Former Phillies star Dick Allen is getting a mural thanks to the mayor and the ‘Secretary of Defense’

Jim Kenney watched the Phillies after church every Sunday afternoon at his grandfather’s house in South Philadelphia on a black-and-white television, listening to By Saam and Bill Campbell call the game from Connie Mack Stadium. Kenney, like most Philadelphia kids in the 1960s, loved Dick Allen. But the city’s future mayor couldn’t understand every Sunday why No. 15 was being booed on that old TV.

“I kept asking him, ‘Pop, why are the Phillies fans booing a Phillie?’” said Kenney, whose second term as mayor ends next month. “I could never figure it out.”

Allen became the team’s first Black superstar after emerging in 1964 as the National League’s Rookie of the Year, an award he received just weeks after the team’s September heartbreak. He was one of the most productive hitters of his generation — his on-base plus slugging percentage from 1964-74 was the best in baseball — but he also proved to be polarizing.

He was jeered enough that Allen wore a batting helmet while playing the field at Connie Mack as a way to protect himself if something came hurling from the stands. His home runs often soared over the Coca-Cola sign on the left-field roof. But a fight with Frank Thomas, a white teammate, further split an already divided fan base on Allen. He wrote “Boo” in the dirt near first base because that’s the sound he heard so much. Allen requested a trade in 1969 and kissed the ground after the final game that season, knowing the Phillies would soon grant his wish.

“I mean, who has to wear a batting helmet in their own field?” Kenney said. “That’s crazy.”

Kenney, like many of his generation, remained a fan of Allen, who returned to play for the Phillies in 1975 and ‘76. The city, Kenney said, owes Allen “an apology and a debt of gratitude for even wanting to come back here after what he went through.”

So the mayor did not need much swaying last summer when Garry Maddox — Allen’s teammate with the Phils in the 1970s — had an idea. Philadelphia, Maddox said, should celebrate Allen with a mural. That would work.

“I figured, let’s do something,” Kenney said.

Maddox transitioned to the business world after retiring in 1986 and his commute took him each morning past a mural of Julius Erving near Spring Garden Street and Ridge Avenue. He marveled at how the three-story artwork of Dr. J in a suit was never defaced by graffiti.

“That was the ultimate compliment,” Maddox said. “That’s why I thought about Dick. Everyone is trying to get him into the Hall of Fame and those types of things. But something like a mural, to me, is the ultimate compliment.”

Allen’s mural — which was unveiled Thursday morning and will be installed next spring on South Broad Street just north of Wolf Street — will be located just a little more than a mile from where Maddox met Allen.

The Phillies traded Willie Montañez to San Francisco for Maddox in May 1975, adding the center fielder who became known as “the Secretary of Defense” to a roster on the cusp of contention. A week later, Allen returned to the Phils after Richie Ashburn, Mike Schmidt, and Dave Cash secretly visited his Bucks County farm and pleaded with him to come out of retirement. His first game at Veterans Stadium was Maddox’s first home game with his new team.

“It allowed me to slip into the city with no pressure,” Maddox said. “All the pressure was on Dick.”

» READ MORE: A secret visit to Dick Allen’s farm brought him back to the Phillies and cemented his Philadelphia legacy

The team left later that month for a road trip and Allen called his new teammates to his hotel room.

“He had a meal set out for us in his room,” said Maddox, who served in the U.S. Army before reaching the majors. “That blew me away. At that point, I was still hearing the echoes of Vietnam in my mind. That was the beginning. He took us under his wing.”

During Allen’s first stint with the Phillies, a brick was thrown through his front window, cars drove on his lawn and ripped up the grass, and he received death threats. But these incidents never came up as he hung at Maddox’s home after Sunday games and waited for the traffic to calm down. They listened to music and tuned into WDAS-FM. Maddox’s wife, Sondra, made dinner.

“We would just talk,” Maddox said. “Heck, I never listened to anybody. He would come over and just talk to me. It was special. He always built me up. You play with certain players who even though they’re stars, they can still lift you up. Pete Rose was the same way. Pete Rose knew all of his statistics, but he knew when you needed a pep talk. Dick was always there for me.

“When someone like Dick Allen wants to talk to you or thinks you’re worth his time, that in itself is huge. He was one of the most influential people in my growth. Not necessarily as a ballplayer, but as a person.”

Kenney called Jane Golden, the founder and executive director of Mural Arts, and relayed Maddox’s idea. Golden had a “vague” understanding of Allen, so she dug in and researched the mayor’s boyhood idol. She agreed with the Secretary of Defense and had to find a wall.

“We’re wall hunters,” Golden said. “We’re always looking for good walls. When the mayor called, we were on high alert. ‘We need a wall and we need it near the stadium. We’re going to scour this whole area, up and down, up and down.’ We were able to contact the person who owned this wall and we wanted this wall more than anything. It’s a great wall. We were going to pester him to get a yes, but thankfully he’s a sports fan and he loved the project and knew about Dick Allen.”

Golden’s group has done sports murals, and the subjects — people like Joe Frazier, Jackie Robinson, Dr. J, and Johnny Sample — tend to be athletes who are defined by more than box scores. Allen fit that criteria.

