Gravitas.

"Now I know why they (the Phillies fans) boo Richie all the time. When he hits a home run, there's no souvenir."

That was Willie Stargell, commenting way back when on hard-hitting slugger Dick Allen, the Wampum Walloper:

Before scientific weight training, muscle-building dietary supplements, and anabolic steroids, Allen boasted a powerful and muscular physique along the lines of Mickey Mantle and Jimmie Foxx. Indeed, baseball historian Bill Jenkinson ranks Allen with Foxx and Mantle, and just a notch below Babe Ruth, as the four top long distance sluggers ever to wield a baseball bat.
...
Willie Mays stated that Allen hit a ball harder than any player he had ever seen. Dick Allen, like Babe Ruth, hit with a rather heavy bat. Allen's 40-ouncer bucked the Ted Williams-inspired trend of using a light bat for increased bat speed.

Dick Allen combined massive strength and body torque to produce bat speed and drive the ball. Eighteen of his drives cleared Connie Mack Stadium's 65-foot-high left field Grandstand. Twice Dick Allen cleared that park's 65-foot-high right center field scoreboard: a feat considered virtually impossible for a right-handed hitter.

Allen hit perhaps his most memorable Philadelphia home run off the Cardinals' Ray Washburn in 1965 when he cleared Connie Mack Stadium's left center field roof Coke sign. That home run, an estimated 529-footer, inspired Willie Stargell to say: "Now I know why they (the Phillies fans) boo Richie* all the time. When he hits a home run, there's no souvenir."

Those were heavier times in this country, on the playing field and off. One of his teammates even went after Allen in the dugout with a bat:

Non-baseball incidents soon marred Allen's Philadelphia career. In July 1965 he got into an infamous fistfight with fellow Phillie Frank Thomas.

According to two teammates who witnessed the fight, Thomas swung a bat at Allen, hitting him in the shoulder. Johnny Callison said, "Thomas got himself fired when he swung that bat at Richie. In baseball you don't swing a bat at another player—ever."

Pat Corrales confirmed that Thomas hit Allen with a bat and added that Thomas was a "bully" known for making racially divisive remarks. Allen and his teammates were not permitted to give their side of the story under threat of a heavy fine. The Phillies released Thomas the next day. That made the fans and local sports writers not only see Allen as costing a white player his job, but freed Thomas to give his version of the fight.

Allen essentially was taking the racial wrath of the fans, who brought their social troubles to the game:

Some of the Phillies' own fans, known for being tough on hometown players even in the best of times, exacerbated Allen's problems. Initially the abuse was verbal, with obscenities and racial epithets. Eventually Allen was greeted with showers of fruit, ice, refuse, and even flashlight batteries as he took the field. He began wearing his batting helmet even while playing his position in the field

Even management wouldn't cut him a break:

Allen was fined $2,500 and suspended indefinitely in 1969 when he failed to appear for the Phillies twi-night doubleheader game with the New York Mets. Allen had gone to New Jersey in the morning to see a horse race, and got caught in traffic trying to return.

He got a reputation in the league too.

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst recalled that when he was asked, before Allen's acquisition, if he wanted Allen, he had said "no" because he'd heard Allen had a bad attitude, and the team didn't need him. After the season, when Schoendienst was asked if Allen should be traded, he said "no", since Allen had helped the team and his attitude was not a problem.

With the Chicago White Sox, he became an MVP, a top-paid player who perhaps saved that struggling franchise from being relocated -- moving out of the South Side, as was happening en masse in the residential neighborhoods during those days.

For various reasons, Allen's previous managers had shuffled him around on defense, playing him at first base, third base, and the outfield in no particular order—a practice which almost certainly weakened his defensive play, and which may have contributed to his frequent injuries, not to mention his perceived bad attitude. Sox manager Chuck Tanner's low-key style of handling ballplayers made it possible for Allen to thrive, for a while, on the South Side. He decided to play Allen exclusively at first base, which allowed him to concentrate on hitting.

Despite the accolades and accomplishments, Allen was too soon out the door. His choice though.

Despite his making the All-Star team in each of three years with the team, Allen's stay in Chicago ended in controversy when he left the team on September 14 with two weeks left in the 1974 season. In Crash, his autobiography (co-written with Tim Whitaker), Allen blamed his feud with third-baseman Ron Santo, who was playing a final, undistinguished season with the White Sox after leaving the crosstown Chicago Cubs.

With Allen's intention to continue playing baseball uncertain, the Sox reluctantly sold his contract to the Atlanta Braves for only $5,000, despite the fact that he had led the league in home runs, slugging (.563), and OPS (.938). Allen refused to report to the Braves and announced his retirement.

His personal life, after baseball, was not initially a happy one, though there was a semi-successful singing career...

After retirement, Allen had a string of bad fortune, with his uninsured house and horse stables burning down in October 1979. He subsequently left his wife for a younger woman; his wife took him to court and got everything he had left, even the rights to his baseball pension.

And some say he is the best hitting player not in the Hall of Fame, while others justify the omission.

Detractors of his Hall of Fame credentials argue that his career was not as long as most Hall of Famers, so he does not have the career cumulative numbers that others do. They also argue that his poor defense and bad clubhouse presence took away from his teams much of what his bat gave them. But according to the two managers for whom Allen played the longest – Gene Mauch of the Phillies and Chuck Tanner of the White Sox – he was not a "clubhouse lawyer" who harmed team chemistry.

Asked if Allen's behavior ever had a negative influence on the team, Mauch said: "Never." According to Tanner, "Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every game as if it was his last day on earth."

Teammates concurred:

[P]itcher Stan Bahnsen, said, "I actually thought that Dick was better than his stats. Every time we needed a clutch hit, he got it. He got along great with his teammates and he was very knowledgeable about the game. He was the ultimate team guy."

Mike Schmidt also met him, early in his career and remembers...

...Dick Allen mentoring him before a game in Chicago in 1976, saying to him, "Mike, you've got to relax. You've got to have some fun. Remember when you were just a kid and you'd skip supper to play ball? You were having fun. Hey, with all the talent you've got, baseball ought to be fun. Enjoy it. Be a kid again."

Mike Schmidt responded by hitting four home runs in that game. He is quoted in the same book, "The baseball writers used to claim that Dick would divide the clubhouse along racial lines. That was a lie. The truth is that Dick never divided any clubhouse."

Don't forget Dick Allen then, people.
What a way with words!
"I can play anywhere: first, third, left field, anywhere but Philadelphia."

"If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it." = his thoughts on artificial turf.

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*

Even Allen's name was a source of controversy: he had been known since his youth as "Dick" to family and friends, but for reasons which are still somewhat obscure, the media referred to him upon his arrival in Philadelphia as "Richie", possibly a conflation with the longtime Phillies star Richie Ashburn. After leaving the Phillies, he asked to be called "Dick", saying Richie was a little boy's name.