Mitchell Nathanson - God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen

God Almighty Hisself

The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen

MITCHELL NATHANSON

Copyright 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press

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for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this

book may be reproduced in any form by any means without

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Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nathanson, Mitchell, 1966 author.

God Almighty hisself : the life and legacy of Dick Allen / Mitchell Nathanson.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8122-4801-2 (alk. paper)

1. Allen, Dick, 1942 2. Baseball playersPennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaBiography. 3. African American baseball playersPennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaBiography. 4. Discrimination in sportsUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.

GV865.A35N37 2016

796.357092dc23

[B]

2015033020

For Joanne, Alex, and Jackie

I believe God Almighty Hisself would have trouble handling Richie Allen.

George Myatt, Phillies interim manager

I WOULDNT SAY that I hate Whitey, but deep down in my heart, I just cant stand Whiteys ways, man. Dick Allen, in repose, at last, with a reporter of all people, spoke freely and held nothing back. A confluence of factors unburdened him for what seemed like the first time in years, maybe the first time ever, or at least since anybody outside of Wampum, Pennsylvania, had become aware of the bespectacled Superman with the seemingly never-ending litany of first names (Dick? Rich? Richie? Sleepy?). He was finally rid of both Philadelphia and the Phillies after six-plus years of torment on both sides of the equation, having settled tranquilly (although not wholly without incident) in St. Louis with the Cardinals, an organization known as much for its acceptance of its black ballplayers as its on-field success. He was now just one of the guys on a team replete with future Hall of Famers, such as Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, and Steve Carlton, and no longer the athletic fulcrum of an entire city. And he was rapping with a member of the black media for a changespeaking with someone who perhaps was more likely to understand who he was and where had beensomeone who knew what it took to have to deal with those who assumed that the issue of equality had been solved years before with the abolition of separate but equal and the segregated lunch counters and water fountains that went with it. For a moment at least, Dick Allen was at peace.

Chronicling the emergence of black consciousness in Lex Morrow, the novels protagonist, The Greengage Affair resonated with Dick for its asides on the ugly truth of contemporary race relations, be they in the backwater of the fictional Greengage, Mississippi, the real-world Little Rock, Arkansas, where Dick endured a minor league trial by fire in 1963, or the large, allegedly progressive northern cities such as Detroit or even Philadelphia. Its a good book, Allen continued, sharing a thought that would no doubt get lost, get jumbled, get misconstrued by a different audience, but, you see, all this type of stuff makes me mad. And then Im really aware of Whitey, man, really aware of Whitey. Philly taught me that people can be the cruelest things in the world.

In Philly, Dick remarked, white barbers wont even let you in their shops, and [then] whites were hollering from the stands, Get your hair cut! A subtle, yet strongly defiant message is sent when the former routeperhaps the easier, clearer routeis forsaken for the latter. Something is said through the mere act of refusal that cannot be uttered otherwise, something that brings a measure of dignity to what might otherwise be a situation devoid of any. And so Dick Allen refused to participate, first in little ways and then in greater ones. And a message was delivered. And a message was, ultimately, received.

Through the course of his major league career, Dick Allen was without doubt recognized for doing a lot of things. He was the 1964 National League Rookie of the Year and the 1972 American League Most Valuable Player. His 351 home runs are more than those of Hall of Famer Ron Santo and trail those of Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda by only 28 despite the fact that he accumulated nearly 1,400 fewer plate appearances than Cepeda. His three slugging titles dwarf the lone title claimed by the prototypical slugger of the era, Harmon Killebrew, and his lifetime .292 batting average tops Killebrews by 36 points. And for those who pray to the altar of sabermetrics, his adjusted OPS+ is higher than that of the greatest slugger of all time, Hall of Famer Hank Aaron. Because of all that he did, the MLB Network in 2012 ranked him as a member of its Top Ten Not in the Hall of Fame (he placed ninth). However, despite all that he did, Dick Allen is remembered more often for the myriad ways he refused to participate: in pregame batting and fielding practice most obviously, but in other ways more subtly. He refused to pander to the media, refused to accept managements time-honored methods for determining the value of a ballplayer, and, most explosively, refused to go along with and kowtow to the racial double standard that had evolved within Major League Baseball in the wake of the games integration in 1947.

Because of all that he did as well as all that he refused to do, Dick became one of the most controversial players in the history of a game replete with them. As Sports Illustrated summed him up in 1970, He is Accordingly, nearly every baseball fan with an opinion had a strong one when it came to Dick Allen and today, many still do.

Throughout the arc of his productive yet strange and oftentimes maddening career, and in the decades thereafter, the debate over who was ultimately to blame for the controversy that seemingly followed him wherever he went raged on, and rages still. Was Dick the cause of his problems or merely misunderstood? Were they contrived by a media and fan base that resented what was perceived as his assertion of Black Power, or were they grounded in and simply the inevitable fallout from a player who just refused to be a team player in the most basic sense of the term? Who is responsible for the tragedy that was Dick Allen? For all of his talent, and despite how much his teammates seemed to like him wherever he went, who is to blame for the fact that no matter where his travels took him over the arc of his fifteen-year careerPhiladelphia, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia again, and Oaklanddisharmony, dissension, disagreement, and disruption invariably came along for the ride? Why is it that one of the most talented players of his generation was ranked by the preeminent baseball historian Bill James as not only the second most controversial player in baseball history (behind only Rogers Hornsby, an accused wife-beater, inveterate gambler, and all-around deadbeat who was continually dragged into court for his failure to pay his taxes and other debts) but someone who did more to