u/sonofabutch

Defensive lineman Eugene Lipscomb got the nickname "Big Daddy" from his habit of calling everybody else "Little Daddy." A forerunner of today's Relative Athletic Score phenoms, Lipscomb was a massive man who was somehow as fast as a running back. "I know how a mouse feels when a big cat is after him," running back Billy Wade said.

NFL legend Jim Brown called Lipscomb "the Empire State Building with a mustache."

> "He had the strength of an elephant and was so fast he frequently ran down backfield men from behind. He was the one player in the league who could practically control a play. What gave me pause was the known fact that Daddy could stop a ball carrier in his tracks with a giant bearhug, then straighten him up like a board, then bend him every way imaginable. There was nothing illegal or dirty 'bout this sort of thing. But just thinking about it, you could feel your spine tingle. You knew it wouldn't take much to give Daddy an excuse for twisting you into a piece of abstract sculpture." -- Jim Brown

Ebony magazine wrote in 1960 that Lipscomb was the biggest man in the NFL that season. Teams tried everything to stop him, even quadruple teams. But despite his success on the field, Lipscomb was a troubled man plagued by a traumatic childhood.

At the age of 11, his mother was stabbed to death by her boyfriend, and Eugene carried photos of the crime scene with him for the rest of his life. He moved in with his grandfather, a harsh man who charged the middle school student room and board to live with him. Lipscomb took odd jobs to come up with the money. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school.

Not surprisingly given his rough upbringing, Lipscomb was a troubled young man. A friend described him as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" -- a gentle giant who loved kids and joked around with teammates, but also was prone to violent outbursts and binge drinking. He would go to bed with a gun under his pillow and would sometimes cry himself to sleep. In hotels, he would sometimes drag the bed and push it against the door to block it closed.

Jim Brown said Lipscomb would pick up a 230-pound player, smash him into the ground, and then gently help him up after. He was a violent, angry man with "the sensitive soul of an artist," Brown said.

He was signed by the Los Angeles Rams as an undrafted free agent without ever playing in college. The Rams waived him after three injury-plagued seasons and he signed with the Baltimore Colts, where he blossomed into a terrifying defender, helping the Colts to back-to-back championships in 1958 and 1959. When he got angry, no matter what the defensive assignments were supposed to be, Lipscomb would growl to his teammates: "Just leave 'em to Big Daddy."

During the off-seasons, Lipscomb toured as a professional wrestler across the United States and Canada!

Big Daddy was traded to the Steelers prior to the 1961 season, and in 1962 he was named to the Pro Bowl for the third time. He was voted lineman of the game after recording 11 tackles, a blocked punt, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. Despite the late start to his career, he was blossoming into a star.

Four months later, on May 10, 1963, Big Daddy and his friend Tim Black partied with women until 3 a.m., then shot up with heroin. Black said when he couldn't wake Lipscomb up, he took him to a hospital. He was pronounced dead on arrival. His autopsy showed five times the "safe" amount of heroin in his bloodstream.

Thousands went to a public viewing in Baltimore, and a thousand more went to the funeral in Detroit. In attendance were NFL players Erich Barnes, John Henry Johnson, Dick (Night Train) Lane, Lenny Moore, Luke Owens, Jim Parker, Sherman Plunkett, and Johnny Sample. Also at the funeral were three women, each claiming to be his fiancée.

Joe Kirkwood was Australia's first great golfer. He won the Australian Open and the New Zealand Open at age 23, and in 1923 won the Houston Invitational. The following year he won the San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, and Corpus Christi Opens -- the last by a PGA record 16 strokes.

Kirkwood became famous for trick shots, like driving a ball tee'd up in a man's mouth, holding three clubs to hit three balls at once, hitting a ball and then a second one so quickly that they could collide in flight, hitting a ball with so much backspin it went straight up and he would catch it in his hand, and even hitting a ball off the back of an elephant. He could play either left-handed or right-handed, and sometimes played left-handed with right-handed clubs!

In the 1920s, Kirkwood teamed up with the famous Walter Hagen, who is still third in majors won (11, behind Jack Nicklaus with 18 and Tiger Woods with 15), on a world tour to promote golf. During a stop in Mexico, Kirkwood and Hagen played on a golf course in Tijuana with grass so parched they said it was like playing in a desert. They decided for the following day's round of golf they'd instead play in the streets of Tijuana. (It was, of course, a publicity stunt, with reporters trailing them.) They walked a mile away from their hotel, then played their way back to it, chasing their balls through the streets, plazas, and markets. They agreed the last hole would be the toilet bowl in their hotel room, with $50 going to whoever "sank" the final shot first.

