Thursday, March 21, the Philadelphia Phillies teamed up with Mural Arts Philadelphia, the nation’s largest public art program, to honor baseball legend Richard “Dick” Allen by creating a mural of the Phillies Wall of Famer and Pennsylvania native.
Fans were invited to join artist Ernel Martinez to help paint the mural celebrating Allen’s life and legacy, and even the Philadelphia Phanatic himself jumped in on the action.
One of the most feared players in baseball
Over 15 seasons in Major League Baseball, nine in Philadelphia, Allen amassed 1842 hits, 351 home runs, 1119 RBIs, 1099 runs, and 133 stolen bases. He boasted a career average of .292 and the best OPS in baseball for a decade (from 1964 to 1974).
Allen was the 1964 MLB Rookie of the Year, a seven-time All-Star, and an MVP with the Chicago White Sox in 1972. There is plenty to appreciate about his playing career, regardless of his controversial absence from Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Still, his importance to the sport does not end there.
A trailblazer on and off the field
Not only was Allen one of the most talented players of his generation, in the history of baseball at that, but more importantly, he was a pivotal figure in the sport as one of the faces of the second wave of Black players to walk down the trail that Jackie Robinson and Larry Dobby blazed.
Allen played in the minors with the Arkansas Travellers in Little Rock, a pivotal city in the Civil Rights Movement. The first African-American to play in the minors in the state of Arkansas, Allen endured a level of abuse without what little protection the Majors provided at that time. Even still, Allen fought that abuse until he eventually won over his home crowd, as fans voted him the team’s most popular player.
Richard “Dick” Allen finished his career as one of the most dominant players of his era, one of the most feared hitters in the history of baseball, and one of the most influential Black players in the history of baseball, if not all sports history.
The mural of Allen will be formally dedicated at a community celebration later this spring and will be stationed at 2221 South Broad Street near Citizens Bank Park.
