Better Late Than Never: An Open Letter to the White Sox regarding the Legacy of Dick Allen

A lot can happen in 3 years.  3 years ago I started the below blog post and for whatever reason left it in draft status.  Earlier this month I saw this announcement on the Baseball Hall of Fame website.  Seeing that  Chicago White Sox legend Dick Allen was again being considered for enshrinement made me want to do something on his behalf.  Then, I remembered I already did, well at least I started.  A lot can happen in 3 years.  

Aside from correcting multiple grammar and spelling errors, the de-mothballed post is the same as when I started it three years ago. The only exception is that I have color-coded the first three paragraphs, put important statements in bold, and italicized the entire tome (Not Jim Tome; that's a Hall of Famer of a different spelling). The green indicates that the statements are still valid some 1100 days later. The red indicates they are not. I'll be back at the end to further my point.

Dear White Sox Organization: 

 First and foremost, I would like to wish you a joyous and happy holiday season. Secondly, I would like to congratulate you on the fine baseball season you just finished. It is truly an exciting time to be a White Sox fan. I have been a Sox fan going on 50 years. I can not emphasize enough how the accomplishments of one player brought me into the White Sox fan base.  A  player who sadly I don't think your organization has spent enough time heralding his accomplishments while on the South Side.  This player is no other than Dick Allen, The 1972 AL MVP in his first year for the White Sox.

There are two things I'd like to see the Sox organization do to honor Mr. Allen's legacy.  The first is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his MVP season in 2022.  The impact of Dick Allen on the White Sox is legend.  He revitalized the team mobilized the fan base and squashed all the talk of moving the franchise from Chicago to Florida.  His homers at Old Comiskey Park especially those rooftop shots are why a 7-year-old boy raised to be a Cubs fan flipped allegiances and spent his days wanting to emulate his new heroes like Bill Melton, Wilbur Wood, Bucky Dent, Jorge Orta, and especially Allen himself.  

I hope you guys have something like this in mind because a celebration on the scale that I'm thinking should have been planned years in advance.  

Secondly, I would love to see the White Sox publicly champion the HOF candidacy for Mr. Allen.  In my opinion, Allen is the most deserving player in White Sox history for enshrinement in Cooperstown.  Actually, I believe he is the most deserving former player in the entire league who is not yet been voted in.  I was very happy when Minnie Minoso got in this year on the Golden Days Era Ballot..This may seem like blasphemy at 35th and Shields but I feel Allen is more deserving than Minoso for a spot in Cooperstown.  I understand that looking at the advanced metrics bears my thoughts out.  I was heartbroken when Allen missed out by 1 vote again this year.  He now has to wait 5 more years before his case can be reviewed again.

A lot of this heavy lifting needs to be done by Allen's first team the Phillies.  He played the brunt of his career there and I am glad to see that there is a greater acknowledgment of the racism he endured while in Philadelphia.  What I ask of the White Sox is that in the next 5 years, they begin stating Allen's case every time they have the opportunity.  There are still very many White Sox fans of my generation and the generation previous to mine who understand the impact Dick Allen had for the Southsiders in the early 70's.  I ask that the management of the Sox while continuing to look to the future and endeavoring to bring more pennants and World Series championships to their fan base also look back at the past especially the accomplishments of Allen and celebrate what he brought to the team and lobby for his accomplishments to be recognized and honored by the powers that be at Cooperstown and beyond.

A few years back Jerry Reinsdorf lobbied hard for the HOF candidacy of Harold Baines.   I have long been a proponent of Baine's inclusion in Cooperstown.  Reinsdorf did the right thing by helping make the case for Baines.  Reinsdorf had seen firsthand the impact of Baines on the White Sox and knew in his heart that Baines was HOF material.  Dick Allen was long gone when Reinsdorf became owner of the Sox.  Reinsdorf and the White Sox need to understand that although they did not experience it Allen's impact on the White Sox and on baseball in that era was actually far greater than the impact Baines had.  Baines had HOF teammates like Carlton Fisk and Frank Thomas.  

