Often misunderstood, Dick Allen was ‘just one of the guys’ back home in Wampum, Pa.

WAMPUM, Pa. — On a cold Monday in early December, Don Mancini drove along the winding roads of western Pennsylvania. He took a right turn at an old white church, lumbered up a hill, and parked his car at Clinton Cemetery. He walked through the graveyard until he reached a simple tombstone.

It belonged to Richard “Dick” Allen. There was no mention of Allen’s accolades from his 15-year major league career; only the date he was born. Mancini took out a baseball with three letters scribbled on the front — “H.O.F.” — and four numbers on the side — “2-0-2-5.” He put it in a plastic case, and placed it in front of his friend’s name.

A day earlier, the former Phillies slugger had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’d appeared on Baseball Writers Association of America and committee ballots 20 times, only to fall short in each election. The last two were especially painful; Allen missed enshrinement in Cooperstown by one vote. This graveside pilgrimage to Wampum felt like the least Mancini could do.

Allen was born in Chewton, Pa., a small community about 3 miles from the cemetery, but spent much of his childhood in Wampum, a borough across the Beaver River. Wampum was where Allen played American Legion baseball and went to high school; Chewton was where he went to grade school, and took swings on a local field. The two areas were intertwined. Allen felt a connection to both.

He lived alongside eight brothers and sisters in a home with no indoor plumbing. His father, Coy, drove a garbage truck, and his mother, Era, cleaned houses. After he signed with the Phillies in 1960, Allen used his $70,000 bonus to move Era to Wampum. He returned there in the mid-1990s, long after his playing career was done. It was where he lived in the summers, and where he died in the winter of 2020. He liked the seclusion that came with being in a small town.

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There isn’t a “Dick Allen Way” or a “Dick Allen Park” in Wampum. There are no statues or murals dedicated to the Phillies great. The baseball field next to his childhood home is overgrown with grass. The top of the dugout has fallen in and the stands have collapsed.

Allen didn’t mind this. He preferred anonymity. He had never played baseball for fame. He did it to give his mother the house she’d always dreamed of, and his children a better life. But Allen couldn’t provide for his family without becoming something he’d never wanted to be: a star. And in 1960s America, at the height of the civil rights movement, his stardom came with a price.

Some fans threw batteries on the field. Others yelled racial slurs. They dumped trash on his lawn and sent him threats by phone and mail. Allen wasn’t the kind of star they were used to. He was not subservient, or grateful to be playing a child’s game. He was strong-willed and independent. They booed him for it.

But in Wampum, that noise receded. There, he wasn’t Dick Allen, the man who could hit towering home runs. He was “Sleepy” Allen, a loyal friend, who loved to laugh and sing, and had a nickname for almost everyone.

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“He was just one of the guys,” said Rob Wilson, owner of Rob’s Ignition in Ellwood City, Pa. “And he loved that.”

Mancini met Allen in 2014. He was driving by Wilson’s gas station and caught a glimpse of the former ballplayer’s fedora in the shop window. He pulled over to introduce himself, and continued to stop by whenever he saw Allen’s truck parked out front.

“Little by little, we became friends,” Mancini said.

A lifelong baseball fan, Mancini, 70, peppered Allen with questions about his career, and printed out articles, stat sheets, and Baseball Reference leaderboards. He would rush into Rob’s Ignition with a flurry of papers — evidence that his friend deserved to be in the Hall — and would hand them to Allen with excitement.

Mancini would later find those papers discarded at the bottom of Allen’s truck. The former Phillie wasn’t interested in talking about his legacy.

“The old writers didn’t like me,” he would say.

“But the new writers love you,” Mancini would respond.

So did people in Wampum. They never understood the accounts that portrayed Allen as acerbic or difficult. They knew him to be a happy man.

“If you read an article, some people are going to believe it, some aren’t,” said Allen’s friend Darin King. “But everyone in your hometown knows the truth.”

Many news stories about Allen centered on the tension between him and his teammates, and Allen and Philadelphia fans. This conflict was often rooted in race.

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But before the Phillies signed the infielder, he had lived a life remarkably free of racial conflict. According to census records, there were roughly 1,000 people in Wampum when Allen was growing up, 85 of them Black residents. There were communities where Black families were more likely to live, and things Allen would not do — “I could never think about dating a white girl,” he wrote in his autobiography — but race was not a preoccupation.

“Everybody knew you, you were like family,” said Allen’s brother, Ron. “You never gave it any thought.”

“In Wampum we were welcome anywhere,” Allen told Sports Illustrated in 1973. “I had heard about all of that stuff [down South], but I never dreamed I’d be involved in it.”

Allen’s best friend growing up, Bob Isabella, was white. They bonded over their love of mischief. One day, when they were in the first grade, a teacher caught them throwing snowballs at her car. The ensuing discipline connected the boys in a way few other things could. From that point on, they were inseparable.

