Pete Allen, the accidental major leaguer

It is easy to forget with the modern-day 63 million dollar contacts and larger-than-life sports figures, that baseball had a humble beginning. Players who played in the 19th century weren't out for the moon and couldn't get it even if they wanted it. They were, in the purest form, ball players. When they walked onto a field, making it their whole life's purpose to win that game. Then, the heroes of the sandlots would return home to scrape by on their baseball salary and work other jobs just to get by. Baseball was a recreation, not an over-glorified sporting event. It wasn't about the fans, it was about the players. Which, if you ask me, is the game at its best. Players playing because they choose to, not because they were told to at the age of two so they can go off and make millions. But I digress, my point is; simple is better.

Pete Allen was a simple player. In 1893, he had one game in the majors where he made four plate appearances with no hits, no runs, no strikeouts, no nothing. In fact, the team he played for, the Cleveland Spiders, were in such desperate need for a player that they basically took the first person they saw. Where they saw Allen was with the Binghamton Bingoes in the Eastern League. He was fresh out of Amherst College when he batted .229 with the Bingoes.

After his short stint in the majors, Allen didn't play professional baseball until 1895 when he joined the New Castle, Pennsylvania team in the Iron and Oil League. Statistics were not well kept for that season, so we do not know how he faired. The next year, Allen enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he graduated two years later and soon entered general practice.

From this point on, professional baseball was out of the picture for Allen. He went on to specialized in protology, writing numerous articles for the American Proctology Society. Later in his life, Allen joined the staffs at Board Street and Methodist Hospitals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Finally, he served as a professor at Jefferson Medical College before passing away from cerebral vascular disease on April 16, 1946 at the age of 77.

Sometimes I get this feeling that if I sit real close to the dugout while watching a game at local PGE Park, the manager for the team will put me in as a sub or something. Never mind the fact that I haven't played organized baseball since 2004, I just want a one-day contract. One game, like Allen. Nothing over-produced or special, just the chance to stare down the opposing pitcher and get stuck out by a 90 mph fastball down the heart of the plate. And that's what the game is about, the one game, the dream, the chance. Allen lived a lot of our dreams.

Bibliography:

"Pete Allen Statistics and History". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC.

"Pete Allen Minor League Statistics & History". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC.

"Amherst College Lord Jeffs (Amherst, MA)". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC.

"Penn Biographies: Jesse Hall Allen (Pete) (1868-1946)". University of Pennsylvania. University of Pennsylvania.

"Professional Baseball Players Who Attended Penn". University of Pennsylvania. University of Pennsylvania.

Browning, Reed (2003). Cy Young: A Baseball Life. University of Massachusetts Press. pp. 320. ISBN 1558493980.

"Deaths". J.A.M.A. jama.com.

Tessein, Carik. "Jesse Hall "Pete" Allen". Find A Grave. Find A Grave.