September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies, and Racial Integration

As if living through the debacle that was 1964 in Philadelphia once wasn't enough, I had to red this blow by blow recount of the year that established the benchmark for me and my expectations of my team, the Philadelphia Phillies. That benchmark was failure, and 1964 was the year that defined failure! Written through the eyes of a historian, the book chronicles the summer of racial unrest and how the '60s affected the team's star rookie Richie, ooops, Dick Allen. As a 9 year-old at the time I recalled many of the events but didn't have the experience to grasp the significance at the time. It was interesting to revisit those events and weight them with my additional 44 years coloring my current perspective. While there are a few inconsistencies in the book, it is a MUST READ for any Phillies fan, not just those scarred by the actual events, but those who would like to understand what has made us (Phillies fans) the way we are. It is also must reading for anyone interested in the discussion of the races, the '60s in particular, and how baseball was affected by and dealt with the at-that-time-recently integrated ranks of the players.

I thought this book was going to be just a day-by-day recap of the 1964 Phillies famous skid at the end of the season to give the NL pennant to the Cardinals, but it was much more. Kasthaus does a good job of capturing the racial tensions of the time and he does give the Phillies management of the time a chance to respond to allegations of racism within the organization. Ultimately, it is a book more about the relationship of Dick Allen with the city of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia press. Stan Hochman, who receives some severe criticism in the book, is not well-portrayed in this book, nor is Larry Merchant. However, neither man is interviewed for the book as Kasthaus states that no Philadelphia writer of the era returned his phone calls except for Allen Lewis.

This archivally-bound, well-written book is a professional historian's account of the season of the 1964 Phillies. It is well illustrated with portraits of the major players in this story. In 1964, I made a bet with my brother: that Richie Allen would some day be considered as great as Mickey Mantle. We still argue the comparison, but thanks to this book, I better appreciate the reasons I may not have won the bet- yet. The book ends with a well reasoned plea for Allen's admission to the Hall of Fame, an appropriate move once "character" is taken fully into account. This book will be enjoyed by baseball fans, students of the history of integration, and the general reader, as insightful, well researched, and a meaningful contribution to American social history.

September Swoon, by William Kashatus has a vivid feel that hits home for me and probably would for anyone else who endured the historic end-of-season collapse that happened in what was later known in Philadelphia as "the year of the blue snow." Blue it was indeed for my then fifth grade psyche. I LOVED the Phillies. Johnny Callison was my hero and it seemed that 1964 was all going our way from the June 21st perfect game by Jim Bunning, to Callison's walk-off 3-run homer to end the All Star game to the six-game lead that the Phillies held in the NL before losing ten of their last twelve games. Just as true, though is the tragic career of Richie (later "Dick") Allen, the Phillies' Rookie of the Year third baseman. Race relations for me had little to do with baseball, the Phillies and every other team had always had colored players (at least to my awareness) and frankly, I hadn't given the matter any thought at all by that time. Like the author`s, my memories are of faithful listening to late night west coast games with a transistor radio under my pillow and the crackle of lightning-generated static cutting through the play by play of By Saam, Rich Ashburn and Bill Campbell.But it is undeniable that Richie Allen came to be a figure inescapably linked to the racial boil-over that was occurring nationwide throughout the sixties. Intelligent and articulate, Allen later admitted to having been thrust reluctantly at first, into the role of baseball's poster child for black belligerence. The Philadelphia baseball franchise was notorious for its lily-whiteness until 1957, when it hired its first black player. These facts were unknown to a ten year old, but Kashatus artfully weaves the race scene that erupted into riots together with the baseball collapse that the Phillies suffered. A fight between superstar Allen and journeyman Phillies' player Frank Thomas in 1965 sparked a torrent of media, and consequently, fan scapegoating of Allen, who did little to pour oil on the troubled waters, opting instead for a Stagga-Lee in red pinstripes persona. If we were becoming modern, multicultural and tolerant at the time, it wasn't instantaneous, and a considerable amount of racially charged derision did certainly befall this tragic player, who had he been born ten years later, would surely have been a Hall of Famer. In the end, neither the Phillies of 1964 nor Dick Allen got the prize they might have. The world has held together, I witnessed in person the Phillies' world championship in 1980, and life has continued on. But the hope and dreams that were mine along with so many others in 1964 would never come to pass. If the wheels came off for the Phillies in 1964, the event certainly coincided with the beginnings of a world so different and cynical by comparison, that it would have been unimaginable to most, regardless of color, at that time. There is no doubt that the racial strife of the sixties led to an accelerated timetable for the legal elimi

I HAVE BEEN A PHILLIES FAN FOR 44 YEARS AND THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT WAS WHEN THEY LOST THE 1964 PENNANT.THEY HAD A 6.5 GAME LEAD WITH 12 GAMES LEFT AND PROMPTLY LOST 10 IN A ROW!!!!!!! I HAD TO WAIT UNTIL 1980 FOR MY DREAM TO BE REALIZED.READ THIS BOOK ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A PHILLIES FAN!!!!!!!