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Dick Allen and Dave Parker, Hall of Famers in the end: What we discovered from their election

12/09/2024

There is one thing so becoming concerning the considered the Hall of Fame plaques of Dick Allen and Dave Parker hanging aspect by aspect without end within the plaque gallery in Cooperstown, N.Y.

They had been towering figures from a really totally different time. They appeared and felt like giants as they crammed up the batter’s containers of America … wheeling their mammoth Louisville Sluggers … terrifying pitchers from coast to coast … placing up breathtaking numbers … every of them gathering MVP trophies within the historic baseball occasions of the Nineteen Seventies.

So assume how arduous it’s to lose sight of males like that. But in some way, we did. Their look ahead to that Hall of Fame second went on for years, for many years — till lastly, the Classic Baseball Era Committee held an election Sunday that may ship these two forgotten giants to Cooperstown subsequent July.

What took so lengthy? That was the query that echoed via the evening, together with so many highly effective feelings. So let’s dig into that — and talk about …

What we discovered from the Classic Era Committee election

1. Dick Allen: There is crying in baseball

Dick Allen was the 1964 NL Rookie of the Year. (Associated Press)

With all due respect to Dave Parker, I’m going to start this column writing about Dick Allen, as a result of for me, his election is private. He modified my life. I usually marvel if I might have turn out to be a baseball author if it weren’t for Dick Allen.

When I used to be a child rising up in Philadelphia, he wasn’t simply my favourite participant. He was my first favourite participant. I wasn’t alone. He made me a baseball fan. He turned my mates into baseball followers. He did issues we didn’t know people may do. He hit transcontinental lengthy balls we didn’t know people may hit.

So the information of Allen’s long-overdue election to the Hall of Fame was as thrilling because it was heart-tugging. You may hear it within the sobs of pleasure that overcame John Middleton, the Phillies’ managing common accomplice, as he tried to place Allen’s triumph into phrases Sunday evening.

When his telephone rang with the information, “I began crying,” Middleton stated, the tears flowing once more. “The solely phrases that got here out had been, ‘Oh my God, I can’t consider it.’ I may hardly speak. I by no means thought this second would really happen. I don’t know if there are phrases for that.

“Maybe there’s some nice poet who may put these emotions into phrases,” Middleton went on, his voice cracking. “But for me, it’s only a wave of emotion. And each time I speak about it, I simply get emotional once more.”

That emotion springs from a really actual place. It springs from the disappointment that Allen didn’t dwell to have fun this second. He died, at age 78, on Dec. 7, 2020 — the very day that, if it weren’t for the pandemic, a earlier model of the Veterans Committee might need been assembly to elect him.

But that emotion additionally springs from how shut he’d come to election — two occasions. He is believed to be the one participant ever to overlook by one vote twice.

The first time was 10 years in the past, when he was nonetheless very a lot alive and effectively. The second time was three Decembers in the past, when the Golden Era Committee gathered a 12 months after his demise and elected Gil Hodges, Tony Oliva, Jim Kaat and Minnie Miñoso … however ran out of votes for Dick Allen.

So the closest Allen got here to feeling this type of pleasure and validation got here on Sept. 3, 2020, when Middleton and the Phillies did one thing they’d by no means earlier than executed for a participant who was not a Hall of Famer: They retired Dick Allen’s quantity, in a transferring pregame ceremony.

They’d hoped it could be a prelude to his Induction Day. Instead, as his shut good friend, filmmaker Mike Tollin, would put it, “that was Dick’s Cooperstown second.”

“The pleasure of what we did in September of 2020 was as a result of he was there,” Middleton stated, “and he may expertise it, and he may see and really feel the adulation, and the respect, and the love, and the heat of that second … and to have the ability to simply indulge in it and enjoy it and revel in it.

“This is a good second,” Middleton stated. “But it’s a second with out him. And that makes it totally different — for us, for me, for his household, for Mike, for all of us. Everybody has totally different beliefs, however I consider in heaven. So there’s part of me that believes that Dick is aware of what occurred at present.”

