If only the second half of his career had been more in line with the first part...

Dark's career started relatively late. He got a quick look in 1946, then was up to stay in 1948 at age 26.

Was Al Dark in the war?

If so, did it impede his development and so call out for war credit?

If so so, compare/contrast to Ralph Kiner.

He didn't sign with the Braves until July 4, 1946. He must have been playing in some sort of independent league before that. ??

Hard to imagine that Dick Culler and Nanny Fernandes were holding him back but if he wasn't even in the organization until mid-1946, they might have wanted a full season in the minors before giving him a shot.

I had a nice chat with Mr. Dark once. He tried to explain his +/- system he used as a manager to measure 'the little things'; basically a way to show stuff that wasn't apparent form the boxscores, like why he thought Cepeda wasn't a great ballplayer. I wish (15 yrs ago) I had known more about him to ask better questions.

from baseballlibrary.com...

July 20, 1969: San Francisco's Gaylord Perry connects for his first hit of the year, and his first ML homer to beat the Dodgers, 7–3. The victim of Perry's dinger is Claude Osteen. Last year, Alvin Dark had remarked to sports writer Harry Jupiter about Perry's hitting, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." Perry's homer comes about 20 minutes after the club house receives word that Neil Armstrong has set foot on the moon.

I used to love stories like that as a little kid. Probably the facts were tweaked a bit, like Letterman's old 'writer's embellishment' bits, but still fun.

One more:
June 29, 1961: Manager Gene Mauch's efforts to conceal his starting pitcher and force Al Dark's hand has a Phillie lineup including hurlers Don Ferrarese (batting leadoff, playing CF), Jim Owens (3rd, RF), Chris Short (7th, C), and Ken Lehman (9th, P) against San Francisco. When Dark sends a lefty to the mound, Mauch replaces Ferrarese. Dark then replaces Billy O'Dell with Sam Jones. Mauch replaces Lehman with Dallas Green after two batters.

Any embellishment should be Harry Jupiter's. The Baseball Chronology was organized through SABR although it was not a SABR publication. Editor Jim Charlton is now SABR publications director. He maintains the work (not generally reflected in the Baseball Library edition) and solicits contributions.

For more information including how to correct or extend (presumably using the Baseball Library edition for reference), see the article in Nineteenth Century Notes 2004.1, page 13. That is a special issue entirely by yours truly, devoted to ongoing baseball research projects. For more "In the Projects" see 19cN 2005.1 p3-6.
Nineteenth Century Notes