Touch 'Em All: Chicago to honor 1972 MVP Dick Allen

The Wampum Walloper, aka Dick Allen, and other members of the 1972 White Sox will be honored by the Chicago Baseball Museum on June 25 at a fundraising dinner at U.S. Cellular Field.

Allen played only three seasons with the White Sox but is immensely popular in Chicago and loves the city enough to say he wished he had spent his entire career there.

The slugger who had electrified Philadelphia eight years earlier lit up the American League in his first season with the Sox in '72. He led the league with 37 homers, a career-high 113 RBI and 99 walks. He led the league in batting average as well going into September, but finished third at .308, barely missing the triple crown.

He won the MVP in a runaway, taking 21 of the 24 first-place votes to beat Oakland's Joe Rudi, 321-164.

Longtime Phillies fans will remember that Allen was the NL rookie of the year in 1964, when he hit .318 with 29 home runs and 91 RBI. He led the league with 13 triples and 125 runs scored.

Allen rung up a .292 career average with 351 home runs and 1,119 RBI over his 15 seasons in the majors, numbers that probably will not get him to the Hall of Fame.

He already is the only player to win rookie of the year and MVP who is not enshrined in Cooperstown.

Allen is 19th all time in career OPS. Mark McGwire is the only player who ranks higher and is not in the Hall of Fame.

Yankee superstar Mariano Rivera is scheduled for surgery on his right knee Tuesday to repair an anterior cruciate ligament he tore more than five weeks ago. A blood clot in his right calf delayed the surgery to the all-time saves leader, who insists he'll play next season at age 42.

Cubs president Theo Epstein has taken his first major step in rebuilding the tattered franchise, signing 20-year-old Cuban exile Jorge Soler to what Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported as a nine-year, $30 million deal for the five-tool outfielder.

The final set of witnesses took the stand Monday as the contentious, start-and-stop Roger Clemens perjury trial entered its ninth week.

The defense declined to have the former major-leaguer testify and the prosecution chose not to present more evidence of other players' use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The prosecution and defense will make closing statements on Tuesday before the jury begins deliberating on what they have heard from 46 witnesses.

Clemens is charged with lying to Congress in 2008 when he said he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.

A day after being ejected during a loss to Washington, Boston manager Bobby Valentine was still steamed about umpiring, and said technology should be used to eliminate human error in calling balls and strikes.

"I want a ball called a ball and a strike called a strike. Figure out how to do it," Valentine said Monday.

Valentine declined to propose a specific solution, but said the technology exists to improve the accuracy of calling pitches. He said he doesn't fault umpires, because he believes it's impossible to see the final few feet of a pitch traveling 90 m.p.h. and sometimes breaking sharply.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.