Peter,
Wow...
Just because he struck out a lot doesn't mean that he only struck out.
My recollection is seeing him batting successfully in hit and run situations, in person. That was in the mid 60's. He could hit and run then. I saw it. But that is also when he was young and coachable. Gene Mauch survived that for a few years, and once Richie settled into being a talented big leaguer he became somewhat less manageable and developed his own sense of self determination (hardheadedness).
Instead of just grabbing a season's strike out numbers to be determinative proof of one's ability to hit and run, pick a couple of seasons, 1964 through 1967, and go to retrosheet.org, I think they'll have a game log for each of his games.
What you will find is that with a runner on first, he was less likely to strike out, and often, if he got any kind of a hit, it was most likely a single that moved the runner to third. And you'll see that he was more likely to strike out with no one on base (when he was trying to muscle a ball over the fence).
Now, when the 1970's roll around, and he became Dick Allen, I think he swung for the fences a bit more often, he was more about self instead of team, and he was not expected to hit and run as often. That was in his later years,
I'm not saying he didn't strike out a lot in those early years, he did. To some extent, in later years, he was out of the lineup more often, and his strike outs were fewer. partly because he didn't swing as wildly in later years, and partly because he was getting fewer at bats.
I saw him wearing the birds on the bat probably 7 or 8 times in 1970. The attitude had set in by then. He had the ability of generating that loud crack that comes from a ball being well hit with the bat's barrel. Or, to paraphrase, he could shatter the ozone with all of his might. I saw him with the Phillies in 1964 and 1965, and the Dodgers after he left the Cardinals. The man had bat control (when neeeded) and could hit and run.
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09-20-2024, 10:45 PM
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