Galvin was the first baseball player to be widely known for using performance-enhancing drugs. In 1889, over 100 years before the current steroid controversy in Major League Baseball, Galvin openly used the Brown-Séquard elixir, which contained monkey testosterone.

From 1964 through 1972, Allen was the best hitter in baseball. He may be more than just a player who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. At his peak, he might have been better than any other player - Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose not excepted - who doesn’t have a plaque in Cooperstown. He was a much better player than Jim Rice, who was voted in this year.

Unfortunately, Allen was also what William C. Kashatus, author of September Swoon: Richie Allen, the ‘64 Phillies, and Racial Integration, called “the wrong player in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The long, rancorous history of Allen’s relationships with an all-white Philadelphia press - most notably Bill Conlin and Larry Merchant, the latter regarded by many of the Phillies as a “throat-cutter” - was summed up best by Kashatus in comments to me: “Dick had a very undeserved reputation as a malcontent. For his first seven seasons, he clashed with the Philadelphia press, the toughest in the country, and the fans believed what they read. The fact is that nearly all of Allen’s teammates and managers liked him and regarded him as a hugely valuable player.”

The incident that most defined Allen’s war with the local press was his fight with teammate Frank Thomas in 1965, a clash sparked by Thomas’ racial gibes, which Philadelphia sportswriters, particularly Merchant, vehemently denied at the time. Thomas, an aging and unproductive player, was subsequently sold. No matter how well Allen played after that, he was subjected to lethal booing, not just in Philadelphia and much of it tinged with racial slurs.

Soren wrote:Dick Allen is a player that makes me kind of embarrassed to be a Philadelphian, the same way Alabamians should be embarrassed about the handling of civil right's demonstrators.

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't like the all-star break, and I'm not much a fan of the all-star game either. But I guess this year I should consider myself fortunate that the break is only 3 days long. But I don't know why that game was moved from 9/21. Does the Farmer's Almanac predict rain that day?

ReadingPhilly wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't like the all-star break, and I'm not much a fan of the all-star game either. But I guess this year I should consider myself fortunate that the break is only 3 days long. But I don't know why that game was moved from 9/21. Does the Farmer's Almanac predict rain that day?

are you ready for some football?!?!