Looking forward to the pre-integration ballot next year and seeing what names are on that list.

Different eras, different leagues. Colavito also hit just .266, slugged just .489. Allen hit .292, slugged .534. Allen had an OPS+ of 156 - for his career.

That's why "a quick glance" ain't enough.

I honestly never saw Allen play, but reading the below from Dave Fleming in 2008, he doesn't sound like an all out competitor.

Dick Allen, The Player



Looking only at his record, it is a little surprising that Dick Allen hasn’t been elected to the Hall of Fame. He won the 1964 Rookie of the Year and the 1972 AL MVP. He was a seven-time All-Star, a high .300 hitter with remarkable power. His career numbers suffer slightly because his prime years took place in an era of low offense, but by any reasonable measure Dick Allen was a great hitter.


Conservatively, Dick Allen was one of the top forty hitters of all-time. And that’s very conservative. He averaged 31.68 Win Shares per 162 games, which is higher than any first baseman except Lou Gehrig. Dick Allen won a few major awards and was the best offensive player in the game for ten years. His career line is a little low, but his peak is remarkable. His statistical record is the record of a Hall of Fame player.



Dick Allen, the Man



So we come to Dick Allen, the man. The debate about whether or not Dick Allen should be in the baseball Hall of Fame rests entirely on our interpretation of his personality, and how that personality influenced the teams he played on.



Bill James once wrote that Dick Allen “did more to keep his teams from winning than anyone else who ever played major league baseball.” In his Historical Abstract, Bill added that Dick Allen was the second most controversial player in baseball history, behind Rogers Hornsby.



Think about that for a moment: Dick Allen was the second most controversial player in history.



Here’s an exercise: write down a list of the most controversial players in baseball history. Ty Cobb would be on the list. Joe Jackson created a fair bit of controversy. Hal Chase: he was the Devil in a uniform. Babe Ruth generated a little bit of press, I suppose, and though it's forgotten now, Ted Williams was about as disliked as any player ever was. Joe Medwick almost caused a riot in the 1934 World Series and was nearly killed by a teammate. Reggie Jackson and Pete Rose had their moments. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are our current lightning rods.



I wasn’t around to follow Dick Allen’s career, but I have little reason to contradict Bill’s comments. And wherever Allen ranks among the most controversial players, there is no doubt that Dick Allen had a career filled with controversy. And you know what? A lot of that controversy is sort of ignored right now. It sure seems that accounts about Allen have undergone a kind of historical revision.



I’ll give you an example: the late Gene Mauch, Dick Allen’s former manager, was often asked about Allen. In those interviews Mauch made a concerted effort to describe Allen in a flattering light. He repeatedly called Allen the greatest player he ever managed, and when pressed to speak of Allen’s flaws, Mauch was quick to reject any suggestion that Allen wasn't a saint. If pressed hard, Mauch cites Allen’s chronic tardiness.


And you know what? Allen was chronically tardy. But saying so is a sort of half-truths: Allen was tardy because he was often stopping at bars before games to drink. And Mauch covered for Allen for years: time and time again Allen would miss games or get fined for causing trouble, and Mauch would explain everything away an innocuous excuse. Dick Allen has been fined for being late. Dick Allen isn’t playing because he has a sore body part. It wasn’t true. You get the sense, too, that Mauch wanted to be on the right side of history. He doesn’t want the teams he managed described as having any racial tensions. And to that end, he certainly wouldn’t want to voice any criticism of that team’s most visible black player.

Historical gerrymandering aside, I think Mauch’s motivations for making excuses for Dick Allen stemmed from the very best of human intentions: he wanted to protect Allen from fans who were exceedingly hard on Allen and a press that rode his ass from day one. It was an act of compassion for Mauch to say years later: “Dick Allen was always tardy,” when he really meant “Dick Allen had a serious drinking problem.” Compassion, sure, but it’s still a lie.



For those of us who didn’t follow Allen’s career, that sort of stuff is glossed over. How many of us know that Allen, eager to get out of Philly, started scratching notes in the on-deck circle. He wrote “Oct. 2” because it was the last day he’d have to wear the Philly uniform, and when the fans got on his case he wrote, “Boo.” It’s actually a little bit funny: he’d write stuff like “Mom” and “No,” and people in the stands would freak out. That’s hardly ever mentioned. He missed a doubleheader in 1969 because he was at the horse tracks, and then bitched and moaned when he was suspended. The suspension was lifted almost immediately, but Allen sat out 26 games, causing President Nixon to send Allen a message to start playing. When he came back, he insisted on his own private dressing room and made threats that ‘something would happen,’ if anyone complained. His manager quit in frustration when Allen refused to play an exhibition game against the Philly AA team.



