Allen wrenches! Although, I suppose, if one were so inclined, one could view the above adornments as peckers of a certain crudity — “dicks,” in the parlance of the Teenage Thunderclaps who roam the streets of America in defiance of local curfews — but, no. No, these are Allen wrenches. Dick Allen is surrounded by Allen wrenches.
And may I say he seems content to watch them go by. “This is not so bad,” he seems to be saying. “I’m going to hang with these wrenches for a while and then go do something amazing.”
Courtesy of the drop-dead gorgeous Chris Cwik comes this Polaroid snapped on game day deep in the bowels of Modern Telephone Concern Sports Enclosure:
I have taken it upon myself to use Les Couleurs to obscure the faces of the two demonstrably less compelling White Socked base-and-ball-ists in this daguerreotype (is that Stan Damned Bahnsen on the far right?) and will instead allow the reader’s eyes to feast, in Old Country Buffet-fashion, upon Dick Allen and Dick Allen alone.
Are you not uplifted by this? If you are, then please pay it forward on this fine day by vanquishing someone of poor taste and breeding.
by Navin Vaswani - February 22, 2012
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Over the long weekend, I visited YouTube.com and typed “Dick Allen” into the search box. I think it’s important for you to know that the Dick Allen Research Department lives up to its name. Here’s what I found:
Now, I don’t know about you, but that was the first, actual, in-game footage of Dick Allen I’d ever witnessed. And I couldn’t have picked a better video. I’ll always remember my first time.
He fires a breaking pitch, but Allen connects solidly, and there it goes! It’s way, way back! It’s a home run! A 400-footer that sails into the bleachers in deep right-center. Now that pitch was in a perfect spot, low and outside, and it’s a tribute to Allen’s great strength that he could slam a pitch like that such a tremendous distance.
by Navin Vaswani - January 31, 2012
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In which the Royal We insert Dick Allen’s name into various works representative of the Western Canon, thus adding to those various works the patina of blessedness.
Today’s episode: A brother pleads with his sister to understand the immense power of Dick Allen, in J.D. Salinger’s other book, “Franny and Zooey.”
by The Common Man - January 12, 2012
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Update: The voting is closed. Old Hoss Radbourn, quite properly had the most votes with 94. We’ll use that as a baseline, assuming no one could be foolish enough to not vote for him. 75% of 94 is 70.5. We’ll round down to 70. Which means that our inaugural Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame class is as follows:
Old Hoss Radbourn, 94 votes
Ty Cobb, 89 votes
Nolan Ryan, 80 votes
Jeff Bagwell, 70 votes
Lou Gehrig, 70 votes
Frankly, that seems reasonable. You win this round, John Locke.
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When our country was born, our founding fathers mistakenly bestowed upon us a republic, in which the will of the people would determine the course of our nation, rather than an enlightened despotism based on the whims of Ron Swanson, as Thomas Hobbes had been advocating all along.
And so, since our Belovéd Swanson is barred from ruling by decree due to the Constitution and the fact that he is indeed fictional in nature, it falls to us, the multitude, to choose for him who belongs in his Baseball Hall of Fame. I don’t like it any more than you do, but such is the will of John Locke, who fricking ruins everything.
Yesterday, you recall, we proposed several candidates. Today, we will choose the introductory class for the Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame. Everyone on the original list I proposed, as well as those players and managers both nominated and seconded in the comments section are available for your vote, and you can vote for multiple candidates. As with the regular Hall of Fame, a candidate requires 75% of the vote to make it in, unless no one achieves that threshold, at which point, we’ll just give it to the top three vote-getters or something. It should be chaos…glorious chaos…which will demonstrate once and for all how stupid John Locke was.
by The Common Man - January 11, 2012
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Whether you know it or not just yet, you are a devotee of the greatest of men. No, I’m not talking Wally Moon. I’m not talking about Dick Allen. I’m not even talking about Vin Scully. I am talking, dear friends, of Ron Swanson.
Swanson, the heavily-mustachioed dynamo whose presence elevates NBC’s Parks and Recreation from sublime to divine comedy, is equally skilled in woodworking, meat preparation, hoarding gold, saxamaphone, avoiding his job, and dispensing warm and sincere advice. His Pyramid of Greatness is not a mere suggestion. It is an essential way of life, if we are ever to save ourselves from ourselves.