In Wampum we were welcome anywhere. I had heard about all of that stuff [down South] but I never dreamed I’d be involved in it.

They would eat dinner together after school, ride horses in Isabella’s backyard, and hit stones with broomsticks.

Isabella was a scrawny, unathletic kid, but when he was 13, he wanted to play Little League. The local coach advised him against it. Allen, who was already a star athlete, knew he had some leverage, and took a stand.

“Richie told him, ‘If he don’t play, I’m not playing,’” Isabella said.

It worked. Isabella joined the team. A few months later, he paid the favor back.

“They didn’t have no money, and my family didn’t have much, neither,” Isabella said. “But I had a paper route, and I had a few bucks, and I can remember there was a store right by his house, and as kids we’d all get pop or ice cream and he’d be there watching us.

“Well, he was my friend, and I felt sorry for him. So, I’d buy him pop or give him ice cream. When I got another job, I gave him my paper route.”

This pattern of paying, and repaying, favors would continue for the rest of their lives. When Allen was a teenager, he asked to borrow some cash to take out a girl from Ellwood City.

A few years later, during Allen’s offseason, Isabella heard a knock at his door. Allen was standing outside his trailer, holding a box. Inside were a pair of cowboy boots.

Isabella wore them so much, he had to order new ones.

“That was really nice of him,” he said, “thinking of me after all that time.”

In 1963, Allen left behind the world he knew. The Phillies promoted him from single-A Williamsport to their triple-A affiliate, in Little Rock, Ark. He had never experienced life in the Jim Crow South. Now, at 21, he was at the center of it.

For three nights, the Phillies put him up in a hotel. He was denied entry to most restaurants in town, so he tried to order room service. When Allen opened his door, the server pushed his cart away.

Joe Lonnett, a minor league teammate living across the hall, noticed.

Lonnett had grown up in Beaver Falls, about 10 miles from Wampum. He, too, ordered room service — and then delivered it to Allen, once the server was out of sight.

It was a small but meaningful gesture of support. Allen had never wanted to be a pioneer, but he was about to be the first Black player to ever take the field for the Arkansas Travelers.

The Travelers had previously played in the Southern Association, which folded in 1961. In 1963, the International League decided to add the team, but on one condition: The club had to integrate.

In September 1957, then-Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus defied a court order to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. Faubus ordered the state’s National Guard to block nine Black students from entering the building. Angry mobs gathered to intimidate them. The crisis lasted for several weeks, until President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent U.S. Army soldiers to escort the teens inside.

Now, city officials wanted to demonstrate that the area had changed for the better — and planned to use Allen as proof.

Allen knew the story of the Little Rock crisis well. A hotel bellhop had connected him with the family of Melba Pattillo, one of the students whom Faubus had barred from Little Rock Central High. Pattillo’s family rented out a spare bedroom to Allen.

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He often felt lonely, and began to write to friends and family in Wampum. But Allen received so many threats that he stopped opening the mail.

“Even when he was older, he’d hand letters to me,” his son Richard said. “Because he would get so much hate.”

About 10 days into the season, Allen wanted to quit. He had signed up to play baseball, not to encounter hatred at every turn.

Era told her son that God gave him talent for a reason. If he left the team, she said, he’d be disappointing God. Lonnett delivered a more succinct message: “It was either this or a lunch bucket in the coal mines,” he recalled to Reader’s Digest in 1972.

Allen decided he’d try to slug his way to Philadelphia. He hit 33 home runs, with a .550 slugging percentage and an .891 OPS. But despite his performance, the Phillies promoted other players ahead of him. He’d play 145 games for Arkansas that year, the second-most on his team.

Allen made his big-league debut in September 1963. He played in 10 games, hitting .292/.280/.458. The Phillies finished in fourth place in the National League.

By 1964, expectations were higher. Allen, their top prospect, was seen as the final piece — with one catch. The Phillies wanted him at third base, a position he’d never played in the minors. He had played only shortstop, second base, and the outfield.

Offensively, Allen thrived. He won the NL rookie of the year award in 1964. He led the major leagues in runs (125) and triples (13), with 29 home runs. But he also led baseball in errors with 41, and the NL in strikeouts with 138.

[Dick] said some of the other Black players from the South … they knew how to deal with it. He said, ‘I never had to bite my tongue or anything like that. I didn’t go through that.’

Fans didn’t just boo him for his mistakes. Some disliked Allen’s persona, which they perceived as defiant and out of step with baseball’s traditions. He smoked in the dugout. He would show up to the ballpark late. He would openly talk about his salary, and dressed in a flashy style.

Club officials advised him to follow the examples of Willie Mays and Ernie Banks, Black players who they believed followed the rules with a sunny disposition. But Allen wasn’t interested. Growing up in Wampum, he’d always been able to speak freely.