That is where I left things off in 2021

Dick Allen (Circa 1965)
Public Domain

Here in the present (11/23/24) Dick Allen is a candidate once again for the enshrinement in Cooperstown that eluded him in his lifetime.  Having missed out on the highest individual honor in baseball by only 1 vote in his last 2 elections, he again is considered a front-runner.  This year he is joined by Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris, Tommy John, Dave Harris, and Luis Tiant.  All these players are certainly worthy of consideration, and many deserve their own plaque in Cooperstown.  I would still argue that none of these players are more deserving than Allen.  

On December 8th a 16-member Hall of Fame Panel will convene at the Baseball Winter Meetings to decide if any of these players will make it for 2025.  Anyone receiving 12 votes or more from the committee will become a Hall of Famer.  Anyone who doesn't will have to wait until 2028 to even be considered to be a finalist again.  Dick Allen shouldn't have to wait that long.

He actually shouldn't have had to wait this long.  Allen was not the malcontent nor rabble-rouser that people portrayed him as.  He had been vindicated from most of that in his lifetime.  Some of it remains from the atmosphere of racism that followed his career and his BBWAA-era candidacy.  If you're not aware of Allen's experiences as the first professional black baseball player in then-segregated Little Rock, Arkansas while a Phillies farmhand in 1963, this article is a good place to start. Moving to Philadelphia in 1964 and having one of the greatest rookie seasons in MLB history, didn't stop the unfair treatment.  He wasn't allowed 548to go by his preferred name Dick but was relegated to becoming the diminutive Richie, a move which can only be construed now some 60 years later as a thinly veiled attempt to keep him in his place.  

His place is in the Hall of Fame. Yes, injuries shortened his career and certainly, he would have been helped by a longer body of work, but what a body of work.  The 7-time all-star, according to Baseball Musings, Day by Day database the 1964 Rookie of the Year and 1972 MVP in his first 6 seasons (1964-1969) was ranked 20th in at-bats. but ranked higher in 9 other offensive categories  including 5th in runs, 3rd in triples, 8th in both home runs and RBI, 9th in walks, 10th in batting average, and  1st in slugging percentage. Allen's slugging percentage was .555 in that 6-year time. Here is a list of the 10 fellows directly behind him.

Frank Robinson      .552   HOF

Willie McCovey      .551  HOF

Hank Aaron             .548  HOF

Willie Mays             .539  HOF

Harmon Killebrew   .535 HOF

Roberto Clemente    .511 HOF

Willie Stargell          .510 HOF

Reggie Jackson        .508 HOF

Carl Yaztrzemski     .507 HOF

Ron Santo                .505 HOF

This is just one example of Allen's on-field accomplishments putting him among the elite players of his generation.  Allen is also revered by many players who played alongside him.  One is Hall of Famer Allen's former White Sox teammate Rich Gossage.  I'm going to end this post with a quote from Gossage for a 2014 USA Today article about Allen and the Hall of Fame.  Goose puts it more eloquently than I ever could.  

"I've been around the game a long time,'' Hall of Fame pitcher Goose Gossage tells USA TODAY Sports, "and he's the greatest player I've ever seen play in my life. He had the most amazing season (1972) I've ever seen. He's the smartest baseball man I've ever been around in my life. "He taught me how to pitch from a hitter's perspective, and taught me how to play the game, and how to play the game right. There's no telling the numbers this guy could have put up if all he worried about was stats. "The guy belongs in the Hall of Fame.''

F is For 42

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 20 more times this month.

Film: 42

Director: Brian Helgeland

I grew up loving baseball. I didn't think much of it.  Baseball was always there.  I could watch it on t.v. I could play it with my friends and I could dream about being my favorite players Dick Allen or Hank Aaron. 

These players were black and I was white. At that time I had never met a black person, but that didn't bother me.  My heroes were great baseball players and I wanted to be like them.  That I could do that is  a tribute to Branch Rickey, the general manager who helped integrate baseball and to Jackie Robinson who was the first black player in the modern era of baseball.

Image by Welcome to All ! ツ from Pixabay

Positive Tomato: Well-paced and often riveting, and manages to inspire while remaining true to sport and to the player who changed it and all of the professional sport forever. Bruce DeMara - Toronto Star

Negative Tomato:  42 is a hackneyed, cookie-cutter film that manages to tell us absolutely nothing about a turning point in American history. AP Kryza - Willamette Week

Chadwick Boseman shines as Robinson. He gives us a glimpse of how difficult it is to be the first. 

Harrison Ford transforms himself into Branch Rickey.