And so it was with great enthusiasm this afternoon that I waded into a Twitter discussion spurred by Wendy Thurm about whether Ron Swanson would elect Jack Morris to the Hall of Fame on the basis of his mustache. My position, that Swanson would not respect Morris’ mustache given that it looked like an unkempt squirrel who came to rest and slowly aged on Black Jack’s upper lip, was not expressed. But my firm belief, that if Ron Swanson told us to we should immediately elect Jack Morris, was.
Indeed, it’s my belief that, not only should Ron Swanson’s position on Jack Morris carry the day, but his position on all baseball players should be considered sacrosanct. And it is in this spirit that I ask you to help me choose Ron Swanson’s Baseball Hall of Fame. The following is a list of nominees. Feel free to add your own in the comments. We shall show New Hampshire how democracy is done tomorrow when we vote on the candidates.
As the Internet teaches us, it’s Hall-of-Fame voting season, which means a bounty of carefully nursed grudges and logic tortured to the brink of demise. The actual, bricks-and-mortar Hall of Fame is a lovely place that is worth your time and U.S. currency. Those charged with populating the Hall of Fame, however, are in not small part bloated, slappy harlequins with no sense of proper mission or context. Thus, Dick Allen’s — Mister Dick Allen’s — criminal absence from Cooperstown.
The good news, however, is that Mr. Dick Allen, despite the chronic neglect, is as healthy and confident as something unimaginably confident and healthy. And that leads us to this enduring truth …
by The Common Man - January 4, 2012
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There was a fine tradition established in 2011 in which Dick Allen found himself insertedforcefully, but sensually, into various great works of literature spanning many eras and genres. And thereby did we elevate those works to heights of literary genius previously unseen by man’s imperfect eyes.
It is with pride, then, that the Royal We happily carry this tradition on into what is sure to be a most historic new year of inserting Dick Allen’s name into various works representative of the Western Canon, thus adding to those various works the patina of blessedness.
Today, Dick Allen’s name goes to war, inserted into Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, and a mystery is solved:
Chapter VII
While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh dick allen get me out of here. Dear dick allen please get me out. Allen please please please allen. If you’ll only keep me from getting killed I’ll do anything you say. I believe in you and I’ll tell every one in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear dick. The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa about Dick. And he never told anybody.
And now we know why Dick Allen is not in the Hall of Fame. Nobody ever gave him credit for anything.
by The Common Man - December 7, 2011
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Beloved, as you’ve undoubtedly already read, given that you are savvy denizens of the World Wide Web of Internets, the Baseball Writers Association of America (its induction ceremony pictured to the right) came to its senses yesterday and added FanGraphs to its list of BBWAA approved producers of baseball content. Along with this designation, FanGraphs will undoubtedly receive a vote in upcoming award balloting for the AL and NL MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year elections. And in ten years, God-willing and the crik don’t run dry, a Hall of Fame vote (just in time to vote one last time for Tim Raines before he’s shuffled off the ballot…nice timing).
What has not been made clear is who will be doing the voting for FanGraphs. Being that we value mob rule more than silly concepts like logic or fairness, it’s important that you make your voices heard above the din of the lot of us arguing that we deserve the vote more than Dave Cameron because we want it more (also known as the Charlie Bucket defense).
Anyway, please tell us who you would like to cast the important BBWAA votes for Fangraphs. Make sure you read through all your options, and choose carefully. In the interest of fairness, I’ve excluded myself as one of the choices, given how I’d win. For you have come to love me, but I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to deserve it. Better to honor these men who built this city on rock and roll. It’s good that I’m humble enough to realize that.
You may have noticed that, some time around yesterday, America was roused from its torpor by news of an exciting sports contest. We the people have been charged with adopting the pose, bearing, manner, general milieu, and overarching blessedness of the great Mr. Dick Allen. Suffice it to say, this I could not resist.
First, the inspiration …
And now, the imitation …
I have spoken through photographic art. If you wish not to see that giant novelty check in my clutches, then I suggest you get to work.
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