“He said some of the other Black players from the South … they knew how to deal with it,” Richard said. “He said, ‘I never had to bite my tongue or anything like that. I didn’t go through that.’”

The experience affected Allen so much that when the Phillies approached his younger brother, Ron, about signing in 1964, Dick advised him not to.

“[Dick] and my brother Hank were mad when I signed to play,” Ron, 81, said. “They used to argue with my mother. ‘Why’d you let him sign?’ They knew the hard times.”

In 1965, tension began to build between Allen and utilityman Frank Thomas. Allen’s then-Phillies teammate, Pat Corrales, told SABR magazine that Thomas had spoken derisively to Allen and outfielder John Briggs, who also was Black. On July 3, everything came to a head. In Allen’s autobiography, Crash, he wrote that Johnny Callison made a joke about Thomas’ poor bunting during batting practice, and Thomas instead lashed out at Allen.

The infielder ran to confront his teammate. Thomas responded by hitting him on the shoulder with a bat, giving Allen an injury that would linger for “some time,” according to Corrales.

Thomas was placed on waivers, and was able to speak freely about the incident. Allen, who remained on the team, was told he’d be fined $2,500 if he discussed the altercation publicly. He couldn’t afford the steep penalty, so his side of the story went untold. Fans turned on him even more.

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Richard was a child at the time, but remembers his parents recounting details of the ugly blowback that Allen faced. The booing was bad, but what happened outside the ballpark was worse.

In 1969, a rock whizzed through the Allens’ front window in Mount Airy, almost hitting Richard’s sister, Terri, in their living room. In 1979, the family’s house burned down because of an electrical fire, and Allen received a note in the mail.

He didn’t open it, but his wife, Barbara, did. She threw it in the trash. Their son pulled it out.

“It said, ‘Good,’” Richard recalled. “‘You deserve everything you get.’”

After a tumultuous 1969 campaign, Allen was finally traded. On Oct. 7, the Phillies sent him to the St. Louis Cardinals as part of a seven-player deal. A year later, the Cardinals sent him to the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the 1971 season, the Dodgers traded him to the Chicago White Sox.

Allen, going into his age-30 season, was contemplating retirement. He felt deflated, and didn’t want to uproot his family for the fourth time in four years, author Mitchell Nathanson recounted in the book God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen.

In an attempt to ease Allen’s transition to Chicago, White Sox manager Chuck Tanner — who grew up 9 miles from Wampum, in New Castle — visited Era in the offseason.

“She said, ‘Chuck, I’m gonna tell you something,’” recalled Ron. “‘He’s a one-of-a-kind child.’”

Media criticism of Allen often centered on his absence from batting practice or spring training. Some writers painted him as lazy. But Tanner’s son, Bruce, saw that Allen would often practice privately, before the rest of the team got to the ballpark.

“Back then, there were a lot of 7:30 p.m. games,” Bruce said. “He would have one of the coaches come out at noon and throw him batting practice if he felt like he was struggling. He’d hit for 30-40 minutes and go home. Sometimes he’d [return] at seven. He did that more than people realized.”

Allen went on to have the best season of his career in 1972, winning the American League MVP award after hitting .308/.420/.603 with 37 home runs. Along the way, he mentored young White Sox players Goose Gossage, Jorge Orta, and Bucky Dent.

In 1975, he returned to Philadelphia for a two-year stint with the Phillies, this time serving as an older brother of sorts to the franchise’s rising stars: Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski, Garry Maddox, and Bob Boone. Five years later, those players would help the franchise win its first World Series title.

“All he wanted was to be treated the same as his teammates,” Schmidt wrote in a text. “The turmoil surrounding him pushed him into a shell, and his leadership ability, his warmth, and even his game, were all compromised. There’s no telling how great he would’ve been in a different era.”

Allen played his last big league game on June 19, 1977, with the Oakland Athletics. He’d made seven All-Star appearances, won a rookie of the year award and an AL MVP award, and finished with a career slugging percentage of .534. He took some spring training coaching gigs in the 1980s but largely stayed out of baseball.

The next few years were among the hardest of his life. In 1991, his daughter, Terri, was murdered by a friend, Clarence Ford, outside her apartment in Maryland. Investigators said the murder was the result of Terri’s rejecting Ford’s romantic advances. Ford killed himself after fleeing the scene.

Allen was staying at a hotel in Laurel, Md., when his daughter was killed. Richard remembers him sitting on the corner of his bed, tightly gripping a pillow. A mattress had been thrown to the other side of the room. Lamps had been knocked to the floor.

“Where is he?” Allen asked of Ford.

“He shot himself while being chased by the police,” Richard said.

“That’s just as well,” his father responded.

Four years later, Allen’s mother, Era, died.

