HOF Results

[jayshum]

From Jay Jaffe's write-up on Dick Allen:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-gol...te-dick-allen/

"Sabermetrician Don Malcolm called that passage “the absolute nadir of Bill James’ career, a summary statement so blatantly biased that his long-time friend and associate Craig Wright felt compelled to write an essay refuting Bill’s perspective… Everyone knows that Dick Allen was a great hitter; there’s just all that other baggage that they’re afraid to open.” Having opened it, well, it’s not pretty, but by now it’s abundantly clear that it wasn’t all Allen’s baggage to begin with. Wright’s work, which featured interviews with all but one of Allen’s big league managers (the late Dodgers skipper Walter Alston) as well as several teammates, strongly refutes the notion that Allen was a divisive clubhouse presence or a particular problem for his managers aside from his early-career tardiness (and his extreme behavior in 1969). “His teammates always liked him,” said Mauch. “He wasn’t doing anything to hurt [his teammates] play of the game, and he didn’t involve his teammates in his problems. When he was personally rebellious, he didn’t try to bring other players into it.”

Even Skinner and Ozark, the two managers portrayed as the most openly critical of him, told Wright that Allen wasn’t the problem with their teams and that they’d have him back again if given the chance."