Former Phillies star Dick Allen will be honored with a mural in South Philadelphia

The design of the mural — which is commissioned by Mural Arts, the Phillies, and the city — will be unveiled on Thursday near Broad and Wolf Streets.

Dick Allen, who died in December 2020, is considered to be one of the greatest players not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

by Matt Breen

Published Dec. 5, 2023, 3:31 p.m. ET

Dick Allen will be honored next year with a mural in South Philadelphia, just a little more than a mile from where the former Phillies star received a hero’s welcome upon returning to town following an ugly exit years earlier.

The design of the mural — which is commissioned by Mural Arts, the Phillies, and the city — will be unveiled on Thursday morning near Broad and Wolf Streets. The mural’s installation should be completed in the spring and it was designed by Ernel Martinez, who designed a Joe Frazier mural in 2021 in North Philly.

Allen, who died in December 2020, is considered to be one of the greatest players not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He fell one vote shy in 2021 and should have another chance in December 2025. He played nine of his 15 major league seasons in Philadelphia and was the National League’s Rookie of the Year for the star-crossed 1964 Phils. The Phillies retired his No. 15 a few months before he died and honored him last summer at Citizens Bank Park.

He was the team’s first Black superstar and endured an almost Jackie Robinson-like existence in 1960s Philadelphia. Allen was booed and jeered, and even played the field while wearing a batting helmet to guard against bottles a fan might throw. He received death threats. Someone threw a brick through the front window of his home. Cars regularly drove over his lawn at night, ripping up the grass with their tires. A fight with teammate Frank Thomas during batting practice in 1965 divided the fans. Four years later, Allen requested a trade and was sent to St. Louis.

Allen was the American League MVP in 1972 with the White Sox and made three AL All-Star teams before he returned to the Phillies in 1975. The jeers he heard years earlier at Connie Mack Stadium were replaced by a standing ovation before his first at-bat at Veterans Stadium. That night, Mike Schmidt said, felt like a peace offering between the city and Allen. And now Allen will be honored near where the Vet once stood.

“Although Dick would never forget those years, he knew the fan base in 1975 had no part in the ‘60s fiasco,” Schmidt recalled a few years ago. “The racist nature of our country had changed, the last being baseball, and was totally comfortable with Black athletes. Times had changed drastically.”