All that was needed was 12 votes from a 16-member panel that included former teammates Mike Schmidt and Ferguson Jenkins.
Allen received 11.
Dick Allen’s Hall of Fame case met the same brutal fate it did seven years ago as he fell one vote shy Sunday of finally being inducted in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Allen, who died last December at 78, was denied entry by the Hall’s Golden Days Era committee. He needed 12 votes from a 16-member panel that included former teammates Mike Schmidt and Ferguson Jenkins. He received 11, the same amount he received in 2014 when the group last met. Allen’s next chance will be in 2026.
Allen played for five teams — the Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, White Sox, and A’s — during a 15-year career. He hit 351 homers while swinging a 42-ounce bat and his 165 OPS+ between 1964 and 1973 was the highest in the majors over that 10-year span. He won the Rookie of the Year in 1964 with the Phillies, captured the American League MVP in 1972 with the White Sox, and made seven All Star teams.
[Dick Allen’s] son, Richard Jr., said Allen had found peace with not having a bronze plaque in Cooperstown. He was honored in 2018 by the Negro League Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Mo. and said he considered that the real Hall of Fame.
“That’s the real hall for me,” Allen said. “They are a very elite group,” Allen said last year after the Phillies retired his No. 15. “They’re part of the legends. And to me, the way that it’s going, it could be a little political the way [the Baseball Hall of Fame] does things, but however, it’s beyond me. I pay no attention to it.”