An inside job

The iconoclastic Dick Allen twice victimizes Bert Blyleven 52 years ago today as he hits a pair of inside-the-park homers to center field and drives in five runs during the Chicago White Sox's 8-1 victory before a Monday afternoon crowd of 13,652 at Minnesota's old Metropolitan Stadium.

The inside-the-park homers in 1972 are the sixth and seventh of Allen's outstanding, if often perplexing, 15-year career in the majors.

They also are the only two homers Allen hits off the future Hall of Famer in a pair of careers in which Allen hits 351 homers and Blyleven surrenders 430 of them.

At the time, Allen is only the second player to hit two inside-the-park homers in the same game with the first being the New York Giants’ Hank Thompson in 1950.

Matching the record since then are Minnesota’s Greg Gagne in 1986 and Texas’ Ruben Sierra in 1987.