As I topicked above, three of my favourite former MLBers are blowing out birthday candles today. Former Yankees right-hander and "Ball Four" author Jim Bouton is 80 .Normally a starter (he won 20 games for the '63 Yanks ),Bouton was the winning pitcher June 24,1962,pitching seven innings of three-hit,six-strikeout relief when Jackie Reed's long big-league round-tripper beat my Tigers,9-7 in 22 innings and seven hours.
In 1969 as a Houston Astro wrote the then-controversial book "Ball Four," which exploded the myth of MLBers as exemplars Bouton has suffered a stroke,but seems to be recovering well.
Dick Allen,77,played for 15 seasons in which he amassed 351 HR,1,119 RBI,and a .292 BA, stats horribly deflated by his extreme pitchers' era .Allen,however,was such a dominant batter (though a poor fielder at third,adequate at first,where he was moved) that many,myself included,believe he should be in the Hall Of Fame,where he'd join his 1963 Arkansas Travellers roommate (and my cousin),Ferguson Jenkins,the lone Canadian lad so far honoured,though British Columbia's Larry Walker also merits a Cooperstown plaque.