Apr. 29, 1964 - Rookie Richie Allen, the Phillies’ new torpedo man, set off two tremendous charges yesterday and Art Mahaffey and Chris Short, in the center of the diamond, did the rest in a 4-2 sinking of the Reds before a Crosley Field crowd of 5,117.
The bespectacled 22-year-old third baseman, boosting his season’s batting mark to .442 with four hits, tied the score at 2-2 in the sixth with his fifth homer. The Phillies moved ahead in the seventh with a two-run outburst against southpaw Jim O’Toole.
Mahaffey, the winning pitcher, doubled. John Callison singled Mahaffey home, and then Allen drove in Callison with a triple.
“Mistakes, a couple of mistakes,” whispered O’Toole after the game. “I had good stuff, but those mistakes.”
One of the boo-boos developed as early as the fourth inning, when riding a 2-0 lead, O’Toole hung a curveball where Allen got a good look at it, and the result was a line drive home run against the left field screen.
“He [Allen] is a strong kid with exceptional wrists,” said Reds manager Fred Hutchinson. “And he’s in one of those streaks. His home run was off a hanging curve, but he hit a couple of real good pitches for the other three hits.”
There is a “book” on Allen — reported to be a low-ball hitter, a pitcher’s objective is to work on him away from his strength — high and away. Thus far, however, Allen is making a mockery of it.
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