Dick Allen left Willie Mays and Willie Stargell in awe, and other things to know about the new Hall of Famer
The former Phillies slugger nearly won a Triple Crown, hit over .400 during the team's epic 1964 collapse, and check out his rookie WAR.
Here are 30 things to know about Dick Allen, the productive and powerful Phillies’ slugger who is being inducted posthumously into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.
1. He was “Dick Allen” until reaching the major leagues at age 21 when Philadelphia writers started to call him “Richie Allen.” He never cared for “Richie.” He said it was a young boy’s name or just an uncomfortable allusion to Richie Ashburn, who starred for the Phillies from 1948-59.
2. Allen was reportedly signed for $70,000 by Phillies scout John Ogden in 1960, then the largest signing bonus ever for a Black player.
3. Allen hit 351 career home runs in an era dominated by pitching. He hit 204 homers in his two stints with the Phillies (177 from 1963-69; 27 from 1975-76). He’s 10th in club history in home runs.
4. He became the first Phillies positional player to win the Rookie of the Year Award when he smacked 29 home runs and led the league with 125 runs scored in 1964. He also hit 13 triples to tie Chicago’s Ron Santo for the league lead.
5. Allen’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) score for the 1964 season was a terrific 8.8. Some WARs for notable rookies of the year: Willie Mays (1951) 3.9; Frank Robinson (1956) 6.5; Pete Rose (1963) 2.4; Johnny Bench (1964) 5.0; Mark McGwire (1987) 5.1; Ryan Howard (2005) 3.1; Mike Trout (2012) 10.5; Shohei Ohtani (2018) 4.1.
6. Allen had never played third base before the Phillies stuck him there in 1964. He also led the MLB with 41 errors and led the National League with 138 strikeouts as a rookie.
7. During the Phillies’ 10-game losing streak that cost them the 1964 pennant, Allen hit .415 (17-for-41) and had an OPS of 1.076.
8. Teammate Frank Thomas hit .154 (2-for-13) during the collapse with three singles and a double in five games.
9. Racial tensions had many cities, including Philadelphia, boiling in 1964 as Congress passed the Civil Rights Act that summer. When he struck out or committed an error, Allen often heard it from the crowd at Connie Mack Stadium.
10. “He could hit a ball farther than anybody I’d ever seen,” Mays said.
11. Allen’s propensity to hit the ball great distances led Pirates Hall of Famer Willie Stargell to observe to Baseball Digest. “Now I know why they boo Richie all the time. When he hits a home run, there’s no souvenir.”
12. Decked out in bell-bottom pants, Allen made $300 headlining the musical group “Rich Allen and the Ebonistics” during halftime of a Sixers game in January of 1969. The crowd initially booed, but then cheered him as the act came to a close.
13. He was involved in a fight with Thomas during batting practice in 1965, which led to Thomas quickly being traded to Houston. Teammates said Thomas had hit Allen with a bat during the skirmish.
14. Following the incident, irate manager Gene Mauch threatened his players and staff with heavy fines if they discussed with the media the fight between Allen and Thomas. Covering things up made it worse on both players, especially Allen, who was blamed for Thomas’ hasty departure.
15. “I honestly think if the front office would have sat down with Richie and me, the whole thing could have been resolved,” Thomas told The Inquirer in 1975.
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16. Allen and Dave Parker are being inducted by Classic Baseball Era voters. Twelve votes were needed from the 16-person committee. Parker received 14 (87.5%) and Allen received 13 (81.3%).
17. Twice previously, Allen had fallen one vote shy of induction by the special committee. Unfortunately, both players will be inducted posthumously. Parker died in June. Allen passed away in 2020.
18. Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner are the Class of 2025 being inducted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Induction ceremonies are on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. (MLB Network).
19. Allen wore a helmet in the field to protect himself from projectiles — coins, rocks, etc. — coming from the stands. The helmet led to him being given the nickname “Crash” by Phillies’ teammate Bob Uecker, one of Allen’s closest friends.
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20. He missed the final month of the season in 1967 when he injured his hand and sliced his wrist while pushing his car in the rain trying to get it started. Rumors swirled questioning the validity of the story. Stan Hochman, who covered the Phillies during the Allen era, wrote in 1975, “Nobody ever produced an ounce of evidence to discredit the way [Allen] said it happened.”
21. Allen infamously would scribble messages in the dirt around first base. He’d write “boo,” which is self-explanatory, but also “Coke” as a reference to the Coca-Cola sign on the roof in left field at Connie Mack Stadium. He made clear his disgruntlement in 1969 by scrawling “Oct. 2,” which was the final day of that miserable 63-99 season. He was traded to the Cardinals on Oct. 7.
22. Allen hit 34 home runs in his only season with St. Louis and 23 more for the Dodgers before he was traded to the White Sox in 1971 in a move that rejuvenated his career.
» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: Dick Allen’s induction into the Hall of Fame is a victory for his greatest advocate and friend
23. Allen in 1972 led the American League with 37 homers and 113 RBIs and narrowly missed the Triple Crown by finishing third in the AL in batting average (.308) behind Rod Carew (.318). The White Sox finished in second place behind the powerful A’s. They went 87-67. Two years prior, the Sox went 56-106.
24. “He always said Chicago was one of his favorite places,” his son, Richard Allen Jr., told Chicago TV station WGN. “He said the fans and people were just tremendous. He said, ‘I was so used to hearing boos, the Chicago fans were so knowledgeable they would cheer for things like hitting behind the runner.’ ”
25. Former teammate Jim Kaat said the White Sox used to call Allen “Moses,” a humorous nod to the biblical figure who is said to have led the Israelites out of the desert. Allen, similarly, led the White Sox out of oblivion and into contention in 1972.
» READ MORE: Claire Smith: Maybe Dick Allen’s inclusion in the Hall will help heal Philadelphia’s deep racial wounds in baseball
26. White Sox organist Nancy Faust would play the title song from the 1971 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar when Allen came to the plate. It’s widely considered the first walk-up song in baseball history.
27. Allen broke his leg in 1973 and walked out on Chicago in mid-September of 1974 citing a dispute with (oddly enough) Santo, who was now with the White Sox. Allen was traded to Atlanta, but had no interest in playing for the Braves.
28. He used a 40-ounce bat, a rather heavy piece of lumber compared to the 32- to 35-ounce bats used by many of today’s players. Allen was in the minors when a shipment of the heavy bats arrived. “I thought they forgot to take the roots off,” Allen told the documentary Philadelphia: The Great Experiment. “They were tree trunks.”
29. Allen returned to the Phillies in 1975, and helped the club win a then-team record 101 games the following season. That season ended with a whimper as the Phils were swept by the Reds in the National League Championship Series.
30. Despite all that he went through, he said Philadelphia was a special place to him. His biggest regret was not bringing a championship here. “We never got the job done. We came within one game in ‘64. We didn’t get the job done, but I learned my baseball here. We had the best ownership here with the [Carpenter family]. I call [Philadelphia] my alma mater. I would have loved to have played here under different circumstances. … Because I’ll never know how good I could have been as a teammate. I’ll never know how good I could have been.”