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You can’t tell the story of Curt Flood without Dick Allen

As most fans know, when Curt Flood was traded to the Phillies after the 1969 season, he refused to report and thus began a years-long legal battle which - though Flood would ultimately lose his case - would pave the way for free agency.

Dick Allen is often just a footnote in that story - the player who came back to the Cardinals in that deal. But Allen - who died Monday at the age of 78 - was a significant part of the labor struggle in his own right, and his one year in St. Louis was a momentous one.