Today, I will be blogging about a certain ballplayer who was very good at the major league level. He made seven All-Star Games in his 15-year career from 1963-1977. Ladies and gentleman, Dick Allen.
Dick "Richie" Allen started his career with the Phillies. In 1964, technically his second year in the bigs, he won the Rookie of the Year Award for the NL. He continued to post excellent stats in his years in Philly. After a couple seasons after him winning RoY, he started to be known as the "Wampum Walloper". He got this nickname because he was born in Wampum, Pennsylvania, and because of his power hitting that won over most of Phillies fans' hearts. Most of them.
After a fight with teammate Frank Thomas that resulted in Thomas being released the day after the fight, many Phillies fans were very mad at Dick. During Phillies home games, he was greeted by showers of food, garbage and debris. He eventually started to wear his batting helmet in the field because of this and earned the nickname "Crash Helmet", which was shortened to "Crash".
After 1969, he was traded to the Cardinals. He made the All Star team that year and established himself as one of the great power hitters of his day. After going to the Dodgers in 1971, Allen went to the White Sox before the 1972 season. He proceeded to win the MVP Award in the AL, hitting 37 homers, 113 RBIs, and batted .308. He continued to post solid stats until he retired in 1977. His final career stats were as follows: 351 homers, 1,119 RBIs, a .292 batting average, 1,848 hits, and 894 walks.
Sadly, Allen is not in the Hall of Fame. However, had he played longer, his stats might have been Hall of Fame-worthy. Shout-out to one of my biggest fans, Bart Fraenkel, the former mayor of my town, for giving me the idea to blog about Dick. Thanks for reading!
I like how he could swing a heavy bat
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