“The Wampum Walloper” was coming off of his second home run title in three years when this card would have been unwrapped from wax wrappers in the Spring of 1975.
However, shockingly, Allen would find himself traded twice before appearing in a single game that season, first from Chicago to the Atlanta Braves in December of 1974, then from the Braves back to the team he came up with back in 1963, the Philadelphia Phillies in May.
Nevertheless, I have him in an In-Action shot with the White Sox, and what he did in three seasons in the South Side of Chicago was nothing short of awesome. He hit over .300 each season, led the AL in homers in 1972 and 1974, came close to a Triple Crown in 1972, and took home the top individual prize for an individual player, the league MVP that very same year.
If not for an injury during the 1973 season, he very possibly would have had three straight home run titles based on his 16 homers in only 72 games, with the eventual AL homer champ, Reggie Jackson, hitting only 32 over a full season.
Allen would go on to play only three more seasons in the Majors, finishing up with a brief season out in Oakland in 1977 before retiring with 351 homers, a .292 average, along with a Rookie of the Year Award in 1964 and the aforementioned MVP in 1972.
