Goose Gossage on Dick Allen:

I had the priviledge of playing with so many great players, but Dick Allen was the best player I ever played with.

In ’72, it was the greatest year I’ve ever seen a player have. I would have loved to have seen him if he just set his mind to, “I’m going to put up numbers.” The numbers would have been staggering. But if we had a four-or five-run lead, it was like, “Hey, boys, I’m out of here, you’ve got to take it on in from here. You guys can hold them from here.”

He’d take himself out if we had a big lead, so every RBI he had that year was serious damage. There was no padding. Defensively, he was unbelievable. And running the bases. To this day, I have never seen anyone that could run the bases like he did. He was phenomenal.

The shots that I saw him hit throughout all the ballparks in the American League.

And what a great guy. He took me under his wing. What a wonderful guy. There was never an ounce of phoniness in Dick. What you see is what you get. He was his own man and he still is. I saw him recently, and to this day I still love the guy.
From Phil Pepe

For what it is worth, I think Allen was a better hitter than Tony Perez, Orlando Cepeda, Dave Parker or Jim Rice.

And the Winner Is…

Here’s my latest piece for Variety. It’s about genre films and the Oscars:

So what genres play best when it comes to Oscar?

“The Academy favors a genre called the earnest drama,” film historian David Thomson says. “(The members) want to be taken seriously. That has always been their besetting sin. Their decisions are a reflection of the Academy itself. They are always a little ashamed that they are sitting on a huge moneymaking business. They don’t want to be as vulgar as that, so they search for something to lend them dignity.”

The floor is open. Clemens on “60 Minutes.” The evolving role of Brian Cashman. Whatta ya hear, whatta ya say, y’all?