Dick Allen spoke for an hour, maybe more, and he seemed so comfortable. After all these years, order has been restored, as if the rebel’s cause now is peace of mind.
“But I always felt at ease playing the game,” Allen said. “It was the other stuff I didn’t care about. Remember Harry Caray? Called me a `million-dollar talent with a 10-cent brain.’ Funny, I actually thought that was funny. But it was the way you people on the outside looking in saw me.”
Allen is back where he belongs at age 52. He’s in baseball again, if not in uniform. The Philadelphia Phillies have one tailored to fit him, but he never cared much for the pomp and ceremony. He’s got a job he wasn’t really seeking, and he’s excited about it. Besides, he looks fine just wearing a smile and sweats and puffing cigarette smoke toward Florida’s morning sunshine.
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“Roving instructor,” Allen said. “That’s my title. Don’t need to dress up for it. If I can help some of the kids in this organization get better, if I can help them want to get better, I’ll be doing my job. How about that? Me, teaching.”
Harry Caray was at least half right. Dick “Don’t Call Me Richie” Allen was a million-dollar talent before the players broke the bank. He was rookie of the year in 1964, a fateful year in which the Phillies blew a 6 1/2-game lead with 10 games remaining. On to Chicago and the White Sox in 1972, where Allen was an American League MVP once and its home run leader twice. He also did time with the Dodgers, Cardinals and Oakland, and wishes he hadn’t.
“Philadelphia or Chicago,” Allen said. “If Chuck Tanner, my manager with the Sox, had been in Philly when I started, that’s where I would have stayed. Or if I’d have started in Chicago with Chuck instead of starting in Philadelphia, Chicago’s where I would have finished, too. Best sports town of all, really. I mean, look at how those people support the Cubs. And when did they last win anything? Who are they fooling?”
Allen never made the effort to delude audiences during his playing days. If he had a gift of gab, he didn’t share it with the media. But with the game on, Allen was a force. He was born with more than an ability to hit for power and percentage. If you needed a base stolen, Allen was your man. Just don’t ask him to explain.
“The guys on my team, they knew,” Allen said. “I strapped it on and played hard, every night. But you writers wrote what you wanted to write, and the fans in Philadelphia let me have it. Booed me, stoned my house, drove a car through my garage, knocking my car through the other side. I thought I was in Mississippi.
“I’m black, I didn’t kiss up to anybody, and still don’t. But I’m fulfilled and since I’ve returned, I’ve found more friends from Philly than I thought I had. I didn’t get to a World Series, but neither did Ernie Banks in Chicago. No regrets, though. I did my best.”
Allen’s best in Chicago was enough to merit a three-year contract elevating him to royalty, but salary figures aren’t his favorite topic, either. He thinks money has corrupted baseball. Athletes are stronger, bigger, faster, but they’d rather hit the jackpot than the cutoff man. That’s why Phillies General Manager Lee Thomas brought Allen back into the organization during the winter.
“To help the kids,” Allen said. “So many of them who think they’re ready, aren’t. They don’t know the game. I’ll talk to them if they ask and if they’ll listen. This could be fun.”
It will be good therapy. Two years ago, Allen’s 28-year-old daughter, Terri Lynn, was murdered.
“Broke my heart,” he said. “She was full of energy, life, love. And listen to this. She went to school in journalism and communications. Of all things, can you imagine a daughter of mine doing something like that?”
Dick Allen popped another cigarette into his mouth and looked out at all his new children in the batting cage.