Rod Allen

Roderick Bernet "Rod" Allen (born October 5, 1959) is a former Major League Baseball outfielder and current analyst for the Detroit Tigers on Fox Sports Detroit and Fox Saturday Baseball. He played for the Seattle Mariners, Tigers, and the Cleveland Indians, and also the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of Nippon Professional Baseball. He previously worked as an analyst for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Baseball

Playing career

Allen played baseball at Santa Monica High School and was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the sixth round of the 1977 Major League Baseball Draft. He enjoyed a brief stint with the Seattle Mariners in 1983. He was 23 years old when he made his major league debut on April 7, 1983. He hit .296 in 27 at bats during a 15-game stint as an outfielder and designated hitter with the World Champion Detroit Tigers in 1984. He enjoyed another brief stint in the majors with the Cleveland Indians in 1988. Allen spent the last three years of his playing career with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in Japan's Central League. He hit a pair of home runs against Seibu Lions in the 1991 Japan Series and set a Japanese regular season record with four home runs in four consecutive at bats during his time in the league. He is infamous for charging the mound after Kazuhiko Daimon from the Yokohama Taiyo Whales hit him in the back with a pitch, and subsequently chasing the pitcher across the entire field with both teams' benches in tow.

Rod Allen (advertising executive)

Roderick Howard Allen (May 16, 1929 – August 22, 2007) was a British advertising executive who wrote many well known advertising slogans and jingles used in the United Kingdom. He was nicknamed the "jingle king".

Allen was born in Consett, County Durham and worked in advertising from the age of 17. His career was only interrupted by National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals. In 1966 he co-founded the advertising agency Allen, Brady and Marsh (with Mike Brady and Peter Marsh), which was once one of the five largest agencies in the UK during the early 1980s until its demise in the late 80s following a take-over by another ad agency, Lowe.

Famous slogans

The Fortunes

The Fortunes are an English harmony beat group. Formed in Birmingham, the Fortunes first came to prominence and international acclaim in 1965, when "You've Got Your Troubles" broke into the US and UK Top 10s. Afterwards, they had a succession of hits including "Here It Comes Again" and "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again"; continuing into the 1970s with more globally successful releases such as "Storm in a Teacup" and "Freedom Come, Freedom Go".

In 1966, their manager, Reginald Calvert, was shot to death in a dispute over pirate radio stations.

Biography

Originally formed as a vocal trio (Rod Allen, Glen Dale and Barry Pritchard) backed by an instrumental group known as the Cliftones, the band placed an instrumental track on a compilation album, Brumbeat, issued by the local Dial record label. "Cygnet Twitch" was a working of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", and they subsequently signed to British Decca in 1963. Their first single, "Summertime, Summertime", was credited to the Fortunes and the Cliftones. However, the vocalists picked up guitars, jettisoned the Cliftones, and added Andy Brown on drums, and Dave Carr on keyboards. The follow-up disc "Caroline", co-written by the singer-songwriter and future Ivy League member Perry Ford and songwriter Tony Hiller, was used as the signature tune for the pirate radio station, Radio Caroline.