Resiliency: When Rickey tells Robinson his plan to have him be the first black player in baseball, they have this exchange...

Robinson: You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back?

Rickey: No. No. I want a player who has the guts not to fight back.

This resiliency to take the verbal abuse, the discrimination, to receive the hate mail and death threats is shown scene after scene.  

Top 100: Regardless of whether it makes my top 100 (I imagine it will) it will always be my top 42.

A to Z Connections: This is the 3rd sports film (Breaking Away and Chariots of Fire) and the second film with Harrison Ford (The Empire Strikes Back). 

Next Time: G is for Gene Noir 

Y is for Yin, Yang, Yaz and Young

 Good morning and welcome to day 24, the penultimate of the A to Z challenge. This year I chose 3 themes for the challenge: Limericks, MLB sluggers in my lifetime, and A to Z wordles. For more information about these themes click here. 

Part I: A to Z Limericks

I don't give a darn or a dang

for the yin or even the yang

Don't meant to alarm ya

I'm just not into karma.

I think God controls whole shebang.

Part II: A to Z Homerun hitters of my lifetime

 

Carl Yastrzemski played his entire career  (1961-1983) with the Boston Red Sox. Yaz is 39th overall in homeruns over his career with 452.  (Nelson Cruz will tie him with his next homer and surpass him with the one after that.) From 1961 to 1963 Yastrzemski pummeled 44 homers for the BoSox in his first 3 years in the Bigs.  From 1964 to 1975 he established himself as a hall of fame caliber outfielder hitting 273 homers with a .290 batting average and a slugging percentage of .480.  In that Era he was 1 of only 4 players to be in the top 40 of homers, doubles and stolen bases along with Dick Allen, Hank Aaron, and Jimmy Wynn.  Yaz hit 135 more dingers for Boston in his final 8 years with the team.

  

Part III: Wordle Starting Words from A to Z

Note: Correct letters in the correct places will be shown in bold. Correct letters in incorrect places will be shown in italics.

My March 25tg starting word was young. 

Y O U N G- I guessed one letter (o) correctly but not in the reight place...

S T O R E - Added 2 more letters (T and  E) still nonr in their correct positions.

O C T E T-  It took 8 people to get the t in the right place.

D E P O T - Depot in 4.

For more A to Z challenge click here.  

T is for Tupelo, Thomas & Tower

 Good evening and welcome to day 20 of the A to Z challenge. This year I chose 3 themes for the challenge: Limericks, MLB sluggers in my lifetime, and A to Z wordles. For more information about these themes click here. 

Part I: A to Z Limericks

Yesterday's limerick was pep talk to others in the challenge.  This one's more for me.  

8 years ago we had a bit of a polar vortex in Illinois.  I got myself in a little bit of a Roller Vortex and write a limerick on my Facebook page about the 28 degree difference in temps between the Chicago are and Tupelo, MS.

 If I spent the day in Tupelo

Where it's 14 above not below

While water would still freeze

28 more degrees 

Would increase by old get up and go

From my Facebook account in the winter of 2014

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Part II: A to Z Homerun hitters of my lifetime

Choosing some  players for this list has been more difficult than others.  There was absolutely  no difficulty in choosing Frank Thomas for this list.  I drove from Chicago to upstate New York to see him enshrined in Cooperstown, so it's no trouble at all to reserve a letter for him.

Thomas is tied for 20th all time in homeruns with Ted Williams, and Willie Stargell with 521.  He hit 301 of those in the era of 1988 through 1999 all with my beloved White Sox. He hit 448 total dingers with the ChiSox and knocked 73 more between the A's and the Jays at the end of his storied career. Only 8 players hit more homers than the Big Hurt in the 1990's and none of those 8 had a better batting average than his .320 for the decade.  He finished his career with over 500 homers and a batting average of .301. Among the 6 other players who have accomplished this are Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams and Willie Mays.  When your career stats match favorably with what could easily be considered the Mount Rushmore of hitting you are in grand company indeed.  

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Part III: Wordle Starting Words from A to Z

Note: Correct letters in the correct places will be shown in bold. Correct letters in incorrect places will be shown in italics.

My March 20th my starting word was tower. It had been Sears the day prior and this was because I was in Chicago proper running a 1 mile and 5 mile race that weekend and my starters were an homage to the Willis Tower FKA Sears Tower.  

