Tearing up the American Association in 1951, Richter forced the Red Sox hand, as they called him up when rosters expanded in September. There weren't that many shortstops hitting. 300 in the minors but nobody gave him a shot. Paul, Richter was probably the best shortstop in the minors and nobody would give him a shot at the majors. … There was nobody else, outside of Don Zimmer at St. Finally, he went up there and that's when they had the Coast League. “They would never give him the opportunity to go to Boston. 300 a few years in a row in Louisville,” Maxwell told me during a 2009 phone interview. “I felt sorry for him because he hit over. His teammates took notice of his tremendous play, including Charlie Maxwell who was another young talent that later joined Richter in Boston. 321 with Louisville while carving a niche as one of the top shortstops in the American Association. Richter had his breakout season in 1951 batting. “If I were up 400 times, I struck out maybe 18 times and some were called out.” “When I hit the ball, I hardly ever struck out,” he said. He took pride in the fact that he consistently put the ball in play. He impressed with his eye at the plate, walking 100 times in 1950, while only striking out 36 times in 589 plate appearances. Richter returned to the Red Sox in 1947 and he moved briskly through their farm system, reaching Triple-A by 1949. I was coaching a baseball team that we organized over in Germany.” From there I went overseas in the Army occupation after the war was won. I did my basic training in Kessler Field in Mississippi and shortly thereafter I went to Denver for photography school. They allowed me to be discharged a month early. “I went in 1945 right after high school,” Richter told me during a 2009 phone interview from his home in Virginia Beach. His time with the club was short lived, as he only played three games before he fulfilled his military duties in the Army Air Corps. The Red Sox signed Richter in 1945 from Maury High School, where they placed him with their team in Roanoke. Sadly, Richter passed away October 29th, 2017 at his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. While Richter’s major league career never fully materialized, he outlived most of his Boston counterparts, remaining active by playing tennis a few times per week into his late 80s. Bound to the Red Sox by the reserve clause and his path effectively blocked by Pesky, Richter played his best baseball away from the Major League spotlight, appearing in only six games during two separate stints in Boston. Labeled as one of the best shortstops of his era in the minor leagues, Richter treaded water in the Boston Red Sox farm system while Johnny Pesky cemented his position as a franchise cornerstone. The plight of baseball players like Allen Richter was an all too common theme in the 1950s.
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