Hagen reached the hotel first, lofting a shot from the flower beds and through the front doors into the lobby. Then he chipped his way up the stairs and putted his way down the hallway and into their hotel room.

The ball rolled onto the tile floor of the bathroom, but Hagen couldn't get enough loft on the club to chip the ball into the toilet bowl. After a dozen unsuccessful tries, at last the trick shot master caught up. "Move over," he said. Hagen got out of the way and with one easy swing Kirkwood plopped his ball into the water.

> "Now that's what I call a fifty-dollar splash." -- Joe Kirkwood

> "That guy thinks he should win every time he pitches, and if he loses, it's a personal conspiracy against him." -- Lou Gehrig on Johnny Allen

Johnny Allen was one of the most famous hotheads of the 1930s. After four seasons in pinstripes and numerous confrontations with teammates, umpires, and fans, the Yankees finally traded him to the Cleveland Indians.

"You have just acquired the worst disposition in the American League," a New York sportswriter told Ed McAuley of the Cleveland News.

Ninety years ago today, on April 30, 1936, Allen faced his former teammates for the first time. He breezed through the first three innings. Then, in the fourth, the notorious headhunter threw up and in at Lou Gehrig. The enraged Yankees in the dugout started screaming at him, and Allen started screaming back from the mound, completely losing his composure. The Yankees pounded him for four runs on nine hits and three walks in six innings!

John Thomas Allen was born September 30, 1905, in Lenoir, North Carolina. His father, Robert L. Allen, the town's police chief, died of appendicitis when Johnny was a boy. Johnny's widowed mother, Agnes, was unable to provide for the four children, and sent three of them, including Johnny, to the Thomasville Baptist Orphanage.

Like his future teammate Babe Ruth, life in the orphanage taught Johnny how to fight -- "I lost my first one hundred fights there, but none after that," he later recalled -- and how to play baseball.

Three months before his 17th birthday, Allen left the orphanage with two dollars in his pocket, a change of clothes, and a Bible. For the next three years, he traveled around North Carolina and Virginia, working on farms and in hotels.

He grew into a 6-foot, 180-pound specimen -- 1940s N.C. State quarterback Peanut Doak, a friend of Allen's, said he was "one of the strongest men I've ever seen."

Allen also continued playing baseball, even attending church -- which, after all those years in the Baptist Orphanage, he hated -- so he could play in church leagues in addition to semi-pro teams.

Soon his fastball drew the attention of professional teams, and in 1928, he played for three unaffiliated minor league teams in North Carolina -- the Raleigh Capitals, the Fayetteville Highlanders, and the Greenville Tobacconists. The following year he went to the more competitive South Atlantic League, pitching for the Asheville Tourists. There he went 20-11 with a 3.33 ERA in 249 innings, and hit .313 in 115 at-bats.

A scout for the Yankees named Johnny Nee -- who had discovered Bill Dickey in Mississippi a few years earlier -- asked Asheville owner Dan Hill about his best players. Hill didn't mention Allen, but Nee had seen his stats and asked about the two-way phenom. "He's wilder in more ways than his control," Hill said. "And, boy, what a sweet disposition! He must eat sulfur and brimstone for breakfast." But he could pitch, Hill admitted. He also added that the Indians had inquired about him. Nee paid Asheville $7,500 for the rights to Allen and signed him to a minor league contract with the Yankees for $300 a month.

When Allen made his debut with the Yankees two years later, sportswriter Will Wedge invented a colorful story that Allen, while working as a clerk at a hotel, checked in Yankees scout Paul Krichell. Allen doted on Krichell, personally fulfilling his every request, while begging him for a tryout. Krichell finally agreed. The former major league catcher took Allen into an alley next to the hotel, marked off sixty feet six inches, and told Allen to give him his best fastball. Krichell then had one last request for the hotel clerk -- some ice for his swollen glove hand!