“He just sighed a lot,” Richard said. “More than usual.”

Allen and his second wife, Willa, decided that it was time to move home. In 1994, he was hired by the Phillies to work in community events. They’d spend most of his summers in Wampum. After a turbulent career, and the losses of two loved ones, it was comforting to be in a community that had seemingly not changed at all. Allen was the same old “Sleepy” — his nickname growing up.

“Sleepy” invented nicknames for his friends in return. He called Wilson, 72, “Twin” because they shared the same birthday, 10 years apart.

He called Brian Downs, owner of Pete’s Uptown Beer and Beverage, “Dr. Heineken.”

“He’d say, ‘OK, doctor,’” Downs said. ‘I’m here for my prescription.’”

Allen spent most of his free time at Wilson’s gas station. They’d talk about everything: family, basketball, cars, boxing. He liked to ask about Wilson’s daughter, Kelsey. She was a talented singer, like Terri had been, and was pursuing a career in theater.

Allen was a singer, too. He’d perform Motown tunes for Wilson and the other patrons of Rob’s Ignition. Earlier in his career, in the late 1960s, he started a musical group called The Ebonistics. They had one hit — “Echoes of November” — which Allen dedicated to Terri, who was born on Nov. 4.

He would discuss his career, but only sparingly. He was more interested in the people around him, the mechanics, the high school coaches, the handymen.

In 2019, Wilson asked Allen if he could sign a ball for a friend’s 91-year-old father, Bob Puzz. Allen had a better idea.

“Let’s go talk to Mr. Puzz,” he said.

They drove to Ellport, Pa., about 6 miles east of Wampum. Allen and Puzz talked for 2 ½ hours.

“It was like they’d known each other for years,” Wilson said.

When Allen got back to the car, he turned to Wilson.

“Twin,” he said, “this was a great day.”

Allen was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2020. He initially shared this news with only a few people. “He said he didn’t want a pity party,” his son recalled.

The former ballplayer stayed in Wampum while he received chemotherapy treatments in Pittsburgh, about 40 miles away. A longtime friend, Lenny Goatley, became a regular visitor. He’d bring Allen a breakfast sandwich from Wendy’s, run errands, and try to lighten his mood.

Goatley grew up with Allen in Chewton. He lived on the other side of the ball field that was across from Allen’s childhood home. For years, he had tried to persuade him to quit smoking, but to no avail. That wouldn’t stop Goatley from teasing his friend about it.

“He kept making excuses, even after he was diagnosed with cancer,” Goatley said. “He would say, ‘Well, I don’t think it’s the cigarettes that’s giving me the cancer.’ I used to laugh at that. I’d say, ‘Well, what do you think it is? Your looks?’”

Wampum rallied around their reluctant superstar in his final months. Local families would bring dinner every Sunday, while Rick Sheffey, another friend, was on call if Willa needed help.

He would say, ‘Well, I don’t think it’s the cigarettes that’s giving me the cancer.’ I used to laugh at that. I’d say, ‘Well, what do you think it is? Your looks?’

“Sometimes, I would have to get Rick to help me, if I couldn’t get [Dick] off the bed,” Willa said. “It made him happy that people cared so much. And I grew fond of the area. Before then, I was in and out. I knew people, but it was casual. And during those 18 months, I really got to know people there.”

That December, Wilson sat in Allen’s room and talked with the former ballplayer. After a few minutes, the mechanic said he had to leave.

“Come here,” Allen said.

“What?” Wilson asked.

Allen gave him a hug.

“I love you, Twin,” he said.

Two days later, on Dec. 7, Allen died at 78. His family held a private ceremony at the First Baptist Church of Chewton. Former Phillies pitcher Larry Christenson was a pallbearer, alongside Goatley and Wilson and Mancini. Allen was buried 1 mile from his house.

On July 27, he’ll be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Willa will give a speech, and a plaque with her late husband’s image and accomplishments will take its place among those of other baseball legends in Cooperstown.

It’s unclear what Wampum will do to honor him. How do you pay tribute to a man who didn’t like attention? Who returned to his hometown for its placidity?

Mancini knows there isn’t an obvious answer. About a year before Allen died, he organized a meeting at a restaurant between the former ballplayer and his high school friend, Betty Ann Petroff. They hadn’t seen each other in decades, and Allen was nervous. He insisted on driving separately just in case it didn’t go well.

That wasn’t necessary. The two classmates talked for hours;,a day of laughter and love. It’s a memory Mancini keeps coming back to.

“He never realized that he was Richie Allen,” Mancini said. “That we’re the ones who are thrilled to talk to him. That’s why I know he wouldn’t want us to do anything. That’s just the way he was.

“But unfortunately, if he’s looking down from above, there’ll probably be something going on here. Everyone is excited about it.”