On This Day: January 24

Happy 60th birthday to Neil Allen. He was born on Friday, January 24, 1958, in Kansas City, Kansas. Neil was 21 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 15, 1979, with the New York Mets. The Mets drafted Allen out of Bishop Ward High School, in the eleventh round of the 1976 Major League Baseball draft. He went 10-2 with a 2.79 earned run average and led the Carolina League with 126 strikeouts with the Lynchburg Mets in his second professional season.