> "That was Will Wedge's story, and I let it go as long as Will was alive. But now that he's gone, I've got to admit, it was just another of those baseball yarns. It is true, I worked as a hotel clerk as a young man, but I really was Johnny Nee's boy. It was Nee who bought me from Asheville for the Yankee organization in 1929." -- Allen in Fiery Fast-Baller by Wint Capel

The Yankees assigned Allen to the Jersey City Skeeters in the International League. There his manager was previously forgotten Yankee Bob Shawkey, a pitching guru who had mentored a number of future Yankee hurlers, including future Hall of Famers Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez as well as previously forgotten Yankees Jumbo Brown and Spud Chandler.

Allen went 12-16 with a 3.98 ERA in 1930, and then the following year was invited to spring training with the Yankees, but was sent back to Jersey City. Soon after he was reassigned to Toronto Maple Leafs, where sportswriters unanimously voted him to the International League All-Star team. After the season, he married Leta Shields, a North Carolina girl he'd met a few years earlier on a train to Myrtle Beach.

Allen was brought back to Yankee camp for spring training in 1932, and newspapers said he was the "best of the lot" when it came to the team's pitching prospects.

Allen's first game, on April 19, 1932, came against the Boston Red Sox. He was smacked around for four runs on three hits and two walks in the first inning, and then in the second, another run after giving up two hits and two walks. He was pulled for previously forgotten Yankee Poison Ivy Andrews.

Allen sat for two weeks and came back on May 3 against the Washington Senators. That day's starting pitcher, Herb Pennock, gave up three runs on four hits and two walks in the first inning and was pulled after getting just one out. Allen came on, walked the first batter he faced, and then retired the next 14 in a row before walking another batter to lead off the fifth. Then six more outs in a row before being pulled in the top of the seventh for a pinch hitter.

Five and two-thirds hitless innings earned Allen another shot in the rotation, and he threw three complete games in a row, two of them shutouts. After that, aside from when he was out with injuries, he'd be a regular in the rotation the rest of his Yankee career. During that rookie season, Allen reeled off 10 straight wins between July 17 and September 5. Over the streak, he had a 2.43 ERA and 1.030 WHIP in 77 2/3 innings. Overall for his rookie season, he was 17-4 with a 3.70 ERA (110 ERA+) and 1.240 WHIP in 192 innings, and he led the league with an .840 winning percentage.

After going to the World Series six times in eight years between 1921 and 1928, the Yankees were well out of it in 1929, 1930, and 1931. In 1932, they finally roared back to the American League pennant, winning 107 games thanks to monster seasons from Babe Ruth (8.5 bWAR), Lou Gehrig (8.2), Red Ruffing (7.8), Earle Combs (5.2), Tony Lazzeri (4.4), and Ben Chapman (4.2). Allen ranked seventh on the team, and second among pitchers, with 3.1 bWAR that year.

That year the Yankees faced the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. The most memorable moment of the Series came in Game 3, when Babe Ruth hit his famous called shot off Chicago's Charlie Root. Allen started the next day, Game 4, and got just two outs, giving up four runs (three earned) on five hits and an error in the first inning. Allen was pulled for Wilcy Moore, who gave up one run in 5 1/3 innings, allowing the Yankees to get back into it, and Herb Pennock finished it off to win the game 13-6 and complete the sweep.

For just two-thirds of an inning of work, Allen's World Series share was $8,000, twice his annual salary; he and his wife used the money to buy a house in St. Petersburg, Florida, and he earned himself a spot in the Yankee rotation.

In four seasons with the Yankees, Allen was an astounding 50-19 (.725 W%), though his 3.79 ERA was a more pedestrian 106 ERA+, and he'd missed about three dozen starts due to injuries. The bottom line was Allen was a little bit better than a league-average pitcher, but when healthy he could eat innings while pitching for one of the league's best lineups. It was a winning formula.

But Allen, for all his talent, was too much trouble. Even aside from his frequent injuries, the litany of issues with Allen was as long as a CVS receipt. He complained that manager Joe McCarthy wasn't pitching him enough. He argued with umpires about balls and strikes. He blew up at teammates when they made errors. He barked back at fans who taunted him. He threatened hold-outs over his salary. He chewed out reporters for not writing about him enough, and then he chewed out reporters for what they wrote. In the clubhouse, Allen -- shades of Paul O'Neill -- smashed lockers and kicked over water coolers. When the Yankees named Ralph Johnny Broaca the #3 starter ahead of him, Allen snapped: “If I’m not a better pitcher than Broaca, I’ll eat his shirt!” He challenged opposing players and even umpires to fist fights after games.

