Dick Allen falls one vote short of Hall of Fame, leaves friend crushed
SAN DIEGO — You couldn’t help but notice the man in the vintage Philadelphia Phillies jersey, No. 15, on Monday as the Golden Era Committee prepared to announce the results of its Hall of Fame vote.
Mark Carfagno got as close to the stage as he could, because he cared more than anybody else in the room about the outcome. In a room full of media members at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, home of the MLB Winter Meetings, Carfagno was a fan and he wasn’t hiding it.
That No. 15 jersey was worn by Dick Allen, the great Phillies slugger, who was one of 10 people on the Golden Era ballot. And Carfagno — a former Phillies groundskeeper who later became Allen’s friend — had spent the last year of his life campaigning on Allen’s behalf.
Carfagno woke up two hours early Monday, nerves and a buzzing cellphone breaking him out of his slumber. This was the day he’d been working toward. Carfagno, who most people call by his nickname, Frog, had been working upward of 35 hours per week on his campaign to get Allen into Cooperstown. As the clock ticked toward announcement time, he slipped on the Phillies jersey and got into position.
Sixteen voters would decide whether Allen was admitted. Twelve votes was what he needed. Eleven is what he got.
“One vote!” Carfagno said, a little while after the results were announced, already having slipped out of the jersey. “You know the old saying: do you want to lose by one or lose by 40?”
In this case, Carfagno would have picked 40. Or even four. Allen and Tony Oliva both received 11 votes, nobody on the 10-person ballot got more. The Golden Era voters had shut out this year’s hopefuls. Jane Forbes Clark, who runs the Hall of Fame, used the vote to remind us that “election is incredibly difficult.”
And heartbreaking, if you’re Carfagno. He idolized Allen before he befriended him while he was a groundskeeper. Carfagno knows Allen’s raw power firsthand, and can rattle off stat after stat about how great Allen was. He’s a seven-time All-Star, a former Rookie of the Year and an MVP winner. In 1966, he hit 40 homers with a 110 RBIs. His OPS that season was a whopping 1.027. From 1964-1974, which was Allen’s peak, his OPS+ was 165, the best figure of the era, better than 17 Hall of Famers.
Allen would never campaign for himself. He’s said in the past, he doesn’t care about the Hall of Fame. When he was a player, he never got along with the media, and even some of his fellow players. Whether fully warranted or not, Allen earned a reputation for being surly, which many believe hurt his Hall of Fame chances.
Richard Allen Jr., Dick’s son, recruited Carfagno to campaign for Cooperstown. The younger Allen wanted his father’s reputation fixed and his baseball career properly honored. So Carfagno went to work. He enlisted baseball historians to help him put Allen’s career in the proper context. He wrote letters to the Hall of Fame and to Hall of Famers. He gathered others to help him spread the word.
“I worked my butt off,” Carfagno said.
Then on Friday, he flew across the country, checking into a hotel and waiting for the big day. He woke up at 3 a.m. Saturday morning because he was anxious even then. He texted Allen, who is now 72 and lives in Florida. They talked on the phone for a bit.
Allen thanked his buddy Frog for campaigning on his behalf, but reiterated, even now, that he’d never do it for himself. But Allen would have showed up in San Diego on Tuesday for a press conference had he been elected.
“God. One vote,” Carfagno said. “Gah! It would have been such a terrific day.”
Instead, he’ll fly back to Philadelphia on Friday, his head hanging a little but fight still alive inside of him.
“Gotta calm down a little bit first,” Carfagno said. “But we’ll move on. Maybe in two years, we’ll try again. You gotta keep swinging.”
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
