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Edgar Allen

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Edgar Cunningham Allen, born March 24th, 1902 in Paulding, OH1 , was a minor league baseball executive. He lived varyingly in Little Rock, AR from 1915-1930.

Biography

Allen in 1916.
Allen in 1916.
Edgar moved to Little Rock in 1915 after his father purchased the Montgomery franchise and moved it there. He soon began working various jobs at Kavanaugh Field and eventually worked his way up to assistant secretary of the Little Rock Travelers before his father sold the team before the 1931 season.

Allen played baseball for the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1925. Later, he became an executive with various Southern Association teams, including Nashville, Knoxville and Mobile. He was also supervisor of Dodgertown, the spring training site of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1954-1959.

Allen died in Mobile, AL on March 10th, 1960 and was buried in the Memory Gardens of Fairhope in Mobile2


Excerpts

"Edgar G. Allen, former club official in the Southern Association and in recent years supervisor of Dodgertown, the Dodgers' training base at Vero Beach, Fla., died at the Mobile Infirmary in Mobile, Ala., March 10. He was 58. Allen, who also operated the Dodgers' summer camp for boys at Vero Beach, entered the infirmary last February for lung surgery. The son of a former major league infielder, the late Robert G. Allen, Edgar learned the business of operating a club "from the ground up," starting, as he often remarked, "as third assistant groundskeeper." Bob Allen, who died in 1943, played with the Phillies and Braves and managed Cincinnati in 1900. Following his active career, he remained out of the game until 1914, when he purchased the Montgomery franches of the Southern Association and transferred the club to Little Rock. Edgar, then in his early teens, joined the Little Rock club's grounds crew and soon was promoted by his father to peanut and popcorn salesman, then to soft drink, cushions and ticket seller. A lifelong friendship with Walter O'Malley, president of the Dodgers began when both attended the University of Pennsylvania. Following graduation in 1925, Edgar returned to Little Rock and served as assistant secretary of the Travelers until his father sold the club in 1930. Before the 1931 campaign began, Bob Allen was back in the Southern as owner of Nashville. The next year, the league took over the Mobile club and entrusted the franchise to the elder Allen for operation at Knoxville. Edgar was appointed secretary-treasurer of the club. The franchise shift from Mobile to Knoxville was reversed in 1944. Edgar, by that time, had inherited the reins of the club following the death of his father. At Mobile, Edgar entered into a working agreement with the Dodgers in 1946 and maintained a profitable association with the major league club until he sold the Bears in 1952. Allen, who was affectionately called "the mayor of Dodgertown," is survived by his wife, Mrs. Dorothy Allen; two daughters, Miss Elizabeth Allen and Mrs. Dorothy Hurd, and a brother Robert Allen."3