The final straw came near the end of the 1935 season, when Allen started screaming at McCarthy in the clubhouse. The rest of the Yankees watched in stunned silence as the imperious McCarthy stoically bore the brunt of the tirade, then just walked away. Allen may have thought he won that battle, but McCarthy told GM Ed Barrow to get him off the team before the next season.

The Yankees knew they might have a match with the Cleveland Indians. Back in 1929, the Indians had tried to sign Allen when he was pitching in the minors, but the Yankees had beaten them to the punch. The Indians had another connection to Allen -- their current manager, Steve O'Neill, had been his manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1931, and was sure he could handle him.

But the Indians knew Allen's reputation, and their offer was pretty weak: 27-year-old Monte Pearson and 26-year-old Steve Sundra, both right-handed pitchers. Pearson had pitched in four seasons for the Indians, going 36-31 with a 4.21 ERA (107 ERA+), but was coming off a disappointing 8-13, 4.90 ERA (92 ERA+) season. Sundra, (a previously forgotten Yankee, was a minor leaguer who had gone 4-6 with a 6.18 ERA and 1.784 WHIP in 102 innings with Cleveland's top farm team, but 5-1 with a 1.47 ERA in 55 innings while on loan to the Newark Bears.

The Yankees took the deal. On December 11, 1935, at last Johnny Allen became someone else's problem. The Sporting News opined: "On the small evidence available at this writing, close observers are inclined to believe O'Neill will need all his managerial control and expert knowledge of Allen's disposition to keep the pitcher on the ground."

Allen said all the right things about his new team, saying he was looking forward to the reunion with O'Neill and happy to be in Cleveland. After a rough first start (six runs in 4 1/3 innings), he came back with a shutout and an 8 2/3-inning relief appearance to close out a 16-inning game.

Then came April 30, 1936, when Allen faced the Yankees for the first time at Yankee Stadium. Pearson, one of the pitchers he had been traded for, was opposing him.

McCarthy knew the volatile Allen was likely going to try to start trouble, and told his players to keep their cool. All was well until the bottom of the fourth. With the Indians up 1-0, Lou Gehrig came up to the plate to lead off the inning. Allen threw a pitch that came close to the Iron Horse's head, and the Yankee dugout exploded with rage, screaming at their former teammate. Allen, screaming back, quickly lost his composure. He eventually walked the Yankee captain, then gave up a triple to Bill Dickey and a double to Ben Chapman to knock in two runs; later in the inning, Tony Lazzeri scored on a passed ball to make it 3-1 Yankees. Allen was done by the sixth inning, and the Yankees won it, 8-1.

The secret was out: Allen could be rattled. Teams were relentless in heckling him, and in his next seven starts beginning with the game against the Yankees, Allen went 2-5 with a 5.93 ERA and 1.878 WHIP in 41.0 innings.

> "As Allen's temper rose, his control vanished." -- The Sporting News

Rogers Hornsby, now the 40-year-old player/manager of the St. Louis Browns, told his batters that whenever Allen seemed to have settled into a rhythm to step out and ask the umpire to check the ball for foreign substances... but to wait until after the ball had been thrown back to Allen, requiring him to throw it back to the umpire for the inspection. Allen, seething on the mound, grew hotter by the second as the umpire looked over the ball. On one occasion, when the batter asked the umpire to check the ball, Allen threw it at the batter; on another, he threw it at the umpire, who had to block it with his chest protector!

The nadir was a game against the Tigers. Third base coach Del Baker -- who had learned how to heckle as a teammate of Ty Cobb from 1914 to 1916 -- was so relentless in his verbal attacks that Allen went after him, and umpires had to restrain him. After the game, he vowed vengeance not just against Baker but all who dared mock him. "Far from regretting his headlong charge at Baker, Allen after the game was threatening various forms of torture to anyone who abuses him from the coaching box the rest of the season," The Sporting News reported.

The turning point came after a loss on June 3, 1936, to the Red Sox at Fenway. Allen cruised through the first six innings, giving up one run on four hits and two walks, and he had helped his own cause with a two-out, two-run single in the top of the fourth. But he unraveled in the seventh, giving up five runs on six hits and an error. Allen was pulled after the inning, and the Indians lost, 6-2.

