Even iconoclasts have birthdays

Dick Allen with the Phillies in 1969

Happy birthday today to two of baseball’s most iconic – and iconoclastic – players from the 1960s.

Longtime Philadelphia Phillies first baseman, enigma and ultimately Hall of Famer Dick Allen would have celebrated No. 83 if he were still with us, while former New York Yankees pitcher and the late tell-all-writer Jim Bouton would have turned 86.

Both of their books – Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen from 1989 and Ball Four by Bouton in 1971 – are must-reads.

Jim Bouton in retirement with his best-selling book