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Cardinals slugger Dick Allen gave a grand goodbye to Connie Mack Stadium.

On Sept. 8, 1970, in a game between the Cardinals and Phillies, Allen hit a home run in his final at-bat at Connie Mack Stadium, his baseball home for his first seven seasons in the majors.

Allen wasn’t expected to play in the game because he hadn’t fully recovered from a hamstring injury, but he didn’t want to miss the chance to appear a final time in the ballpark where he performed for the Phillies from 1963-69.

Rising to the occasion, Allen went out with flair.

Old venue

The Tuesday night game was the Cardinals’ last in Philadelphia for 1970 and their last in Connie Mack Stadium. The ballpark was named Shibe Park when it opened in 1909 as the home of the Athletics. The Phillies moved there from Baker Bowl during the 1938 season. Shibe Park was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.

The Phillies were moving to newly constructed Veterans Stadium in 1971.

Allen, acquired by the Cardinals in October 1969, was providing the run production the club sought until he injured a hamstring in his right leg during a steal of second base on Aug. 14, 1970. Boxscore

At the time of the injury, Allen, a right-handed batter, was on pace to hit 45 home runs for the season, The Sporting News calculated. The Cardinals’ franchise record was 43 by Johnny Mize in 1940. The club mark for a right-handed batter was 42 by Rogers Hornsby in 1922.

Allen sat out about a week, made two pinch-hitting appearances, and went back on the shelf.

Unexpected visitor

Allen hadn’t started a game since the day he was injured, so it was a surprise when he was listed as cleanup batter and first baseman in the lineup card Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst submitted before the start of the series finale at Philadelphia.

“Allen didn’t get to the park until 7 o’clock and how his name got onto Red Schoendienst’s lineup card is something of a mystery,” Bill Conlin reported in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Years later, in the book, “Redbirds: A Century of Cardinals Baseball,” Bob Broeg revealed “a wobbly Allen” was “full of giggle water” when he insisted on playing.

“His wife even phoned Red Schoendienst and asked the manager not to play him,” Broeg wrote. “Red concurred, but Richie was so persuasive that Red shrugged his shoulders and put him in the lineup.”

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Allen called Schoendienst before the game and asked to go back in the lineup.”

Phillies manager Frank Lucchesi told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I was quite frankly surprised to see his name on the lineup card. We were under the impression he was too hurt to play.”

Delightful drama 

Before a gathering of 3,995 spectators, the game matched starting pitchers Steve Carlton of the Cardinals and Rick Wise of the Phillies. Two years later, they would be traded for one another.

In his first three plate appearances, Allen walked, singled and struck out.

With the Cardinals ahead, 3-2, Allen batted with two outs and none on in the eighth. Barring a Phillies comeback, it figured to be his last at-bat at Connie Mack Stadium. In the Phillies’ bullpen, pitcher Woodie Fryman said to coach Doc Edwards, “You better believe he wants to hit one out.”

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Fryman turned to reliever Ken Reynolds and said, “Don’t be surprised if he does it right here.”

Allen got a pitch to his liking. “It was a slider out over the plate that didn’t do anything,” Wise told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

When Allen hit the ball, Bill Conlin wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News, “it started out like a vicious zapper to left-center. Then it appeared the ball would clatter off the sign that advertises dog food. Somehow, though, the ball never changed its flat, whistling trajectory until it thudded off a fan in the lower deck.”

Said Edwards: “It hit some kid in the chest and they carried him out. That ball never was more than 10 feet high the whole 400 feet.”

Allen limped around the bases, “blew a double kiss to some fans behind the dugout and kept going right down the dugout steps,” Conlin observed.

Joe Hague replaced Allen at first base in the bottom of the eighth.

The Cardinals went on to win, 6-3, and when reporters went into the clubhouse, Allen was gone. Boxscore

“He’ll probably be sore tomorrow,” Schoendienst said, “but he wanted to give it a try.”

Power supply

The next night, at Pittsburgh, Allen was in the starting lineup against the Pirates. In the fifth inning, his right leg tightened when he swung and missed at a pitch. The Cardinals said he suffered a muscle cramp. Vic Davalillo finished the at-bat for Allen. Boxscore

Allen appeared as a pinch-hitter on Sept. 10 and never played in another game for the Cardinals. His totals for the 1970 season: 34 home runs and 101 RBI in 122 games. His on-base percentage was .377.

The 34 home runs were the most by a Cardinal since Stan Musial hit 35 in 1954.

Allen was consistent, hitting 17 home runs for the Cardinals at home and 17 on the road. He hit more home runs (six) versus the Phillies than he did against any other foe in 1970.

The Cardinals traded Allen to the Dodgers after the season.

In his book, “Stranger to the Game,” Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson said of Allen, “He wasn’t your all-American boy, by any means, and he did some things, mainly drinking, that people frowned on, but I maintain that if he had been white, he would have been considered merely a free spirit. As a black man who did as he pleased and guarded his privacy, he was instead regarded as a troublemaker.

“As a teammate, I can honestly say that I was crazy about the guy,” Gibson said. “He swung that big, old 42-ounce bat like nobody I’d ever played with, and when he lit into a fastball, (stuff) happened. That’s all I cared about.”

On June 21, 1991, about a month after Rickey Henderson of the Athletics set the record for most career stolen bases in the major leagues, I got to interview the man who had held the mark, Lou Brock.

In downtown Cincinnati to promote an Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball old-timer’s game at Riverfront Stadium, Brock met at the Hyatt Regency hotel with my colleague, Geoff Hobson, and me for a wide-ranging interview.