T O W E R  - My first guess netted 3 letters but none in the right place 

S H R E W - Got the EW sorted and still had the r in the wrong place.

R E N E W-  For the first time since March 14th I renewed my acquaintance with the feelings of getting a wordle in 3 guesses.

For more A to Z challenge click here. 

 I

H is for Hammer, Hank, and Hairy

 Good morning  and welcome to Day 8 of the A to Z challenge. This year I chose 3 themes for the challenge: Limericks, MLB sluggers in my lifetime, and A to Z wordles. For more information about these themes click here. 

Part I: A to Z Limericks

Today's limerick is also about today's home run hitter.  I don't consider Hank Aaaron a home run hitter.  I consider him the home run hitter.  On April 8,1974 he hit his 715th al time home run to break the record of Babe Ruth.  I am writing this post on Friday April 8th just a few hours before Saturdays H post drops.  That means 48 years ago I watched Hank Hammer 715 on television.  Here is what it looked like       

On April 8 '74

Hammering Hank #44

Hit home run 7 1 5

I felt so alive

To be part of such great baseball lore.

Part II: A to Z Homerun hitters of my lifetime

Yesterday I talked about Ken Griffey Jr. the 7th leading homerun hitter of all time.  For over 33 years Hank Aaron was the all time leading home run hitter.    He is now 2nd behind Barry Bonds.

I was born in 1964.  I was 9 years old when Aaaron broke Ruth's record.  Aaronhit his first homer in 1954 and his last in 1976.  From 1954 to1963 Hank hit 342 home runs.  This was 5th most of all players over that time period and only 40 less than Willie Mays who hit the most in that time period.

From 1964 to 1975 Aaron hit 403 homers  387 for the Braves and 16 for the Brewers.  Aaron led all of baseball by 46 homers during that period.  In 1976 Aaron hit the last 10 of his 755 dingers while finishing his HOF career in Milwaukee. Aaron batted .305 in the course of his career so he was much more than just a home run hitter.

Part III: Wordle Starting Words from A to Z

Note: Correct letters in the correct places will be shown in bold. Correct letters in incorrect places will be shown in italics.

Playing wordle every day can be a big hairy deal.  On March 8th I began my wordle with ...

H A I R Y - I may as well have been bald as none of those letters were in the answer

Q U E S T -  This got me a e and t in the right places and s in the wrong one.

S W E P T - On my third guess I was exteremely closing getting 4 of the letters in the right position.

S W E E T - .  How sweet it was to get it in 4.

For more A to Z challenge click here.  

A to Z challenge 2022 Theme Reveal

 When I guest posted last month at the A to Z challenge blog I kinda did my theme reveal a little early.  

Just in case you missed it, I said that this year I will be posting limericks that I have written. Because it's the A to Z challenge,  the theme of each limerick will start with a different letter of the alphabet. It turns out that April is National Poetry Month so the timing works out well.  

Limerick, Ireland

Why limericks? It all started almost 9 years ago when I wanted to do something to commemorate my 50th year on the planet.  So on Facebook from the day I turned 49 until the day I turned 50, I tried to generate one limerick a day and post it there.  

Here is my limerick from  8 years ago, March 6th, 2014

                                                        Just allocated our tax refund

                                                        Most for debt and a little for fun

                                                        Now that I'm done taxing

                                                        It's time for relaxing

                                                        Watching Star Trek with daughter and son

For the a to z challenge I have chosen  9 of those Facebook limericks  and will post them on the appropriate  date for the appropriate letter. Many of those FB  limericks were about friends having birthdays or such things; don't expect to see any of those here.   In the month of March I plan to pen 8 more limericks, and if all goes well produce 9 final limericks in April on the day they drop.

This is where my announcement begins to resemble a late night infomercial, because besides the 26 limericks, you also are going to get 2 more wonderful A to Z products.  

As you may or may not know Leap of Dave is a conglomeration of 4 blogs I used to write simultaneously. First,  I changed my blog Home School Dad to Leap of Dave.  Then I discontinued.my blogs Dave Out Loud (a vlog), Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Blog and Random Acts of Roller and transferred them here.  In the past I have participated in the challenge from all 4 blogs.  This year while I will only be participating once, each post will contain 3 separate parts. 

