1974 Topps Deckle Dating: Dick Allen

Nice to see Allen finally get into the Hall of Fame. He gets a good photo here, too.

April 24, 1973. 

Allen was 1-for-4 with a single and a walk. Meanwhile Eddie Leon, Bill Melton and Carlos May all hit home runs as the White Sox crushed the Yankees, 8-4. It was Stan Bahnsen's first win against the Yankees, for whom he had pitched for five years before being traded to the Pale Hose.

In other news, the USS Force caught fire and sank off of Guam, thankfully with no casualties; the President of Cambodia agreed to US pressure to share power with the leaders of three other anti-communist groups; and the Saturday Review went bankrupt.

It looks like this photo and similar ones got a lot of use. Here it is in color on his 1974 Topps Puzzle.

The same photo was also used on the 1975 home run leaders card. The Yankees played at Shea Stadium in '74 so the photo had to be from '72 or '73.

His 1974 Topps stamp appears to have been taken at the same time.

His Kelloggs cards are worth mentioning here. Check out his 1973 Kelloggs card. Also Yankee Stadium. Also a turtleneck, with the zipper down to the team name. He would have had to change out from a bat to a fielding glove, but that's hardly a big change. But wouldn't these cards have been out by April of 1973? I would assume that the baseball card tie in would have been out in boxes around opening day?

Then you have 1974 and 1975. Kelloggs used fake backgrounds on their lenticular cards, but once again his uniform matches up with the Yankee Stadium photos.