In the clubhouse following the game, Allen had some refreshments, chatted with reporters, and then did a little redecorating. Or as The Sporting News put it:

> "After a brief, but effective, session with popular liquid stimulants, he told the sports writers individually and collectively what he thought of them, then appointed himself a one-man wrecking crew for the club's hotel."

Allen went back to the hotel and kicked over an urn used as a cigarette ashtray, spilling sand and cigarette butts all over the floor. He then grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed it everywhere, including on a worker who was standing on a ladder changing a lightbulb. Then he went to the hotel bar, knocking over chairs and throwing bar stools against the wall. The hotel gave Allen a bill for $50 for damages, and O'Neill fined him $250 and told him he would suspend him the next time he lost his temper.

After that Allen was, if not a model citizen, certainly not the bad boy he had been to that point. His new demeanor certainly affected his performance on the mound: Over the rest of the season, he was an impressive 16-5 with a 2.85 ERA and 1.266 WHIP, and he finished the year 20-10 with a 3.44 ERA (149 ERA+). The following year, despite missing six weeks due to appendicitis, Allen was an impressive 15-1 with a 2.55 ERA (176 ERA+) and 1.254 WHIP.

In fact, Allen was poised to set an American League record for most consecutive wins in a season -- 16. On the final day of the season -- October 3, 1937 -- Johnny was 15-0 and slated to start. He also would set a record, set by the Yankees' Tom Zachary in 1929, for most wins without a loss in a season, but all eyes were on the consecutive wins record, set by Walter Johnson and Smoky Joe Wood in 1916, and then tied by Lefty Grove in 1931 and by Schoolboy Rowe in 1934. (The major league record is 19 in a row, set by Rube Marquard in 1912.)

In the bottom of the first inning, Allen had two outs and a runner on second base when Hank Greenberg hit a ground ball at third baseman Odell Hale. The ball went right through his legs and the runner scored from second base. Though scored a hit, Allen was furious at Hale as it would prove to be the game's only run in a 1-0 loss as the opposing pitcher, Jake Wade, threw a one-hit shutout.

After the game, Cleveland manager Steve O'Neill had to twice restrain Allen as he tried to attack Hale!

Even so, Allen's 15-1 record set a record for best winning percentage in a season (.938) with at least 15 decisions until Elroy Face went 18-1 (.947) in 1959, and he was named 1937's Major League Player of the Year by The Sporting News.

The following season, Allen lost the first game of the season, then reeled off another 12 straight wins. He was 12-1 with a 2.98 ERA and 1.252 WHIP over the first half and was selected for his first All-Star Team. He pitched three innings, giving up a run on two hits and hitting a batter. Allen said while pitching in the game, he felt something "snap" in his shoulder. (There also were rumors he had slipped and fallen in the shower.) Whatever it was, Allen was never the same: he was 2-7 with a 6.29 and 1.507 over the rest of the season, and he never topped 200 innings again in his career.

During his remarkable run, from after the hotel incident in 1936 until the All-Star Game in 1938, Allen went 47-12 (.797 W%) with a 3.00 ERA and 1.304 WHIP in 543 innings. He won 15 straight games in 1937 and then 12 straight in 1938.

Injuries and more bad behavior clouded the rest of Allen's career. He went 9-8 with a 3.44 ERA in 17 starts and 15 relief appearances for the Indians in 1940, then was accused of being one of the ringleaders of a "revolt" against manager Ossie Vitt. The players had complained to the front office about manager Ossie Vitt being too mean, and were dubbed the "Cleveland Crybabies" by the press. After the season, Allen was sold to the Browns for $20,000, but he went 2-5 with a 6.58 ERA and the Browns released him at the end of July.

The 36-year-old Allen then caught on with the Dodgers, desperate for reinforcements after losing a number of players to military service. In three seasons against depleted World War II rosters, Allen went 18-7 with a 3.21 ERA (107 ERA+) as a swingman; he also went back to the World Series in 1941, and faced the Yankees! He appeared in three of the five games, all in relief, and pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings. Despite his good work, the Yankees won it, four games to one.

He ended his career with the Giants, going 5-10 with a 3.74 ERA (96 ERA+), and was released prior to the start of the 1945 season.

After his playing days were over, Allen -- the scourge of umpires for so many years -- became an umpire himself, in the minor leagues. A sportswriter said Allen in an umpire's uniform looked to be "about as much at home as a camel in a camel's-hair coat." The Milwaukee Journal noted the first manager who came out to protest one of Allen's calls might be "met by a left hook to the jaw."

