1922 ALL--STAR GAME : Dick Allen Proves He Still Has Some Clout With the Fans

For once, Dick Allen was not controversial.

Allen, 50, commanded some of the longest lines of autograph seekers on opening day of the Upper Deck All-Star FanFest at the San Diego Convention Center.

The smiles came without difficulty, he cracked jokes and felt at ease with those who waited in line more than 40 minutes to meet him and Mickey Owen at Upper Deck’s Heroes of Baseball exhibit.

Allen, who was at the center of much controversy during his career, also spoke publicly for one of the first times about the murder of his daughter, Terri, 27, in May, 1991. She was killed by a spurned admirer, shot from behind once in the head and twice in the back.

It still moves Allen, who said he has done little since the tragedy.

“I remember last year at this time, at Toronto, I got a letter asking us to go over there (to play in the old timers’ game) and I didn’t know if my mind was strong enough because we had just buried her,” Allen said. “(Dick Jr.) told me that if Terri was here, she would want you to go and she’d be trying to get a ticket herself.

“It’s all working out. Water seeks its own level.”

Allen, now in retrospect, said he might have done some things differently in his life.

“Maybe I stayed around the game too long and devoted too much of my life to it,” Allen, a Sherman Oaks resident, said.

Considered one of the strongest men in baseball, Allen crushed 351 home runs, batted .292 and had a .534 slugging average during his 15-year career. And though he was painted as a rebel by reporters in the 1960s and ‘70s, he said he was nothing more than an independent black man at a time when it was socially unacceptable in some areas. For example, he broke the baseball color barrier in Arkansas.

“There were things you would do and wouldn’t do,” Allen said. “From Jackie Robinson’s time (16 years previously), you were told ‘Don’t say anything.’ At my time, (I questioned) why did we have to be quiet? I got in trouble for being as opinionated as (the owners).”

Allen did not like reporters, and he will tell you the feeling was mutual. He also had run-ins with management and Philadelphia fans loved to boo him. But he was a hit with other players.

“I played against two guys who you always heard bad reports on: Dick Allen and Alex Johnson,” Bill Madlock said. “You always heard bad things about them and it was just the opposite. It affected the way I approached the media. That’s why I don’t believe everything I read.”

On his Owen: Mickey Owen, who gained fame by dropping a third strike in the 1941 World Series and allowing champion New York to beat Brooklyn in Game 4, added another statistic. He calls it the 1,000 club, and it is achieved when the total number of bases, runs, RBIs and walks match or exceed a player’s total at-bats. Owen said there are only 37 men who have done it over a career.

“With all the great hitters the Cardinals have had, there are only four who’ve done it,” Owen said. “Rogers Hornsby, Johnny Mize, Stan Musial and Allen.

“Those are the kinds of hitters that win ball games.”

Allen said that was a new statistic on him. Among the notables missing from the list: Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Honus Wagner.

Add statistics: Owen knows what he’s famous for, but offers some information for the uninformed: He set a National League record for consecutive chances without an error (509 chances), and the World Series blunder came in the middle of that record. World Series statistics aren’t part of official statistics.

Makes sense: Owen, 76, still teaches baseball in southwest Missouri. He says he works out six days a week at a health club.

“When you’re retired, you have to stay in shape,” he said. “You don’t draw a paycheck if you die.”

Say what? Overheard of several former players gathered, discussing the American League All-Star selections: “(Minnesota’s) Chuck Knoblauch???” followed by heavy laughter.

FanFest Notes

Dan Quisenberry plays host to 45-minute Rolaids Relief Man Clinics today (2 p.m.), Sunday (3 p.m.) and Monday (noon) in the Diamond Theater. . . . Negro League players from the 1930s to ‘50s will sign autographs as part of the Heroes of Baseball attraction on Monday, 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. . . . About 14,000 attended the festival’s first day. “We’re very pleased with that total,” said Stu Upson, vice president of Major League Baseball Properties. . . . San Diego’s Cyndi Nesheim, who worked in the Fantasy Photo booth and sold film throughout the FanFest for Fox Photo, estimated 30% of Friday’s fans were women. “And all the women who are here are with their husbands or are mothers with children,” she said. She also noticed a number of older fans. One thing fans can have done (for a fee) is their picture inserted into a photograph with as many as nine of their favorite players. Fans should bring clear photos with them. . . . About 500 invited guests were on hand in front of the Hall of Fame when Ted Williams threw out the first pitch of the FanFest.