All that crap is forgotten about. What is attended to, what is given weight in our considerations of Allen’s career, is the abuse he endured in 1963, as a member of the Phillies AAA team in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the similar abuse he endured from the Philadelphia fans and press. This stuff is brought up as a way to explain away Allen’s behavior, and to clarify the contexts of his times. The same holds true over Allen’s fight with teammate Frank Thomas: in the telling of the story, close attention is given to the racial overtones of the fight, to Thomas’s taunts about Cassius Clay and Malcolm X.



We strive, in this modern age, to understand contexts. We want to understand how Dick Allen became Dick Allen. It’s a reasonable aspiration, even a noble one. But it does Allen a disservice of sorts: by focusing on the circumstances that surrounded him, we deny the possibility that Allen had choices within those circumstances. He made the choice to be self-destructive. He made the choice to fight with Thomas, to chide Thomas and to rise to Thomas’s race-baiting. Allen had the talent to be an all-time great and he wasn’t. And as much as the world around him was set against him, he bears responsibilities for that failure.



I think Dick Allen is understood in two different ways, two conceptions that are separated by generational lines. Those of us who didn’t watch Allen, those of us who came along too late to see Allen and read the daily reports of his behavior, we grew up indoctrinated in the belief that context trumps character. That where we come from and what traumas we endure have a large role in shaping the kind of people we become. For this reason, we tend to think that Dick Allen’s failings are the failing of the larger society, while his successes are the triumphs of a courageous but flawed individual.



But those who did watch Allen, those who fought in a difficult war and endured the decade of social revolution that followed, they placed a greater burden on the actions of the individual. Life is hard, and the best we can do is use those hardships as motivations. Henry Aaron did that. Jackie Robinson did, too. So did Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente and Larry Doby and Curt Flood and countless others. Dick Allen didn’t. Where the others strived for greatness, Dick Allen was content to sow discord and squander his ability. He should have been an all-time great, and he wasn’t. That was his choice.



I don’t know which interpretation is right, or if either one is completely fair. But the question about Dick Allen and the Hall of Fame is a hard question to answer, because it extends beyond simply statistical analysis. It encroached on the terrain of how we imagine we should live our own lives, and by what measure we judge the lives of others.

I wouldn't call his peak "remarkable." Sure, his typical season of 30-90/95-.295 was very solid in the context of that time, but "remarkable"????

Jim Bunning on the process
 

Interesting little article on philly.com today about Jim Bunning's experience at the Golden Era balloting session. The man sounds exasperated...

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...rfect_day.html

It seems this will keep being thrown out there, and I'll keep defending Hooper as a legitimate and completely deserving HOFer. I'll copy an updated version what I wrote several times before:

A few points about Hooper:

- He was a lead-off man with more pop than most,
- His job was to score runs - he scored 1429 of them (#82 all time), averaging 100 per full season over his entire career,
- Ranked #106 all time in career base hits,
- Ranked #40 all time in triples, which means, in that era, both speed and power,
- Drew over 1000 walks, averaging 80 per full season, good for #71 all-time,
- Glove? Not even a question. One of the greatest ever. Key component of what many regard as the best outfield of all time,
- World Series? Unreal with both glove and bat. Won 4 World Series titles with Red Sox between 1912-1918. The key player who was a constant in all 4 Red Sox championship years. Hooper is the only HOFer to play in all 4 years of the Red Sox dynasty of the 1910s. And Speaker only played 2 of the 4. Can you imagine the uproar in New York if a team from that city won 4 World Series titles in 7 years and only sent one guy from those teams to the HOF? Unthinkable.
- First player ever to hit 2 home runs in a single WS game in 1915,
- Also stole 375 bases, good for #90 all-time,
- The first and longest part of his career was played in the dead ball era with Boston. He hit .272 over this period. He went to Chicago roughly when the lively ball came into play and after that - in the seasons forming the twilight of his career - he hit .302...pretty good evidence of the effect of the lively ball on the stats of some players.

So I strongly disagree with the widely-held idea that Hooper does not belong. To me he is an obvious HOFer.

Cheers,
Blair

I never though there was any real controversy over Hooper being in the Hall. He may not be a top tier or even a mid tier Hall Of Fame player, but he is deserving for his steady play and key contributions to one of the great early dynasties.

I would put him in before someone like Tony Lazzeri.

Tom C

I'm still pissed Minnie didn't get in.

