Another Hall of Fame vote has passed. Two deserving players, Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr., have been voted in; another deserving player, Goose Gossage, narrowly missed, and another sour, fruitless debate about yet another, Mark McGwire, has begun. And once again, the player who, at his peak, is perhaps the most deserving player not in the Baseball Hall of Fame goes completely unmentioned.

Gwynn and Ripken, as all baseball analysts would agree, are two of the best players of the last halfcentury. Yet between them, in 34 full seasons they never led their league in home runs, runs batted in, or slugging average. Gwynn led the National League in on-base average just once, 1994; Ripken never lead the American League. Richard Anthony “Dick” (aka “Richie”) Allen played for just 10 full seasons yet led his league in home runs twice, RBIs once, on-base average twice, and slugging three times. He was also named the 1964 National League Rookie of the Year and the 1972 American League MVP. As his record stands, a great many baseball historians would argue Allen was the best hitter in baseball between 1964 and 1974.

To fans who came of age in the stat-happy era that began in the mid-1980s, Dick Allen’s career numbers may not seem overly impressive. But as The New York Sun columnist Steven Goldman points out, “Allen’s numbers were compiled during one of the most difficult periods for hitters in baseball history — a time when all the rules and all the factors were geared towards giving pitchers the edge. If he had played in the 90s, his numbers would be dazzling.”

The numbers that dazzle us most from the 1960s were compiled by Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and Don Drysdale. Looked at from the right perspective, though, Allen’s stats are dazzling enough. Fellow first baseman Orlando Cepeda, a contemporary of Allen’s who was ushered into the hall in 1999, hit 379 home runs to Allen’s 351. However, Cepeda was at bat nearly 1,600 more times than Allen. Another Hall of Fame first baseman who played during Allen’s era, Harmon Killebrew, had 573 home runs in 22 seasons, but Allen outhit him .292 to .256, won three slugging titles to Killebrew’s one, and had more doubles and triples than Killebrew while batting about 1,800 fewer times.

Yet, 24 years after he first became eligible, Dick Allen has not come close to the Hall of Fame. The reasons have to do with what William Kashatus calls “being the wrong player in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Kashatus, author of “September Swoon,” about the famous collapse of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies in Allen’s rookie season, feels that “Dick had a very undeserved reputation as a malcontent. For his first seven seasons, he clashed with the Philadelphia press, the toughest in the country, and the fans believed what they read. In truth, nearly all of Allen’s teammates and managers liked him and regarded him as a hugely valuable player.”

Baseball historian Craig Wright, in an article for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), found much evidence to support this. Allen’s manager while on the Phillies, Gene Mauch, told Wright that “Dick’s teammates always liked him” and “If I was managing today … I’d take him in a minute.” Chuck Tanner, Allen’s manager on the 1972 White Sox, said: “Dick Allen piloted the team as much as I did. We were co-managers.”

One of the first outspoken black superstars, Allen got off to a bad start with the Phillies, spending a nightmarish season on their farm team in Little Rock, Ark. As the team’s first black player, he was greeted by taunts, insults, and even death threats. He performed well enough, though, to get a call from the parent team in time to play 10 games at the end of the 1963 season. Allen was Rookie of the Year in 1964; the following season he was involved in a brawl with a white teammate, who was subsequently traded. He was asked by his manager not to talk about the incident; years later, it was disclosed that the player he fought with had been making racial slurs to a black teammate. But the Philadelphia press and fans back in 1965 blamed Allen, and conditions became intolerable. For four years, he constantly asked to be traded, and in 1969 the Phillies finally obliged him, sending him to the St. Louis Cardinals. The next eight years saw him move from St Louis to Los Angeles to Chicago, back to Philadelphia, and finally to Oakland. He never ceased to speak his mind and never quite managed to avoid controversy.

In 1975, he quit the White Sox and went into voluntary retirement, but he was talked into coming back to the Phillies by a delegation of black and white players, including future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, who went to his farm in Wampum, Pa. Schmidt acknowledges that he idolized Allen when he was playing Legion ball in Ohio. “I always pretended I was Dick Allen,” Schmidt says. Allen returned the compliment when he told a writer: “Mike Schmidt was the baddest white boy I ever played with.” Schmidt later said, “I wish that someone remembers to carve that on my headstone.”

Today, Allen has made his peace with the Phillies, for whom he is currently employed in the public relations department as a Community/fan development representative, as well as with many of the sportswriters with whom he once feuded. “Back then,” he says, “my attitude was: Those guys are here to distract me. They’re the enemy. I was incapable of understanding that they had their job to do, too.” Although Allen was an enthusiastic supporter when his friend, the late Phillies broadcaster Richie Ashburn, was voted into the Hall back in 1995, he refuses to comment about his own chances. “I admit I was very immature back then,” he told me back in 1997. “I think I’ve changed for the better, and I know a lot of writers and fans have, too. I’d like to think we helped each other change.”

Much of his career, he says, is symbolized by an exchange he had back in the ’60s with Phillies owner Bob Carpenter, with whom he often sparred but for whom he had a grudging respect. “You’ve got to grow up,” Carpenter pleaded with him. “I did grow up,” Allen replied. “Black and poor. You grew up white and rich.” When Carpenter made no reply, Allen smiled and said, “But we’re both grown up.”

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”