DALLAS -- Dick Allen was one of the most prolific sluggers of his era. He oozed swag and cool, marched to a beat of his own percussion and famously graced a cover of Sports Illustrated in 1972 juggling baseballs and smoking a cigarette in the White Sox’ dugout at Comiskey Park.
It was a season that saw him win the American League Most Valuable Player Award after he carried a rejuvenated White Sox team through a division pennant race with the three-time World Series champion Oakland Athletics, one that former general manager Roland Hemond said saved the Sox franchise and one that went a long way to getting Allen voted into the Hall of Fame Sunday by the Classic Baseball Era Committee.
Pirates and Reds outfielder Dave Parker was also elected Sunday night at the Winter Meetings in Dallas.
Family members and friends joined in a jubilant embrace after the selection of Allen, who died in 2020, was announced. There were hugs, tears and shouts of "Let's go!"
"It's like waiting on that third out," Richard Allen Jr. said moments after the announcement. "Just wait, just waiting. It's a load off my mind and off my back. Because he never wanted to talk about it, he never did talk about it. He always felt other people were more deserving. I used to tell him, ‘No, your numbers are just good. You should be there.' ''
From 1964-74, among players with 2,000 or more plate appearances, Allen produced a 165 OPS+. That number topped a Hall of Fame list that includes Willie McCovey, Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Willie Stargell, Reggie Jackson, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays and Harmon Killebrew below him.
OPS+ takes a player's on-base plus slugging percentage and normalizes the number across the entire league, accounting for external factors such as ballparks.
Allen was named on 13 of 16 ballots and Parker on 14 of 16, the only candidates to reach the necessary 75% threshold.
Tommy John got seven votes and Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris, and Luis Tiant had fewer than five votes.
Allen played for five teams from 1963-77, spending nine seasons with the Phillies while collecting 351 home runs, 1,119 RBI and a .292/.378/.534 batting line with a .912 OPS. He was named the 1972 AL Most Valuable Player and the 1964 NL Rookie of the Year, with seven career All-Star selections. In addition to the MVP honor, he won NL Rookie of the Year honors with the Phillies in 1964 and made seven All-Star teams.
Dick Allen is in the Hall. pic.twitter.com/6DpFpiKLGG
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) December 9, 2024
A corner infielder, Allen was a superb baserunner.
Only two seasons removed from the Sox going 56-106 before 495,355 home fans, the Sox acquired Allen in a trade with the Dodgers for John, creating a prosperous pairing with Sox manager Chuck Tanner. Allen was lauded for his professionalism and for a being a great teammate.
Limelight and attention were not his thing.
"They actually had to mail him the MVP trophy because he didn’t take it," Allen Jr. said. "That’s his humbleness. So for this, I think he's happier that I would be doing this and not him."
Allen, who played 15 seasons for the Sox, Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers and Athletics, was one of eight finalists considered by a 16-person committee of managers, umpires, executives and long-retired players.
In 14 tries on the Hall of Fame ballot, Allen never got more than 18.9% of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America. He finished one vote shy of induction the last two times he was on the committee ballots.
When former Sox teammate Rich Gossage received a call with the news about Allen from a room at the Winter Meetings, he shouted "No freaking way!" with joy.
"Just like a champagne pop," Allen Jr. said. "I wanted to hear it, I wanted to see it. We saw it, just so much to take in. The reaction was a big sigh of relief, mainly. That's the main thing I would have to say. Long overdue, long overdue."
Dick Allen has said his wish would have been to wear the Sox logo at the induction. Which cap is chosen was not yet decided, Allen Jr. said.
