Another world lies tangent to our own—where everything is whackeyed. You wear purple skirts; you leave the dustcloth on translucent shelves; the sun is slightly green. It behooves one to note that the Dick Allen who wrote the opening stanza above for “Theory of the Alternate Universe” is the late award-winning poet and not the iconoclastic line-drive hitter, who should, by the way, be in the Hall of Fame. Given his unpredictable nature and the fact that he scratched words into the dirt with the toe of his spikes (“Oct. 2,” “Coke,” “Boo”; you can look this up), Allen would certainly have been a fan of alternate universes, particularly if he could’ve been transported to one during the 1969 season when he unhappily patrolled first base, and doodled, for the 63–99 Philadelphia Phillies.
—Dick Allen
75 Years of NBA Coulda-Beens