After the limerick I will be featuring a baseball player who hit at least 100 career home runs in my life time.  In the past at Crazy Uncle Dave's I have done this same type of theme for Chicago White Sox Players and Chicago Cubs Players.  There will be some repeats of those players but mostly it will include players from all around the league.  To give it more variety I will have at least 5 players whose  main homer contributions were in the following periods:  1964-1975, 1976-1987, 1988-1999, 2000-2010, and 2011- 2021.

Nothing says Home Run more than the late "Hammering " Hank Aaron

So you get A to Z limericks. You get A to Z Sluggers ...

 But Wait, There's More!!!

Like many people over the past few months, I have been playing the game Wordle on line.  On March 1st my starting word began with the letter A.  Each day this month I am starting with the next letter in the alphabet.  On April 1st I will share the word that began with A and my subsequent guesses until I finally got the correct Wordle of that day.  

A sample Wordle

So to sum up:

L is for Limericks, Long Balls and Lengthy Wordle explanations.  

 

I am looking forward to sharing my love of poems, baseball and word games with you guys next month.  I hope you are all planning on participating this year by at least reading a number of other peoples' posts.  If you are thinking about participating in the challenge this year as a blogger, stop thinking about it, and do it! If you have your theme reveal ready, click here and enter it so we can all see what you're up to.

See you guys in April!

My Very Biased Playoff Predictions

 As both the NL Wild Card and AL Wild Card games are in the books time for my hopes and dreams for the rest of the playoffs.  Predictions are too string of a word, but I will take credit for any of these picks that turn out right as I have the courage of my convictions to post them here.

National League 

Dodgers vs Giants

I pick the Dodgers,

Brewers vs, Braves.

Ever since I lived 2 hours from Atlanta back when the Braves won their World Series in the last century I have been a pretty big Braves supporter from afar.  That's not true exactly.  I have loved the Braves ever since the days of hammering Hank Aaron who remains my favorite ball player who never wore a Chicago uniform. That being said I think the Brewers will beat the Braves in a close series.

Dodgers vs. Brewers

I am a little torn here and will explain my reasoning more when I get to my World Series pick but suffice it to say I'll pick the Dodgers.

American League

Rays vs. Red Sox. 

 The Rays were very impressive in a very impressive division.  I think the Red Sox will find a way to skate past Tampa.

White Sox vs. Astros.  

In a rematch of the 2005 World Series the former NL Astros play my beloved White Sox.  I hope with all the hope I can muster that Houston will have a problem and the pale hose will prevail.

White Sox vs. Red Sox.  

Let me boldly assert that the Sox will definitely win this match-up.  The question is what color will these victorious Sox be adorned with,  Again my hope is that the White Sox will prevail.  

2021 World Series Pick

White Sox vs. Dodgers

If the White Sox do make it to the World Series my preference would be they play the Brewers.  I live less than 2 hours from each ball park and would try to get tickets without breaking my bank account. However I love the symmetry of the White Sox beating the Astro's and the Red Sox as they did in 2005 and then avenging their last World Series defeat in 1959 by beating the reigning champion Dodgers.  

It could happen and in October anything can happen, so why not that?!!!? Go Go White Sox!

Note: I Just remembered that Hank Aaron started and finished his playing days in Milwaukee. He started with the Braves, moved to Atlanta with them, and then finished his career with the Brew Crew. 

Vin Scully calls Hank Aaron's historic 715th home run

Henry Aaron passed away today at the age of 86. I am certain I will speak more of Aron's impact on my life in my blog Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Blog.  At this moment I am transported to the evening of April 8, 1974 where I watched Aaron break Babe Ruth's home run record on televison.

 

 

P is for Pafko

Cubs Home run hitters from Aramis to Zimmerman

P is for Pafko

Andy Pafko
1921-2013

Cubs,Dodgers (Brooklyn),Braves (Milwaukee) 

Andy Pafko played outfield for the Cubs from 1943 to 1951 when he was moved to Brooklyn Dodgers midseason.  Pafko was an all star 4 consecutive years (1947 to 1950).  Pafko batted .294 as a Cub over 9 seasons and hit 126 of his 213 MLB homers with Chicago. This places him 16th all time in Cubs Home run hitters.  After the Cubs Pafko played with Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn and Hank Aaron In Milwaukee.   

For More A to Z Blogging click here.