GO DEEPER

The greatness of Dick Allen, and what might need been

2. A Hall of Famer for these occasions, not these occasions

On so many ranges, it is not sensible {that a} man may go 47 years with out a hit and solely then get elected to the Hall of Fame. But welcome to trendy Hall of Fame voting. It’s all the time one thing. But in Dick Allen’s case, I feel there’s really a logical rationalization.

In his time, we didn’t have the instruments that we now have now to measure the greatness of gamers like him. So how did we measure it? We did what of us had executed for a century.

We counted.

Just not excessive sufficient.

If the definition of “Hall of Fame slugger” was 500 homers, Dick Allen was not your man. If the definition of “Hall of Fame hit machine” was 3,000 hits, he wasn’t even shut.

His 351st and remaining homer got here on May 17, 1977 — a ridiculous 17,372 days earlier than he acquired elected. His 1,848th and remaining hit got here 5 weeks later, on June 19, 1977. That was 17,339 days in the past.

So for all these days, all these years, his numbers had been caught in time. Who knew that they had been merely caught in his time, not ours.

Nowadays, again right here in our time, we’re so significantly better at this. So perhaps Allen by no means modified. But fortunately for him, we did. And after we checked out him once more, via the measuring sticks we now use each day, it’s wonderful how his true greatness got here into focus.

“There’s simply one thing about OPS,” Tollin stated. “OPS modified every thing. OPS was the catch-all. OPS+ was actually the catch-all.”

Right! Just have a look at Allen’s profession via the prism of OPS —which mixes a participant’s on base share and slugging share. Then consider OPS+ — which adjusts his OPS for ballpark components and stacks it up in opposition to the period he performed in. Do that, and also you see precisely why Dick Allen is now a Hall of Famer.

You merely should measurement up how Allen in contrast with the Best of the Best throughout his 11-year peak, from 1964-74 — and there’s now not a lot to debate:

OPS+, 1964-74

1. Dick Allen 165
2. Willie McCovey 161
3. Henry Aaron 159
4. Frank Robinson 159

OPS, 1964-74

1. Henry Aaron .941
2. Dick Allen .940
3. Willie McCovey .937

SLUGGING PCT, 1964-74

1. Henry Aaron .561
2. Dick Allen .554
3. Willie McCovey .541
4. Willie Stargell .541

That’s all legends … and him, all Hall of Famers … and him. And now he’s one among them, as a result of it’s about time he’s. But yet one more factor. Want to place these numbers into a fair higher perspective? Let’s examine them to the gamers you’re watching at present. You most likely assume they’re fairly good, proper?

But you know the way many energetic gamers have ever had an 11-year stretch during which they matched or beat the numbers of Allen’s greatest 11 seasons — a .940 OPS (or higher), a .554 slugging share (or higher), an OPS 65 p.c above league common (or higher)? Exactly one: the younger Mike Trout. But that’s it.

Aaron Judge would possibly get there sometime. Shohei Ohtani would possibly get there. Juan ($765 Million Man) Soto would possibly get there. But none of them have performed 11 seasons within the huge leagues but. So get again to me once they do, OK?

Of the opposite energetic gamers who have performed 11 seasons or extra, none are even near a 165 OPS+ for an 11-year span. Not Freddie Freeman. Not Bryce Harper. Not Mookie Betts. And they’re all on their solution to Cooperstown.

So how did Dick Allen get elected all these years later? That’s how. We know what that type of greatness appears like now. We simply needed to cease counting.

GO DEEPER

Dick Allen’s numbers haven’t modified, however how we view them ought to: Jayson Stark

3. Dave Parker and the ability of the height

Dave Parker performed for the Pirates from 1973-83. His five-year peak from 1975-79 was a sight to behold. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)

It wasn’t Dave Parker’s 2,712 hits that acquired him elected to the Hall of Fame. It wasn’t his .290 profession batting common. It wasn’t his 339 profession homers.

