Neil Allen had a perfectly nice 11-year career as a major-league pitcher, mostly out of the bullpen. Parts of three of those seasons came with the Yankees, across two different stints. He was generally
pretty solid, albeit on teams that fell short of the postseason, despite over-.500 records. After his playing career, he went into coaching, including for the Yankees, where we can give him credit for at least one notable thing.
Today also happens to be his 68th birthday. In honor of that, let’s look back at the career of Mr. Allen.
Neil Patrick Allen
Born: January 24, 1958 (Kansas City, MO)
Yankees Years: 1985, 1987-88
Born and raised in Kansas City, Neil Allen was a standout athlete in a couple sports growing up. He was planning on attending Kansas State University on a football scholarship, when scouts took notice of him when he was pitching opposite Terry Sutcliffe — brother of 1984 NL Cy Young Award winner Rick — in a high school baseball game. Initially wanting to stick with football, Allen was convinced into baseball by his father, who told him, “Neil, you’re not a rocket scientist and you don’t have the discipline to sit down and do the academic work. Plus, if you play football and get beat up and have your shoulder ruined, then you don’t have either.”
The Mets would select him in the 11th round of the 1976 draft, and Allen would sign with them.
Considering that he was drafted out of high school, Allen rocketed through the minor leagues and was called up to the majors in 1979, when he was just 21 years old. He made his debut on April 14th and threw six OK innings against the Phillies. However, he mainly struggled after that and then suffered an injury in late May. Upon his return to the majors, Mets’ manager Joe Torre decided to use Allen out of the bullpen. Allen excelled in that role, and from June 25th on, he put up a 2.07 ERA and a 2.67 FIP in 69.2 innings. By the end of the season, Torre had even moved Allen into the closer role, and he recorded eight saves.
After spending the next two seasons in the bullpen, Allen struggled to start the 1983 season, losing the closer role to Jesse Orosco. Allen returned to the rotation for a bit, where he showed some better signs, although he was beginning to deal with alcohol addiction issues behind the scenes. The Mets eventually did decide to trade him, sending him out to St. Louis alongside fellow righty Nick Ownbey at the then-June Trade Deadline in 1983 in exchange for first baseman Keith Hernandez. That deal worked out quite well for the Mets.
While he wasn’t awful, Allen could never quite find his footing in St. Louis, never mind when you factor in what Hernandez would go on to become for the Mets. Allen eventually returned to the bullpen. After struggling badly to start 1985, the Cardinals moved on from him, selling his contract to the Yankees. Under manager Billy Martin, Allen performed much better, posting a 2.76 ERA in 29.1 innings down the stretch for the ‘85 Yankees. The team just narrowly missed the postseason, finishing two games behind the AL East-winning Blue Jays.
Despite that, the Yankees then traded Allen to the White Sox that offseason. Chicago tried to move him back to the rotation, and while that went okay in 1985, he again really struggled in ‘86. The White Sox released him in August, and he returned to the Yankees for the rest of the season, putting up a 3.65 ERA in 24.2 innings. That led to the Yankees bringing him back for 1988, and he was again pretty decent. Working as a long reliever, he put up a 3.84 ERA (103 ERA+) in 117.1 innings.
However, Allen’s aforementioned addiction issues were beginning to take a toll. Rickey Henderson went public with a claim that he had to help Allen back to his hotel room after the pitcher had passed out while on a night out on the road, with Henderson saying the team’s drinking culture in general cost the team the pennant. This revelation actually helped Allen admit his problem, although he would continue to battle it off and on.
Allen played 1989 with Cleveland and spent 1990 in the Reds’ organization before retiring. He would get into coaching and returned to the Yankees’ organization in 2000. He spent a couple seasons as a pitching coach for various Yankees’ minor league affiliates and was the bullpen coach for their 2005 AL East champions. Per Sports Illustrated, Allen was credited with teaching Chien-Ming Wang the sinker, which became the future Yankees’ big leaguer’s best pitch when he broke through to the majors:
Fourteen starts into his professional career, Wang blew out his shoulder and sat out the entire 2001 season following surgery. He was told by the Yankees that he had to bag his out pitch, the slider, to ease the stress on his arm. In the summer of ’04 he learned the pitch that would change his career. During a bullpen session shortly after his promotion to Triple-A Columbus, Clippers pitching coach Neil Allen approached him with a suggestion. “Try this,” Allen said to Wang, holding the ball with his index and middle fingers along the seams that framed the ball’s sweet spot. “Push harder here,” he said, tapping his index finger against the ball.
Wang began throwing and, he recalls, “the ball started to drop.”
Allen eventually became the Twins’ big-league pitching coach from 2015-17. A DWI arrest in 2016 led to him attending an outpatient program at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, and by all accounts, he’s stayed clean since.
For a guy who has a career ERA below average and no All-Star appearances or any other award votes or anything, Neil Allen has had quite the run in baseball. Here’s hoping that he has a happy 68th birthday.
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.
