This evening it was announced that the Classic Era Baseball Committee had elected both Dick Allen and Dave Parker to the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
The pair will be inducted in Cooperstown, New York on July 27, 2025, along with players voted upon by the BBWAA. Those results will be announced next month.
While I am glad that both Allen and Parker have finally been given their due this news is bittersweet.
For starters, Allen passed away four years ago yesterday at the age of 78. His family can enjoy this honor, but Allen cannot.
Although Parker is still with us at age 73, he has been battling Parkinson's Disease for about a dozen years and is now wheelchair bound. For someone with a terminal disease, seven months is a long time. I truly hope Parker will be able to enjoy what will be his last moment in the sun.
Allen, a native of Wampum, Pennsylvania, signed with the Philadelphia Phillies prior to the 1960 season making his big-league debut at the tail end of the 1963 season. Allen would win 1964 NL Rookie of the Year honors hitting .318 with 29 HR and 91 RBI while leading the Senior Circuit with 352 total bases,13 triples and 125 runs scored.
Unfortunately, his rookie season was marred by the Phillies' late season collapse to the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals. There was also the incessant booing and hurling of objects towards Allen's direction often accompanied by racist abuse. This would prompt Allen to wear a batting helmet while he played the field - something he did for the rest of his playing career.
Allen's relationship with Phillies fans did not improve despite five more productive seasons including three consecutive NL All-Star Team selections between 1965 and 1967. A fight with Phillies teammate Frank Thomas (not to be confused with the Hall of Famer) only accelerated the contempt with which he was held in Philly.
The Phillies would trade Allen to the St. Louis Cardinals following the 1969 season in a multiplayer deal which included Curt Flood who refused to report to the Phillies and eventually led to a challenge of the reserve clause which went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Flood refused to accept the trade in part because of the treatment Allen endured in the City of Brotherly Love.
Although Allen continued to have productive seasons with the Cardinals in 1970 and with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1971, it wasn't until he arrived with the Chicago White Sox in 1972 that he finally felt at ease. Chisox manager Chuck Tanner let Dick Allen be Dick Allen and Dick Allen thrived.
Allen would win the 1972 AL MVP hitting .308 while leading the Junior Circuit with 37 HR, 113 RBI, .420 OBP, .603 SLG, 1.023 OPS and a 199 OPS +. Injuries would limit Allen to 72 games in 1973, but he would rebound in 1974 leading the AL in HR (32), SLG (.563) and OPS (.938).
Following the 1974 season, however, the Chisox would trade Allen to the Atlanta Braves, but he did not want to play in the South. The Braves, instead, traded Allen back to the Philadelphia Phillies. This time around, however, Allen was welcomed back warmly by the Phillies faithful. While not an everyday player, Allen did help the young Phillies team and would reach the post-season for the first time when the team won the NL East title in 1976 though they would be swept in the NLCS by the eventual World Series champion Cincinnati Reds.
Allen would finish his playing career with in 1977 with the Oakland A's. In 1749 games over 15 seasons, Allen collected 1848 hits for a lifetime batting average of .292 with 351 HR and 1119 RBI with 7 All-Star Team selections (4 in the NL and 3 in the AL).
Between 1983 and 1997, Allen appeared on the BBWAA ballot but never received more than 20% of the vote. Before his ascension today, Allen also appeared on six Veterans Committee/Classic Baseball Era Committee ballots between 2003 and 2022. Due to these past votes, Allen's family wasn't expecting much today but was delighted once they received the news.
Born in Mississippi, Dave Parker grew up in Cincinnati and would be drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of high school in the 14th round of the 1970 MLB Draft. Parker would reach the big leagues in 1973 and began to put the NL on notice in 1975 when he finished third in NL MVP balloting behind the Big Red Machine's Joe Morgan and Philadelphia Phillies slugger Greg Luzinski, hitting .308 with 25 HR and 101 RBI while leading the NL in slugging at .541.
While Parker did well under the tutelage of longtime Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh, he would do even better when the Bucs acquired Chuck Tanner from the Oakland A's to manage the team in 1977. Yes, the same Chuck Tanner who let Dick Allen be Dick Allen. Tanner adopted much the same approach with Parker and got amazing results in return. Parker would win the NL batting title in 1977 with a .338 mark while also leading the NL in hits (215), doubles (44) and would win the first of three consecutive Gold Gloves for his superior play in rightfield.
Somehow Parker outdid himself in 1978 winning the NL MVP with a second consecutive NL batting title (.334) with 30 HR and 117 RBI. Parker led the NL in SLG (.585), OPS (.979), OPS + (166) and total bases (340).
While Parker would cede the spotlight in 1979 to teammate Willie "Pops" Stargell (who would share NL MVP honors with Keith Hernandez of the St. Louis Cardinals), he would earn MVP honors in the 1979 MLB All-Star Game in Seattle when he made a spectacular throw to future Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter of the Montreal Expos to gun down California Angels catcher Brian Downing at home plate.
The Pirates would go on to win the 1979 World Series coming back from a 3-1 deficit against the Baltimore Orioles. Unfortunately, despite this triumph, Pirates fans had begun to sour on Parker. So much so that Parker saw fit to skip the World Series parade.
Parker's relationship with Pirates fans would continue to disintegrate as he was often the target of bullets and batteries thrown at him during home games not unlike the treatment Allen received from Phillies fans during the 1960s.
Prior to the 1984 season, Parker would return home to Cincinnati to play with the Reds. In 1985, Parker enjoyed a renaissance season hitting .312 with 34 with a league leading 125 RBI while also leading the NL with 42 doubles. Parker would finish runner up in NL MVP balloting to St. Louis Cardinals speedster Willie McGee.
Unfortunately, Parker's comeback was overshadowed by the Pittsburgh drug trials. Parker and other players admitted to using cocaine. He was to have been suspended for the 1986 season, but his punishment was commuted in exchange for donating 10% of his salary to anti-drug causes, 100 hours of community service and random drug testing for the remainder of his playing career.
Parker would have another 30 HR 100 RBI campaign for the Reds in 1986 before being traded to the Oakland A's in 1987 for pitchers Jose Rijos and Tim Birtsas. This would result in World Series play in both 1988 and 1989 winning his second World Series ring in the latter contest. For his part, Jose Rijo would win 1990 World Series MVP honors for the Reds against the A's. But by this time, Parker was in Milwaukee where he would earn his 7th and final All-Star Team selection. Parker split the 1991 season between the California Angels and Toronto Blue Jays.
In 2466 games over 19 seasons, Parker collected 2712 hits for a lifetime batting average of .290 with 339 HR and 1493 RBI. In addition to his 7 All-Star selections, 3 Gold Gloves, 2 World Series rings and 2 NL batting titles, Parker also won the Silver Slugger thrice (twice in the NL in 1985 and 1986 and once in the AL in 1990).
Parker would appear on the BBWAA ballot 15 times between 1997 (Allen's last year on the ballot) and 2011 never garnering more than 25% of the vote. He would not receive a single Classic Baseball Era Committee vote in either 2014 or 2018 before receiving 7 votes in 2020, the year Ted Simmons and MLBPA Executive Director Marvin Miller got the call to the Cooperstown.
It's been a long time and coming for both Dick Allen and Dave Parker. Let them have their plaques.
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