Dick Allen - Retirement Years

Retirement Years

After retirement, Allen had a string of bad fortune, with his uninsured house and horse stables burning down in October 1979. He subsequently left his wife for a younger woman; his wife took him to court and got everything he had left, even the rights to his baseball pension. He has written (with Tim Whitaker) an autobiography titled Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen, which Bill James has called "one of the best baseball books in recent years". For many years Allen held the distinction of the highest slugging percentage among players eligible for but not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. This only ended in 2006, when Albert Belle became eligible but was not elected. Whether Allen is worthy of the Hall of Fame has been hotly debated, with many people arguing he is the best player not in the Hall. The arguments usually center around his very high career averages, batting (.292), slugging (.534), and on-base (.378). They also point out that he began his career during the mid-1960s, a period so dominated by pitchers that it is sometimes called the "second dead ball era". Allen also played some of his career in pitcher-friendly parks such as Busch Memorial Stadium, Dodger Stadium, and Comiskey Park.

Detractors of his Hall of Fame credentials argue that his career was not as long as most Hall of Famers, so he does not have the career cumulative numbers that others do. They also argue that his poor defense and bad clubhouse presence took away from his teams much of what his bat gave them. But according to the two managers for whom Allen played the longest – Gene Mauch of the Phillies and Chuck Tanner of the White Sox – he was not a "clubhouse lawyer" who harmed team chemistry. Asked if Allen's behavior ever had a negative influence on the team, Mauch said: "Never." According to Tanner, "Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every game as if it was his last day on earth."

2008 Hall of Fame inductee Rich Gossage confirmed Tanner's view during ESPN's interview show with Gossage and Dick Williams. Gossage talked about how Dick Allen had worked with him to learn more about the league's hitters, to help make him a more effective pitcher. Also in 2008, another of Allen's ex-White Sox teammates, pitcher Stan Bahnsen, said, "I actually thought that Dick was better than his stats. Every time we needed a clutch hit, he got it. He got along great with his teammates and he was very knowledgeable about the game. He was the ultimate team guy." Another Hall of Fame teammate, Mike Schmidt, credited Dick Allen in his book, "Clearing the Bases", as his mentor. In a Mike Schmidt biography written by historian William C. Kashatus, Mike Schmidt fondly recalls Dick Allen mentoring him before a game in Chicago in 1976, saying to him, "Mike, you've got to relax. You've got to have some fun. Remember when you were just a kid and you'd skip supper to play ball? You were having fun. Hey, with all the talent you've got, baseball ought to be fun. Enjoy it. Be a kid again." Mike Schmidt responded by hitting four home runs in that game. Mike Schmidt is quoted in the same book, "The baseball writers used to claim that Dick would divide the clubhouse along racial lines. That was a lie. The truth is that Dick never divided any clubhouse."