John Chad Allen (born February 6 1975 in Dallas, Texas) is a left fielder/designated hitter in Major League Baseball. He attended and played for Texas A&M University from to . From through , Allen has played for the Minnesota Twins (1999- ), Cleveland Indians ( ), Florida Marlins ( ) and Texas Rangers ( -2005). He bats and throws right-handed. In a seven-season career, Allen has posted a .269 batting average with 14 home runs and 84 RBI in 267 games played.

Before the season, the Kansas City Royals signed Allen to a minor league contract with a spring training invite. At the start of the season, he was assigned to the Omaha Royals of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), the Royals' AAA affiliate. In , Allen played for the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball. On December 13, 2007, he was named in the Mitchell Report naming players who had used steroids.

Chad Allen Lazzari (born June 5, 1974, in Cerritos, California, U.S.) is an American actor. Performing since he was a child, Allen is perhaps best known for appearing on the television series Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. He has a twin sister named Charity.

In 1996 at age 21, Allen was outed as gay in US tabloids after photos of him kissing another man were released. The photos were taken at a party without his knowledge. He has since become an activist for the LGBT community in addition to his continuing acting and producing career. Allen has been featured in The Advocate magazine multiple times and has appeared on its cover.

Allen portrayed lead character Donald Strachey, a gay private detective in a monogamous relationship, in the 2005 here! television movie Third Man Out and its 2006 sequel, Shock to the System. Both films are adaptations of novels by author Richard Stevenson. Allen noted that it was the first gay character he had ever played outside of theater, and that though his career was "different" since coming out, he finds it "more interesting and fun for me than it has ever been."

Controversy surrounded Allen's casting as real-life Christian missionary Nate Saint in the 2006 docudrama film End of the Spear, as some conservative Christians lashed out at producers for putting an openly-gay man in the role.

Only signed on for the "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" (1993) pilot to earn money for college. He did not think the series would be picked up and thought that it would pay for his college tuition. The series ran for 6 years.

Travels to Costa Rica are featured in the February 2004 issue of "The Out Traveler" magazine.

One of the co-founders of The Creative Outlet theater company in 1995, and has appeared in several theater productions during the summer breaks.

One of the co-founders of a production company called Mythgarden, which he formed with producer Christopher Racster and actor Robert Gant ("Queer as Folk" (2000)).

Has been featured on the cover of "The Advocate" three times: October 9, 2001, November 25, 2003, and August 30, 2005.

He donated many items to Rocky Stone (I) to be given to less fortunate kids as part of the Toy Mountain Campaign.

As of 2006, he has a position on the Honorary Board of Directors for The Matthew Shepard Foundation. On July 22, 2006, he joined Shepard's mother Judy and about 800 other people in a peaceful demonstration outside the Colorado Springs, Colorado, headquarters of Focus on the Family, a Christian organization.

As a boy, he played the autistic character Tommy Westfall on the TV series "St. Elsewhere" (1982). At first a minor character, Tommy took on great significance in the final episode when the entire series was revealed to have taken place inside his head. This has given rise to a fan theory known as the "Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis," which states that numerous shows that are connected to St. Elsewhere through character crossovers or dialog references have also taken place in Tommy's mind. For instance, the show had a crossover with "Cheers" (1982), and several characters from "St. Elsewhere" were featured in "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993). From those links, the program can be linked to at least 280 other non-animated shows, ranging from "I Love Lucy" (1951) to "CSI: NY" (2004) (as of 2007).