That Dick Allen and Tommy John aren’t already in the Hall of Fame is a travesty

One that can be rectified, though too late for one of them to know it

the state of being known or talked about by many people, especially on account of notable achievements

That’s what the folks at Oxford say fame is, and when it comes to the English language, they’re the experts. Bear that definition in mind when we get to the second of the two ex-White Sox on the veterans Hall of Fame ballot next month; by Oxford’s definition, which is a good one, he has the most fame of any baseball player ever, and it’s not even close.

But first, the player the White Sox traded him away for.

DICK ALLEN

Why isn’t Dick Allen already in Cooperstown? Chalk it up to baseball writers who didn’t like that he didn’t cozy up to them, because Allen had all the playing credentials a player could possibly need. He also had non-playing issues, some of this own making but many forced from outside his control ... but those weren’t the issues that are supposed to keep you out, like gambling or PEDs.

A lot of those outside pressures came in Philadelphia, where fans — especially those of the racist variety — couldn’t stand that Allen only had 3.5 and 3.7 WAR in his last two seasons there. That was a comedown from his earlier days with the Phillies, and thus he was booed unmercifully.

Philadelphia’s loss was Chicago’s gain, because when he got swapped to the Cardinals and then the Dodgers in rapid succession, with a “reputation” following him. When L.A. acquired Frank Robinson to anchor its lineup, the Dodgers could finally acquiesce to Sox GM Roland Hemond’s overtures, swapping Allen to Chicago for Tommy John and Steve Huntz.

Once here, Allen basically saved the franchise. The 1970 the Sox had lost 106 games, an ignominy destined to last forever, or until 2024, whichever came first. Unsurprisingly, those 106-loss Sox were dead-last in attendance. They improved to 79-83 in 1971 thanks to some smart moves by new manager Chuck Tanner, but were still ninth in the 12-team AL at the gate.

Then came Allen. The team jumped to 87 wins, but more importantly for its survival in Chicago, to third in the league in attendance, and the slugger deserves big credit on both fronts. He earned the MVP award with 37 homers, 113 RBIs and 99 walks, all leading the league, along with leading the majors in on-base percentage, slugging and OPS. His next two seasons with the Sox weren’t up in that stratosphere, largely because of injuries, but they weren’t shabby either.

I had the good luck to occasionally watch Allen bat from the perspective of the Comiskey Park press box, and I’ve never seen anyone hit the ball harder — I swear you could see the ball go flat when he made contact. If there had been radar guns in those days, they would have blown their diodes. Allen broke seats in the outfield. Once he said that he never tried to hit the ball up the middle because he was afraid he’d kill a pitcher.

Allen had a career OPS+ of 156, the same as Frank Thomas and just ahead of Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays. Sure, those latter three were better fielders, but not so players like Ralph Kiner and David Ortiz, way below but in the Hall.

Allen died in 2020, ironically on the eve of another Veterans election where he would fall just short of the Hall. So he won’t get to see his induction, but that shouldn’t stop a terrible wrong from being righted.

TOMMY JOHN

While he should have been inducted in the first go-round by the baseball writers, it’s fitting that this be the year Tommy John gets into the Hall of Fame: It’s the 50th anniversary of the year he plopped his throwing elbow on an operating table in front of orthopedic surgeon Frank Jobe and changed the sport of baseball.

Remember that definition up at the top of the page, the part about “the state of being known or talked about”? No player ever, not a single one, gets talked about more than Tommy John — not Babe Ruth, not Hank Aaron, not Walter “Big Train” Johnson or Bob Feller. The only player even remotely close, and he’s so far back as to be invisible in the rear-view mirror, is Cy Young, and that’s only because of the award named after him.

(Unfortunately, a Google search comparison is impossible because some ne’er-do-wells created an underwear line called Tommy John, thus rendering the results unreliable.)

Even Young only has two awards per season, while there are thousands of Tommy John surgeries every year — including at least one by most pitchers in the major leagues. And when the surgeries are mentioned, they’re not called “ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction,” they’re called Tommy John surgery (TJS). That’s enduring fame, fame which should put him in the Hall named for it. (Jobe, who also performed the first major league shoulder reconstruction surgery on Orel Hershiser, was inducted into something called Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals, but he ought to have a statue at the entrance in Cooperstown.)

John pitched for the White Sox from 1965-71, before the surgery, and even managed to win 13 games in that dreadful 1971 season. But that was only a small part of a career that lasted until he was 46. He deserves to be in the Hall even without the notoriety or trailblazing of the surgery, given 288 wins and a 62.1 WAR. MLB.com has him listed ahead of a whole roster of pitchers already in, including Juan Marichal, Rube Waddell, Jim Bunning, Mariano Rivera, Whitey Ford, Early Wynn ... and the list goes on.

Unlike, Allen, John is alive, and he and his elbow deserve to have their day on the steps of Cooperstown.