Ex-Titan Allen Hopes to Pitch More Than Footballs

The bags were packed for his ninth Canadian Football League training camp. Shirts, pants, socks, baseball glove.

Whoa.

It was the end of May, about a week or two before quarterback Damon Allen was to report to the Edmonton Eskimos’ camp, when he decided to take a little side trip.

He turned the car toward Pittsburgh, and Three Rivers Stadium. The Pirates had a tryout scheduled and Allen took the mound, threw about 30 or 35 pitches and, well, it’s kind of an unusual story. . . .

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. He last played both sports in 1984, when he was at Cal State Fullerton.

Allen was the quarterback on the Titans’ 11-1 1984 team, setting 12 school records. He was a pitcher on Fullerton’s 1984 national championship baseball team, setting no school records.

Even though he was drafted and offered $40,000 by the Detroit Tigers in 1984, he signed with Edmonton and quickly found a niche. The Eskimos won the Grey Cup in 1987 and Allen was named the game’s most valuable player.

He has played eight seasons of Canadian football and earned about $270,000 in American dollars last season.

Now, as his ninth camp came to a close, Allen has pulled a Bo Jackson.

He has signed a contract with the Pirates.

No matter that he hasn’t played organized baseball since 1984.

No matter that he has been drafted by four major league teams and, each time, smiled graciously and then buckled his chin strap.

No matter that, at 29--he turns 30 next month--he would be considered middle-aged even if he were in the major leagues today.

After 10 minutes or so on that May day in Pittsburgh, the Pirates marched him off the mound and into an office.

And they handed him a pen.

He will report to the Pirates’ instructional league team in Bradenton, Fla., late--after the Eskimos’ season is finished in November--and take it from there.

“In our business, we deal with so many athletes that when you see a guy with a chance to play at the major league level, you’ve got to sign him,” said Cam Bonifay, Pirate general manager. “You don’t think about it. If the scouts like him, you’ve got to pull the trigger.

“There’s no sense waiting and thinking about it for a week.”

A week? How about eight or nine years? Although Allen has always stuck with football--like his Heisman Trophy-winning brother, Marcus--sometimes he would look at his playbook and see baseball.

“If I’d have known (in 1984) that a few years later, players like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders would be playing two sports, I probably would have signed two contracts,” said Allen, who likes Canada enough to live in Hamilton during the off-season. “It’s always been in the back of my mind, ‘Hey, what would have happened if I would have tried baseball?’ ”

Then Allen ran into a childhood chum last year, Leland Maddox, who scouts for the Pirates.

Allen still hadn’t ruled out playing baseball. Major league scouts are suckers for guys with strong arms.

Next thing anyone knew, Maddox had invited Allen to the tryout.

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” Allen said. “I was just excited they gave me the opportunity.

“If they didn’t like me, I was going to drive right to Edmonton and play football for another five years.”

Allen, who had been working out with an adult recreation baseball team in Hamilton, was the last pitcher summoned at the tryout. He threw fastballs, curves, sliders and changeups. His fastball, he said, was clocked between 89 and 90 m.p.h.

“They really liked my slider,” Allen said. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I had to ask them a few times. ‘You guys sure? You really like me?’

“You dream about things going well. They went better than expected.”

Although Allen, who is 6 feet, 170 pounds, signed the contract a month ago, he kept quiet about it and the Pirates didn’t release the information until this week. Allen said he met the Edmonton media three times Wednesday, the day it hit the papers.

Of course, once his teammates found out they weren’t about to keep quiet. While Allen called plays during practices last week, he had to do it over the voices of teammates who have been chanting things such as, “Hey batter, batter, hey batter, swing batter” in huddles.

“They’ve been very supportive, though,” Allen said, chuckling. “A lot of people are calling me ‘Bo 2’ and ‘Deion.’ ”

The Eskimos’ front office, which didn’t find out until after training camp started, hasn’t given him any trouble.

“We think it’s fine,” said Hugh Campbell, Eskimo general manager and a former coach of the World Football League’s L.A. Express. “It’s a surprise because of his age and all. When we signed him originally, we competed against baseball to get him to play football. He was a darn good pitcher.”

Although Allen has been drafted by the Tigers, Mariners, Rangers and Athletics, he didn’t exactly dominate college baseball. His best season at Fullerton was 1984, and he was 3-2 with four saves and a 3.60 earned-run average.

Football, however, is another matter. He has played in two Grey Cup games and has beaten out Rickey Foggie, formerly of the University of Minnesota, for the starting quarterback job this season.

Is this baseball thing Allen’s last desperation pass? Or his first curveball?

“I can play five more years of football,” said Allen, who is in the last year of a three-year CFL contract. “It’s hard to say. I can’t say what I’m going to do until I throw against live hitters.

“If things go well, I may have a big decision ahead of me.”

Bonifay said the Pirates will see how Allen fares in Florida in November before deciding what to do with him.

“Even though his age is older than players we normally sign,” Bonifay said, “we felt that with his being a fine athlete, if he did have success, it would come quickly. Hopefully, at his age, he can still have three or four years of success.”