Where few have gone before

Dick Allen

Straightaway center field at Chicago’s old Comiskey Park rarely is a place where baseballs land, although that is exactly where Dick Allen deposits a pitch from the Yankees' Lindy McDaniel 52 years ago today.

Allen, in the midst of his 1972 MVP season with the White Sox, joins Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg, as well as the enigmatic Alex Johnson, as the only batters to reach Comiskey's distant center field bleachers.

Allen's two-run homer in the bottom in the seventh inning accounts for the final runs in the White Sox's 5-2 victory over New York before a Wednesday afternoon crowd of 24,678 in South Chicago.

The shot also lands only a few rows from Chicago broadcaster Harry Caray, who is announcing the game that day from the bleachers.