Allen died from a heart attack in 1959 at the age of 54, and was survived by his wife of 28 years, Leta, and his son, John Jr., who became a lawyer. As hot-tempered as he was as a competitor, Allen's friends and neighbors remembered him as a good husband, a loving father, and a generous man... including making donations to the Thomasville Baptist Orphanage, which survives to this day as Baptist Children's Homes of North Carolina.

Dirty Johnny

• Allen's explosive temper and frequent arguing earned him nicknames like "Jawin' Jawn," "The Carolina Tornado," and "The Tarheel Typhoon." But it was said Allen was even more intimidating when he wasn't yelling, with one sportswriter saying when Allen was quiet, he was "as cold and dangerous as an icepick." Another compared him to a jaguar lying in ambush.

• According to PineStraw Magazine, an unnamed Yankee third baseman "cost Allen a game by dropping a pop fly." After the game, Allen walked up to him in the clubhouse and punched him in the face. "If anybody else drops an easy fly on me," he vowed to his stunned teammates, "that’s what’s going to happen to you!"

• In a 1938 game, A's rookie Sam Chapman hit a line drive up the middle that hit Allen's knee and bounced to the shortstop, who picked it up and threw him out. Allen was able to stay in the game, but he was enraged. "He hollered at me, 'You busher! You'll never hit another ball like that!'" Chapman recalled. "And I didn't either. I was on my back the rest of the day. Every time I came up, he'd whiz one past my ear."

• Hall of Fame slugger Jimmie Foxx hit .231/.314/.481 off Johnny Allen in his career, compared to .325/.426/.609 overall. It was his lowest OPS against any pitcher he faced in at least 100 at-bats. Just like the "hit the mascot" scene in Bull Durham, Allen said his secret to keeping Foxx off balance was to play up his reputation for being unable to control his pitches or his temper. He and catcher Bill Dickey had a sign where Allen would uncork a wild one to intimidate the batter. "You ain't paying me enough," Foxx told his manager after another frustrating at-bat against Allen. "That wild man out there was throwing behind me. You could get killed out there."

• Allen's bad attitude was no doubt influenced by his harsh upbringing in the orphanage. Boys who ran away, as Allen did at least a half dozen times, were caught and paddled, then locked alone in a room -- solitary confinement. Other punishments included having to wash dishes while being made to wear a girl's dress or being sent to the cow barn and not allowed to return without 500 dead flies. Boys who wet the bed were dunked in a tub full of cold water or threatened with castration. Chores on the 600-acre farm began at 4 a.m., and if you worked hard enough that the calluses on your hands impressed one of the supervisors, you might get a nickel as a bonus. Johnny said he always volunteered to milk the cows just for the chance to drink raw milk to supplement the meager amount of food they were given each day.

• Life in the orphanage was hard, but this being rural North Carolina, the boys were allowed to hunt. While handling a 12 gauge shotgun, Allen shot himself in the foot, losing two of his middle toes. Years later, his son John Jr. told writer Wint Capel that his father could make "a pincher" with the remaining toes on either side. "Sometimes when I was a baby in bed with him, he would give me a playful nip."

• Coincidentally, another Yankee pitcher from North Carolina -- Jim "Catfish" Hunter -- also was shot in the foot in a hunting accident. “My brother still doesn’t know what happened, but his shotgun went off accidentally and got me in the foot," Jim recalled about 10 years later. "Then he went and had the nerve to faint on me. I had to slap his face to wake him up.” Hunter lost his pinky toe and the feeling in the next one, but still managed to have a Hall of Fame career.

• In addition to Hunter and Allen, other Yankees born in North Carolina include Hall of Famers Enos Slaughter and Gaylord Perry, as well as Sterling Hitchcock, Jim Ray Hart, Cameron Maybin, and Tom Zachary -- who went 12-0 in 1929 to set the record (still standing!) for most wins without a loss in a season that Allen nearly broke in 1937.

• Two years after Allen lost the final game of the season to fall to 15-1, Steve Sundra -- one of the two pitchers the Yankees acquired from the Indians for Allen -- was 11-0 on the final day of the season, and started the second game of that day's doubleheader. He lost, 4-2, to fall to 11-1.

