Why Dick Allen?

As a youth, I became a White Sox fan during the Dark Ages of '68-'71. During that time the White Sox finished a combined 129 games out of 1st. Gail Hopkins was our excuse for a star. They were bad times indeed.

Then in '72 a stranger arrived in town. He was a big man and carried a bigger bat. Dick Allen. He hit .308 with 37 HR's and 113 RBI that first year. The Sox finished 87-67 and 5.5 games out of 1st. Did I mention - he carried one of the biggest bats in baseball? I was mind blown.

During that season he had a game where he hit two, count 'em, two inside the park home runs. The following month he became one of the few to hit a homer into the centerfield stands at Old Comiskey (35th & Shields). It happened to be a day when Harry was broadcasting in the bleachers ("Where's my net?"), and the ball missed him by a couple feet. He even earned the AL MVP that year.

Anyway, during that season Richie "Dick" Allen became my first, and to this day, only honest to god, true baseball hero. The kind of a hero 11 year old boys are supposed to have in baseball. Of course, he was far from perfect. In keeping with the times, he was more than a little bit of a flake and a renegade, but somewhere inside that appealed to me as much as his exploits on the diamond.

There have certainly been better ball players over the years. Even on the Sox I long ago surrendered the title of "Greatest Sox Player Ever" to the Big Hurt. But for one magical season, in the mind of an 11 year old boy, Dick Allen and his badass bat was "the best there ever was."