“In spite of racism and in spite of obstacles, he kept playing and he played really well,” Golden said. “He just held his head up high and kept going forward. I kept thinking, ‘What a role model he is,’ but I also kept thinking, ‘How tragic this is that he had to face this hatred and negativity.’ It made me feel the weight and the complexity of our world and how people like Dick Allen keep moving forward and inspire us and tap into our imagination that the world can be better.”

» READ MORE: Dick Allen was Philly's misunderstood superstar

The mural — which will be located at 2221 South Broad St. — was designed by Ernel Martinez, who also designed the Frazier mural at 13th and Allegheny Streets in North Philadelphia. Martinez said he was inspired by the art of old baseball cards, and the mural features four portraits of Allen, including a depiction of him in 2020 when the Phillies retired his No. 15. The background shows both Connie Mack Stadium and Dick Allen Field, the youth baseball diamond named for him last summer in FDR Park.

“His impact goes way behind the field,” Martinez said. “He was invested in the community. His energy just wasn’t on the baseball field.”

Kenney was a teenager in 1971 when the Phils moved to South Philadelphia. He could ride his bike from his house near Third Street and Snyder Avenue, lock his bike outside the Vet, and sit with his buddies in the yellow seats in center field for 50 cents.

“The Phillies were up and down back in those days, so there were a lot of seats to move down to,” Kenney said. “We would slowly move down to the nicest seats we could find throughout the course of the game.”

A few years later, Allen returned. The guy who was booed on Kenney’s grandfather’s TV received three standing ovations on his first night at the Vet. Kenney was enthralled with Allen, who he said could hit the ball a mile — “No exaggeration,” the mayor said — and run like a deer. John Hunter, Kenney’s classmate at St. Joseph’s Prep, wore No. 15 in soccer and baseball and agreed to fill in as the football team’s kicker only after they let him wear Allen’s number. Everyone seemed to love Allen.

“The fan base — it’s hard to explain — was in their own way, apologetic for what happened in the 1960s,” Kenney said. “There was a different attitude. I think this mural is a continuation of that. If Allen was playing today, he would be an absolute superstar.”

Allen was not with the Phillies when they won the 1980 World Series, but several key players of that championship team credit Allen for building them up before they paraded down Broad Street. The addition of Rose in 1979 is considered by most as the move that put the Phillies over the top, but Larry Bowa said Allen’s arrival was the move that pointed them in the right direction.

“I remember playing against the Pittsburgh Pirates and they were our archrivals,” Maddox said. “They had a pitcher, Bruce Kison. He would always throw at Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski. Greg hit in front of Dick and Dick called him over. ‘Look, if he throws at you and you’re going to go out there, I got your back.’ It wasn’t just me but he had that impact on a lot of players. He cared.”

» READ MORE: Mike Schmidt says Dick Allen belongs in the Hall of Fame

In 2021, Allen barely missed being selected for the Hall of Fame by the Golden Days Committee for the second straight time, collecting 11 of the 16 votes when 12 votes were needed.That committee can reconsider Allen’s candidacy when it meets again in December 2026. He has a strong case — Allen is one of the best players still waiting to be inducted in Cooperstown, N.Y. — but received little support when he was initially eligible in the 1980s from the sportswriters he often warred against. It has been an uphill climb ever since.

“I’m so angry that he’s not in the Hall of Fame,” said Kenney, who wears a No. 15 jersey when he watches the Phils. “I do not understand it. It has to be that it’s residual stuff from the old days. Even though some of those reporters aren’t around from those days, I still think there’s something about him that rubbed people the wrong way. The numbers. The accomplishments. I think he certainly deserves to be in.”

Allen wasn’t perfect — he spent a doubleheader at a horse track, went AWOL at the end of 1976 season, and suffered a severe hand injury pushing his car — but he never said he was.

“Back then, he was just protecting himself and expressing his rights as a man,” Kenney said. “He wasn’t going to put up with the stuff. He didn’t have the same, I guess, control, that Jackie Robinson had. When someone confronted him, they got confronted back. I always respected that about him. He stood up when facing prejudice and racism. If he had to pop somebody, he did.”

The Phillies retired his number, played a season with a “15″ patch on their sleeve after he died in December 2020, honored him last summer at Citizens Bank Park, and renamed the field for him in FDR Park. Hollywood producer Mike Tollin, who became friends with Allen in the 1970s, is working on a film.

The Phillies, under the guidance of managing partner John Middleton, have made a recent push to make Allen’s memory more prominent and perhaps boost his Hall of Fame chances. A mural — located a few blocks from where Kenney used to watch the Phils on that black-and-white TV — is the next step. A larger-than-life piece of art won’t get Allen a plaque in Cooperstown. But it won’t hurt his chances, either.

“It would be amazing,” Martinez said of Allen possibly reaching the Hall of Fame. “To have that happen, I think it would solidify his contribution that other things can’t. Playing a small role and doing this mural and bringing some attention to his name and what he meant to the city of Philadelphia is awesome. If this can play a role in any capacity of him becoming an inductee, that would be great.”