None of that damage, clearly. There are solely three different proper fielders within the live-ball period within the 2,700-Hit, .290 or Better, 300-Homer Club — Hank Aaron, Al Kaline and Mel Ott — and you will discover out tons extra about them the following time you’re in Cooperstown.

So Parker hung round lengthy sufficient that he did have the counting numbers that ought to have gotten him into Cooperstown a very long time in the past. But these weren’t the numbers that lastly acquired him elected Sunday — in his fourth look on one among these committee ballots.

Nope. He could have performed almost twenty years within the huge leagues. But don’t even trouble any of the 12 he performed after 1979. You know why he’s sure for Cooperstown? Because of his first 5 full seasons — the seasons that created the legend of Dave Parker.

Behold his five-year peak (1975-79). You’ll see what the heck I’m speaking about.

Slash line: .321/.377/.532/.909, 147 OPS+
Average season: 23 HR/98 RBIs/17 SB
Gold Gloves: 3
Batting titles: 2
MVP awards: 1
World Series rings: 1
WAR/season: 6.2

I may discover just one comparable five-year run by any proper fielder in historical past earlier than that. And it was a fellow named Henry Aaron who produced that one. I don’t learn about you, however that acquired my consideration.

The younger Dave Parker was additionally a person with a throwing arm so supersonic, the parents at NASA ought to have borrowed it. In 1977, he had a season with 26 outfield assists — yep, 26! Only one outfielder within the growth period has topped that one — a Pirates proper fielder from a earlier period, Roberto Clemente. And he simply beat it by one, with 27 assists, in 1961.

So how on earth may it have taken all these many years for that man to get elected? That’s a query Parker himself requested Sunday evening.

“My spouse was tremendous excited,” he advised MLB Network after the outcomes had been introduced. “She’s saying that she will’t consider that it’s taken this lengthy. And I agree together with her.”

Ha. I don’t need to spend an entire lot of time or area explaining why it did take that lengthy. But suffice to say, the Dave Parker who performed 11 extra seasons after turning 30 was a polarizing determine and a really unusual participant.

His common wins above alternative in these 11 seasons computed to a bit of over half a win per season. He went from top-of-the-line outfielders in baseball in his 20s to one of many worst (totaling minus-61 Fielding Runs Above Average from 1980-91, in accordance with Baseball Reference).

Plus there was approach an excessive amount of off-the-field drama and controversy. And the voters had a troublesome time getting that out of their heads — till now.

So why did Parker lastly get elected? Why did he and Allen get elected collectively for that matter? Because we’re seeing a large shift in Hall of Fame voting today, proper earlier than our eyes.

It’s not these good previous magic counting numbers of yesteryear that gas the candidacies of the twenty first century anymore. It’s gamers with particular peaks of greatness who at the moment are resonating all the best way to Cooperstown.

Think about it. Just since 2019, the writers have elected Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, Scott Rolen, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton. I don’t see any 3,000-hit males on that listing.

And the varied Veterans Committees have began veering in that route, too. They elected Ted Simmons in 2020. And two years in the past, we noticed vote totals surge for Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, two extra guys who put themselves within the Best Player in Baseball debate for 5 – 6 years however acquired penalized by earlier electorates for being counting-number challenged.

So the election of Allen and Parker represents simply the most recent dramatic shift in how we expect and how we vote. Remember that after we flip our consideration to the most recent Baseball Writers’ Association of America poll subsequent month — and also you run throughout names like Félix Hernández and Dustin Pedroia on it.

The world is altering, mates — and it’s altering Cooperstown. It was a looonnnggg, wild journey from the great previous Nineteen Seventies again to their Hall of Fame future. But on a memorable Sunday night, Dave Parker and the late, nice Dick Allen acquired their invites to the plaque gallery. And for the remainder of baseball time, nobody will care what number of years it took to get there.