• Allen threw from a variety of arm angles, including an overhand curveball, a sidearm fastball, and a sharp breaking ball he called "my out-pitch" that was likely a slider. The fastball may have been an early form of a cutter because it was fast but broke sideways like a curveball. "That whipcracker of his -- the sidearm fast ball -- is the meanest delivery in the league for a right-handed hitter," Bill Dickey said. "You simply cannot get hold of it. He'll buzz it over the bat handle before you can see it."

• Like many hard throwing youngsters, Allen struggled with his control in the minors. One newspaper described him as "wild as a hawk." He eventually learned to harness his stuff, at least to an acceptable level, with 3.4 walks per nine innings over his major league career. But he did lead the league with 10 wild pitches in 1933.

• Pitching in the minor leagues in 1931, Allen threw a fastball that hit the catcher in his face mask. He'd thrown it so hard that the ball became wedged between the bars of the mask, and it took several minutes for a groundskeeper to pry it loose!

• Between 1932 and 1933, Allen won his first 16 decisions at Yankee Stadium, setting a major league record for most home wins to start a career. LaMarr Hoyt tied it when he went 16-0 at home to begin his career with the White Sox before finally losing a game at Comiskey on June 9, 1982. In 2015, Jose Fernandez of the Marlins finally broke the record when he went 17-0 in 26 home starts to begin his tragically short career.

• Allen struggled with injuries and illnesses throughout his career. In 1933, he missed the start of the season due to the flu; in 1934, he had a tooth infection as well as a shoulder injury; in 1935, he had a sore arm; in 1936, a sore back; in 1937, appendicitis -- which must have been particularly troubling as it was what had killed his father! -- and in 1938, another shoulder injury.

• The tooth infection in 1934 was caused by an impacted wisdom tooth, and Allen pitched a career-low 71 2/3 innings that year. Allen had the tooth pulled and kept it as a souvenir, calling it his "$10,000 tooth" because he believed the disappointing season cost him $10,000 in salary.

• Dave Burtner, who managed a semi-pro team in Greensboro, was an old friend of Allen's. In 1928, after Allen had turned pro, Burtner sometimes used him as a ringer. "We had a good ball club and we were going to play Pinnacle for the state championship. I picked up Johnny to go along and pitch for me. He faced 27 men that day and 27 went back to the bench, 18 of them on strikeouts. I don't suppose he ever pitched another perfect game, but he did that day."

• One of Allen's teammates on the Asheville Tourists in 1929 was Earl Mattingly... no relation. This Mattingly, from Maryland, had an eight-year career in the minors and pitched briefly for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1931.

• On June 7, 1938, Boston player/manager Joe Cronin complained about the tattered sweatshirt Allen was wearing under his jersey, saying the fluttering sleeves were a distraction. (At the time, a rule read: "Pitchers will not be permitted to work with ragged or slit sleeves, which have the effect of confusing the batter.") Allen had indeed cut holes into the sleeves, saying they were for "ventilation." Umpire Bill McGowan told Allen to go to the clubhouse between innings and either change his sweatshirt or cut the sleeves off. When Allen didn't come out for the next inning, Cleveland manager Ossie Vitt went to the clubhouse to see what was going on. Allen said he wouldn't change the shirt, and Vitt fined him $250 and pulled him from the game. A department store in Cleveland then bought the shirt from Allen and displayed it on a mannequin in the front window. The amount paid for the sweatshirt wasn't disclosed, but McGowan, who also fined Allen $250 for a total of $500, said that Allen had sold the shirt for $600, making $100 on the deal. The "holy" sweatshirt was later donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame!

• On May 27, 1943, Allen was pitching for the Dodgers against the Pirates when he was called for a balk by umpire George Barr. Allen was so incensed by the call that he charged off the mound, grabbed Barr by the shoulders -- or, according to some sources, the necktie -- and shook him so hard his cap fell off. Dodgers second baseman Billy Herman ran over to try to break it up, but Allen just shoved him away. Eventually he was subdued by manager Leo Durocher and teammate Les Webber. Allen was ejected, of course, and then suspended for 30 days and fined $200.

• Allen wore #18 all four seasons with the Yankees. #18 was worn last year by Oswald Peraza; prior to that, it was by Andrew Benintendi and Rougned Odor. Notable #18's were Didi Gregorius, Hiroki Kuroda, Johnny Damon, Scott Brosius, Randy Velarde, Claudell Washington, Mike Kekich, Hal Reniff, and Don Larsen.

