White Sox legend dies at 78
Former Chicago White Sox first baseman Dick Allen, credited by many for saving the franchise from relocation, died Monday after a long illness. He was 78.
Allen, a seven-time All-Star with the Philadelphia Phillies and the White Sox, arrived on the South Side after the 1971 season following a trade from the Los Angeles Dodgers and made Comiskey Park the place to be.
Attendance at Comiskey had fallen below 500,000 in 1970 and was barely over 830,000 when Allen joined a team that hadn’t won a pennant since 1959 and finished 22½ games out of first place in ’71.
But he helped rejuvenate the club on the field and at the gate in 1972 on his way to being named the American League’s Most Valuable Player. Allen batted .308 with a league-leading 37 home runs, 113 RBIs, 99 walks and a .603 slugging percentage, and he led the majors with a .420 on-base percentage, 1.023 OPS and 199 OPS plus.
The Sox remained in contention most of the season before finishing 5½ games behind the mighty Oakland Athletics in the AL West. They drew more than 1.18 million fans to Comiskey and stabilized the franchise, which had been rumored to be possibly moving to Seattle or St. Petersburg, Fla.
Allen finished his 15-year career with a .292 average, 351 home runs, 1,119 RBIs and a .912 OPS. He also played for the St. Louis Cardinals and the A’s.
While Allen played only three years in Chicago, he called it the favorite stop of his career.
“It’s better than anywhere I’ve been my whole baseball career,” he told the Tribune in November in what would be his final interview. “I might say my whole baseball life. I’ve never been treated any better. You guys are the best for my money.”
In 2014, Allen — who famously was shown on the cover of the June 12, 1972, issue of Sports Illustrated juggling baseballs while smoking a cigarette in the dugout — fell one vote short of being selected for the Hall of Fame by the Golden Era Committee. Many baseball historians consider him the best eligible player not in the Hall of Fame.
He no doubt would’ve been a candidate again this month on what’s now called the Golden Days Era ballot, but the Hall of Fame decided to postpone voting in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Allen told the Tribune last month he didn’t think about the Hall of Fame and talked about it only when reporters asked him. Many have pointed to his absence from the Hall in recent years and written that Allen was deserving of a spot in Cooperstown, N.Y. That was enough for him.
“I enjoy a lot of the writings I hear from time to time, day to day, and read some awfully good writing, people that think you deserve it,” he said. “I do enjoy reading them.”
Allen told close friends that if he ever was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he wanted a White Sox cap on his plaque.
Allen was born March 8, 1942, in Wampum, Pa., in a baseball-loving family. Two of his brothers, Hank and Ron Allen, also played in the major leagues.
He earned the National League Rookie of the Year award with the Phillies in 1964, when he led the league with 125 runs scored, 80 extra-base hits and 352 total bases. He finished in the top five that season in batting average (.318), slugging percentage (.557), hits (201) and doubles (38) while committing a league-high 41 errors in his first season playing third base.
Allen wasn’t that big — only 5-foot-11 and 187 pounds as a rookie — but he carried a big stick. His 40-ounce bat was heavier than the ones most of his peers used. Willie Mays once said Allen hit a baseball harder than anyone he ever had seen, and Allen’s 445-foot home run to center field at Comiskey Park off the New York Yankees’ Lindy McDaniel in 1972 was testament to that fact.
“Nobody has ever hit a ball any further,” yelled Sox announcer Harry Caray, who was broadcasting the game from the bleachers.
Former Sox teammate Rich “Goose” Gossage called Allen “the greatest player I’ve ever seen play in my life” and said he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
“Dick Allen played with fire in his eyes,” Gossage, a Hall of Fame relief pitcher, told USA Today Sports. “He’s the smartest baseball man I’ve ever been around in my life. … There’s no telling the numbers this guy could have put up if all he worried about was stats.”
Mays concurred about Allen’s Hall of Fame worthiness, as did another Hall of Famer and former teammate with the Phillies, Mike Schmidt, who called Allen one of his mentors.
Allen’s talents weren’t limited to baseball fields. He was a professional singer with a doo-wop band called The Ebonistics, who once performed during halftime of a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game. In Chicago he was so smooth, he hosted his own TV talk show.