Me Too! He's very deserving.

Dan, I know how you feel. The fact that Minnie isn't in is proof baseball's Hall of Fame balloting is totally busted. If you look at all Minnie achieved — he was a five tool player who was baseball's first Spanish-speaking star, and put up stellar numbers for a decade despite missing several prime years as a result of the color of his skin — he's unquestionably a Hall of Famer. I can't take the Hall of Fame seriously until he's in.

First off, I'm not saying I think Bunning shouldn't be in the HOF, nor am I saying he should....

4 x 19W seasons and only 1 x 20W season (and it was exactly 20Ws).... just one more W in 3 of 4 of those seasons would have helped....

wolf441----Your rundown on Dick Allen was extremely well-written and thought provocative. The only thing I might add is that when he came to Chicago, he had what I believe was his best year, happiest year, and it was one glorious honeymoon for all concerned. For a while.

Then Dick reverted to his divisive ways of stinkin' thinkin' and everything went to pot all over again.

Sure, he had some "Hall of Famer" years; but in retrospect, he has absolutely no place on a bronze plaque at Cooperstown. By this time, most horses probably don't want him hanging around them, either.

You guys who say Minnie Minoso belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame----KEEP SHOUTING, MAKING NOISE, AND BOMBARD THE HALL!!!! Minnie needs a guy like the one that helped found SPORTS SCOOP in the early 70s and launched a tirade of "The Dirty Deal" articles at the BHOF for the way they had long ignored Earl Averill. It worked. Earl got elected, and rightfully so.


Minnie Minoso belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He may not wear a World Series ring, but his name rings loud and strong among us who have studied his contributions to the Chicago White Sox and Latin people, beginning at the not so tender age of, what was it, 29!?!

This won't count, of course, but in 1961, in the northwest suburb of Chicago where I lived, when you got Minnie Minoso's Topps baseball card, it was just as exciting as when you got Mickey Mantle's. ---Brian Powell

Minoso's major league debut was at the age of 23.

I don't think Minoso was a better player than Mattingly or Larry Walker and neither of them will probably ever get in.

Regardless how old Minnie was when he broke in — more than one birth date been published — he was good enough in 1946 to bat leadoff for the New York Cubans when they won the Negro League World Series. He didn't get a chance to play regularly in the majors until 1951.

Outstanding defense of Harry Hooper... and some food for thought
 

Blair deserves kudos for his outstanding defense of Harry Hooper's record. As I paged through Deadball Stars of the American League and Deadball Stars of the National League I became increasingly impressed by the baseball ability of many who played during the T206 era, who contributed mightily to their teams and who, sadly, have been largely forgotten or overlooked due to the differences in strategy, the style of play and even the baseballs used.

Well done, Blair. What applies to Harry Hooper (in various ways) applies to a goodly number of other Deadball Era stars including Sherry Magee, Stuffy McInnis, Jake Daubert and others.

As others have said, Harry Hooper IS a Hall of Famer and deserves to be one - as does Jim Bunning.

If I were Bunning working with some of those guys...
 

Interesting article. If I had been in Jim Bunning's shoes and working with guys who (in the past) had sent in blank BBWAA Hall of Fame ballots, did not ask questions or give comment on deserving players and otherwise served as a potted plant during the gathering, I would be disgusted, too. It is my view that the committee was almost doomed from the start, given its composition and the participation of its members.

As most know, Jim Bunning pitcher became Congressman (later Senator) James Bunning of Kentucky following his Hall of Fame pitching career. He is used to mixing it up politically and it sounds like he fought for Richie Allen (and possibly others) for the Hall of Fame. We need more fighters like Jim - in Washington and on behalf of Cooperstown worthies.

He also fought for Maury Wills, who belongs nowhere near the HOF.

Thanks very much, Steve! :)

Cheers,
Blair

First off, the birth date of Minoso is up in the air, like that of Satchel Paige. I have always gone by my 1964 Chicago White Sox yearbook entry for Minnie, which lists his birthday as November 29, 1922. What Cleveland offered him in 1949 was a cup o' coffee. His genuine first year of play was 1951, so if the yearbook date is correct, I was off by one year. He was 28, the same late age as when Jackie Robinson began his major league career. ---Brian Powell

If the 1922 birth date is correct, his age 23 and 24 seasons in the Negro Leagues weren't anything to write home about. Much more understandable numbers if he was 20 and 21 at the time however. Not sure what his winter league stats looked like in Cuba over these years.

Tom C

nice interview w/ Minnie

HOF is a joke until Minnie gets in