A Baseball Hall of Fame inductee who achieved 3,023 hits and 938 stolen bases during his career with the Cubs and Cardinals, Brock was thoughtful, pleasant and generous with his time.

Brock was present when Henderson broke the stolen base record with his 939th steal on May 1, 1991, at Oakland against the Yankees.

Here are excerpts from our tape-recorded interview a few weeks later:

Q.: It was a curious moment when Henderson broke your record. He raised the base above his head and was kind of defiant when he said, “Lou Brock is the symbol of great base stealing, but today I am the greatest of all time.” Do you think that was a proper way to accept the record?

Brock: “I went to him the night before and asked if he wanted help writing something to say. He said yes. I told him if I wrote something down he’d have to read it at the microphone, but he wanted to do it from the heart.

“Rickey wasn’t prepared. He didn’t have a sounding board. What was shocking to me was how exposed he was while going for a major record. You have to have somebody helping you screen the attention.”

Q.: When you were chasing Ty Cobb, did you have someone to help you?

Brock: “When I was going for records, most of the guys I chased were gone. So I was just going after paper. Rickey not only came face to face with history, but I was there physically, and that probably added to the pressure.”

Q,: What else can you tell us about your experience with Rickey Henderson?

Brock: “We ate dinner together the night before and we played cards together the night before that. Rickey was like a son to me. He and my son, Lou Brock Jr., got along well. They talked the same language. The inning before Rickey broke the record, he and I were talking underneath the stands. I told him he had to take control of the game. Let them react to you.”

Q.: Do you see a difference in base stealing today versus when you played?

Brock: Guys like myself, Maury Wills, Luis Aparicio were pioneers, making the basepaths super highways. Teams watered the infield to stop you. You’d have to run on the edge of the infield grass because you knew the ground there was firm. Now, there’s no highway patrol to tell you how fast to go and no citizen’s arrest if you’re going too fast.”

Q.: Do you think you are appreciated as an all-round player, not just a base stealer?

Brock: “Baseball has become highly specialized. They market you in slugging or fielding, and the total player can get lost. My signature is all over stolen base records, but my mark is on other places as well.”

Q.: What was it like when you were with the Cubs before going to the Cardinals?

Brock: “I was a kid with two left feet then. I hadn’t done anything spectacular. I was waiting to hear from Cubs management that I was being sent back to the minor leagues.

“It was frustrating. I was one of those guys who was a shooting star in the organization and went straight up to the top. I came out of Class C baseball to the big leagues in the same year. It was a curse and a blessing. The blessing was I was in the big leagues. The curse was I had to learn to play baseball against the best. You begin to feel you don’t belong.”

Q.: Did you welcome the trade to the Cardinals in June 1964?

Brock: “My last hit for the Cubs was a two-run homer to win a ballgame against the Pirates. The next day I was traded. I got the call from the Cubs general manager, John Holland. He said, ‘Your contract is being transferred.’ Transferred? What the hell is transferred?

“When he told me I had been traded to St. Louis, and who I had been traded for, Ernie Broglio, Bobby Shantz, I thought, ‘Wow, I have value. I really do belong here.’ You begin to take a different view of yourself. It can change all in that one moment.”

Q.: Do you think the Cubs would have won a pennant if you stayed?

Brock: “They probably would have won in 1967, 1968, 1969 and maybe 1970 if they had a leadoff man. The leadoff man is very important because he sets the table for how the game will be played. You look at all your great teams. They have a leadoff guy who can set the table and force the other team to beat what you put on it.”

Q.: One of your teammates on those 1960s Cardinals was Curt Flood. Do you think he’ll ever get his due for what he did to challenge the reserve clause and open the door to free agency for players?

Brock: “He was a pioneer who ended up with arrows in his back because of the stance he took in regards to the system. Curt wanted us to look at baseball hard, to dust if off, polish it up.”

Q,: You rose to national prominence in the 1967 World Series against the Red Sox when you hit .414 and set a World Series record for steals, with seven. What can you tell us about that?

Brock: “Dick Williams was the manager of those 1967 Red Sox. When I was with the Cubs in 1963, we played the Red Sox in a spring training game in Arizona. I got the sign to steal third. Dick Williams was the third baseman. I went diving into third head-first and Dick blocked me and stepped on my hand. I couldn’t get to the base. He tagged me out and said, ‘Kid, what do you think this is, the seventh game of the World Series?’

“So in the seventh game of the 1967 World Series, I’m on second base, and I look into the Red Sox dugout and see Dick Williams and I say to myself, ‘This is too good to be true.’ So I steal third. It couldn’t be more appropriate.”

Q.: You played in three World Series with the 1960s Cardinals. What was it like being on those teams?

Brock: “We had practical jokers on our team. Tim McCarver was one of the best. Bob Gibson was one of the best. Roger Maris was quiet, but he was one of them. I was surprised he fit in that well with that group of guys. They nailed my shoes to the floor a couple of times.

“We were pretty much like the Gashouse Gang. Nobody knew it, but we were just that wild. Maris joined right in.”

Q.: How is it those 1960s Cardinals teams had so many leaders among the players?

Brock: “I call them fighters. One of the differences between the Cubs and the Cards then was attitude.

“With the Cubs, we’d lose and the manager and coaches would say, ‘Sit at your locker and think about the game. Think about how you lost.’

“With the Cards, we lost the first game I was in a St. Louis uniform. I was expecting everyone to sit down and put their heads in their lockers. Then I heard the manager and coaches say, ‘Go get your rest. Those guys got lucky today. We’re going to kick their butts tomorrow. Somebody on that other team is going to pay for it tomorrow.’

“That whole attitude was right down my alley.”