ballnine - WHY A LIFER WALKED AWAY

 

By Kevin Kernan 

June 9, 2021

  

     

Gary Allenson walked away from baseball because baseball walked away from him. Not unlike so many other former major league players who spent a lifetime in the game as players, coaches and managers.

Allenson played seven years in the majors, six a catcher with the Red Sox and 14 games with the Blue Jays in 1985, his final season. He also managed or coached at every pro level, managing nearly 3,000 games in the minor leagues over 23 seasons, 11 of those seasons coming in AAA.

Originally a pitcher/shortstop, Allenson became a third baseman, played some second and outfield, and worked himself into becoming an excellent catcher. He had a successful college career at Arizona State University. He began there as a second baseman, moved to third and evolved into a catcher his senior year, which opened the door to the majors for him as he became a ninth-round round pick of the Red Sox in 1976. Twice he played in the College World Series, hitting .444 his junior year and .389 his senior year.

His two most recent jobs as a minor league manager came at AAA Buffalo in 2016 and AA New Hampshire in 2017 in the Blue Jays system, but he also managed in the Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, Astros, Rangers, Marlins and Brewers systems. He was a major league coach with the Red Sox, Brewers and Orioles.

Because he is no longer in the game, Allenson is not afraid to call out the game for what it has become under commissioner Rob Manfred, a shell of its former glory. 

“CHOKE UP A LITTLE BIT. GET BETTER BAT CONTROL. WHAT KILLS ME IS THE GUY WHO HIT 762 HOME RUNS CHOKED UP HIS WHOLE CAREER,’’ HE SAID OF BARRY BONDS.

This is a game overrun by analytics with common sense chased away from the dugout, as well as former major leaguers because they are a threat to this new breed of GM, who rely on numbers and not what their eyes tell them or what former players in their employ tell them.

This is why there are so many terrible teams in baseball at this juncture – teams that spend over $200 million, like the Yankees, who are barely over .500 despite playing so many sub-par ball clubs. This is why fundamentals are lost and the Launch Angle has helped destroy hitting, as strikeouts rise to new heights and batting averages plummet.

Give Gary Allenson, 66, credit for standing up and speaking his mind where so many players, coaches, and managers cannot talk on the record, for fear of losing their jobs. Allenson has moved on and he’s enjoying his life in the Tampa area with his wife Dorothy, their children and a grandchild.

Allenson is concerned with what he is seeing with his old position, the catching position.

“The catching on one knee is not good and low and behold no one ever called a game for me,’’ Allenson told BallNine. “I’m sorry, but you cannot see from the dugout what you can see catching. I don’t get it. I’m seeing high school games where someone from the dugout is yelling out 4-6-1-3.’’

He said pitchers are relying too much on breaking balls and not enough on fastballs from college on up to the majors.

“How about starting a guy out with a fastball, throwing strike one and then expanding the zone,’’ Allenson said.

He is stunned that more baserunners are not stealing bases with the catcher essentially sitting on the ground – but realizes the analytics don’t encourage base stealing. “First of all, the analytics geeks never played,’’ Allenson said. “So they have never been on a base to steal a base with a catcher on one knee.

“I see a lot of Tampa Bay games and Michael Zunino does a really good job catching on one knee. He blocks balls and can shift on one knee but a lot of these guys on one knee, they can’t move, and unless the breaking ball in the dirt is right in front of them, they ain’t blocking it. They might knock it down somewhere, but they aren’t blocking it.’’

A heady baserunner should be able to move up a base on those dirt balls but so many baserunners have lost their aggressiveness.

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