 1970 season. It was a memorable trade as the Phillies were to receive Curt Flood, who refused to report and sued Major League Baseball over the reserve clause. Flood was unsuccessful but it was the first volley of a player revolt that eventually led to free agency.
Allen went from the Cardinals to the Dodgers to the White Sox, where he was American League MVP in 1972. Jim Mahoney was our Salem manager in the Carolina League one season after having been a coach for the White Sox when Allen was on the team. I remember him telling me Dick could hit the ball so hard it was through the infield before the infielders could even react.
Allen eventually returned to the Phillies and played for the team in 1975 and ’76 when they were building the club that eventually won the Phillies’ first MLB championship in 1980. Things were better the second time around and he became one of the most popular players on the team. The Phillies put him on the team’s “Wall of Fame,” then retired his number 15 three months before he died at age 78.
Dick never received the required percentage of votes among sportswriters and sportscasters to make the Hall of Fame, as his relationship with the media was often temped. However, like Parker, he was voted in by the veteran’s committee in the past year. The voting panel consisted of Ozzie Smith, Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Tony Perez, Lee Smith, Joe Torre, five current or former baseball executives and five historians or media members.
Dick Allen is still my all-time favorite player, and I’ll be excited to watch the Hall of Fame ceremony this Sunday at 1:30 pm. Joining Allen, Wagner and Parker in the Class of 2025 will be Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia. I was the official scorer for the Salem team when Sabathia pitched for the Kinston Indians in the Carolina League in 1999 and 2000, and you could tell even then he had a bright future. And you know about Ichiro.
Do you think there are any Japanese players now who might make the Hall of Fame? How about the guy who gives up a first inning home run as a pitcher, then hits a home run himself in the bottom of the inning? I figure Ohtani is a lock already, but that’s a story for another day.