• In 1977, Allen was posthumously inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

• Johnny's wife, Leta, died in 1990 at the age of 86. According to her obituary, the Allens frequently hosted backyard barbecues at their St. Petersburg home that were attended by a number of celebrities, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, actor George Raft, and heavyweight champion Jimmy Braddock.

• This is not the Johnny Allen who won NASCAR's Myers Brothers 200 in 1962, or the Johnny Allen who played for the Washington Redskins in the 1950s.

• For more about this Johnny Allen, check out the book Fiery Fast-Baller: The Life of Johnny Allen by Wint Capel (2001).

> “He expects to win every time he pitches, and if he doesn’t win, he may turn on anybody.” -- Yankee trainer Doc Painter on Johnny Allen's temper

Allen was, in the parlance of the day, a red ass. An ultra-competitive hot-head who blew a gasket when he lost. And isn't that exactly the kind of player we all love to have on our team? The 1930s version of Paul O'Neill. He wanted to win and so do we. For that he should be remembered!

Today is the NFL Draft, and coincidentally it also is the 21st anniversary of one of the most shocking freefalls in first round history, at least until Shedeur Sanders last year. Aaron Rodgers, the hometown kid who became a star at Cal, is thought to be the #1 pick to the 49ers. Instead, they go with Utah's Alex Smith.

The 49ers had just hired a new head coach, Mike Nolan, who also served as the team's GM. Nolan, son of former 49ers and Saints head coach Dick Nolan, said he liked Rodgers but thought he'd get along better with the more "non-confrontational" Smith. Supposedly Nolan had told Smith at least 10 days before the draft that he was going #1. Of course, no one told Rodgers.

Rodgers said he was later told that Nolan had made up his mind after meeting Smith at lunch:

> "The story that I heard, and I don't know if it's true or not, but that Mike Nolan said that when he saw Alex open the car door for his mom, then he knew that was the quarterback he wanted. And I said, well I was at lunch with him, my mom wasn't there, and my dad wasn't there."

After the 49ers took Smith with the first pick, it was assumed the Dolphins, up next, would take him. After all, in 2004, they had gone with A.J. Feeley, Jay Fiedler, and Sage Rosenfels as the starting QB. But Nick Saban believed that the 49ers were taking Rodgers, and he had his heart set on Smith.

On the morning of the draft, former Cowboys chief scout Gil Brandt, now an analyst for NFL Media, had learned that the 49ers were taking Smith. He asked Saban what would happen if Smith was gone but Rodgers was there. Saban said if Smith went first, he'd take Auburn running back Ronnie Brown. And he did.

This started Rodgers's epic slide, as team after team passed on him. Then, a shocker: The Packers, who still had 36-year-old Brett Favre at quarterback, took Rodgers at #24.

> "The day of the draft, when Aaron kept falling, when we were probably five or six choices away, Ted asked me if I'd step out of the room with him. We went into his office and he said, 'If Rodgers is still there, I'm going to take him because he's the top guy on our board and there he sits.' He said, 'We're going to catch some heat because Brett's playing and playing well and people are going to say you've got so many needs why in the world are you taking a guy who's going to sit on the bench?' It was the same thing I told Ron [Wolf] all those years, I told Ted, 'It's your club. You do what you want to want to do and make the choice you want to make, and we'll stand with you.' So the two of us go back in the room and there it comes and there he sits. Ted stands up and says, 'Fellas, I'm going to take Rodgers.'" -- Packers President Bob Harlan

Smith went 2-7 in his first season, and 7-9 in his second. In his third year he was 2-5. He injured his shoulder after getting sacked in the first quarter of the Week 4 game against the Seahawks and was in and out of the lineup the rest of the season, with Nolan publicly feuding with Smith about toughness and playing hurt. Smith was finally diagnosed with a serious shoulder injury, which recurred the following season.

Nolan was fired in 2008. Smith remained with the 49ers for four more seasons, then in 2013 was traded to the Chiefs for a 2nd round pick. He won Comeback Player of the Year with the Washington Football Team in 2020. Overall, he went 99-67 with 199 touchdowns and 109 interceptions in 174 games and was a three-time Pro Bowler.

Rodgers, of course, was a four-time MVP, a 10-time Pro Bowler, a four-time All-Pro, and a Super Bowl champion.