August 29, 1964: Hometown Wampum fans watch as Dick Allen leads first-place Phillies over Pirates

Residents of Wampum, Pennsylvania, and neighboring towns cheered hometown hero Dick Allen at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field during his 1964 National League Rookie of the Year season with the Philadelphia Phillies, even honoring him in on-field ceremonies before three games against the host Pittsburgh Pirates. But Allen scuffled in Pittsburgh in ’64, batting .182 in nine games, with just two extra-base hits and five errors at third base. His power bat flourished just once, on August 29, when his two-run triple and two-run homer paced the first-place Phillies to a 10-run lead, which withstood a Pirates’ rally for a 10-8 win.

The 22-year-old Allen began his assault on NL pitchers right away in 1964, attaining six multi-hit games in April alone. One outburst occurred on April 23 at home against Pittsburgh, when he homered and ignited a game-winning ninth-inning rally with a single.1 As a rookie, Allen hit .361 in nine games against the Pirates at Connie Mack Stadium, with five home runs and a .778 slugging percentage.

The Phillies’ visits to Pittsburgh that season drew many fans from Wampum, 45 miles from Forbes Field, and nearby towns like New Castle, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio.2 They came to celebrate Allen, an integral member of Wampum High School’s state championship basketball teams in 1958 and 1960.3

Some well-wishers brought gifts. At Allen’s May 26 Forbes Field debut, in front of hundreds of fans bused in from the Wampum area, the town’s Lions Club gave Allen a television set in a pregame ceremony.4 “[H]ave you ever heard a rookie make a finer acceptance speech? In fact, few veterans have spoken as well as Allen did for a brief 30 seconds,” observed the Pittsburgh Press.5

Allen went hitless that night and had just two singles in 21 at-bats in the Phillies’ first two visits to Pittsburgh.6 Before the opener of Philadelphia’s final Forbes Field series of 1964, on Friday, August 28, New Castle’s city council honored Allen with a resolution, and Allen’s mother and the mayor of New Castle threw ceremonial first pitches.7 Allen was batting .312 for the season, with 95 runs and 59 extra-base hits in 126 games.

But his struggles continued, with two strikeouts with runners in scoring position. Phillies ace Jim Bunning was two outs from a 2-0 win before the Pirates, losers of 10 of their last 11, rallied for four ninth-inning runs, completing the comeback with Smoky Burgess’s three-run homer off reliever Ed Roebuck.8 In search of its first pennant since 1950, Philadelphia had a 6½-game lead over the second-place Cincinnati Reds, with sixth-place Pittsburgh 12½ games back.

Three days of rioting, triggered by a policeman using excess force while arresting a Black woman, had begun in North Philadelphia, blocks from Connie Mack Stadium.9 On the other side of Pennsylvania, a group from Youngstown attended Saturday afternoon’s game, and a local contractor who had once employed Allen gifted him a watch in a pregame ceremony.10

Phillies right-hander Art Mahaffey had won three straight decisions against Pittsburgh righty Bob Friend, all shutouts. On August 20, their scoreless duel in Philadelphia ended when Frank Thomas’s two-run homer in the ninth gave Mahaffey a two-hit win.11 Mahaffey entered the August 29 game with an 11-6 record; Friend, in his 14th season in Pittsburgh, was 10-14.

Manager Gene Mauch’s ’64 Phillies sacrificed more often than any team in the majors besides the Los Angeles Dodgers,12 and even their power hitters were bunting in the early innings. After Tony González led off the first with a single, Allen bunted. Friend threw wide of second base for an error, setting up a scoring opportunity for Philadelphia.13

Three fly balls stranded the runners, but Thomas began the second inning with a surprise bunt toward third and reached with a single.14 He moved to third on Cookie Rojas’s hit-and-run single and scored on a single by Rubén Amaro.15

The Pirates were an out from the dugout after first baseman Willie Stargell turned Mahaffey’s bunt into a force at third and González flied out. Allen came up, just 2-for-27 at Forbes Field, and drove Friend’s outside curveball deep to right.16 Roberto Clemente went back to the wall, jumped high, and got his glove on the ball. But Clemente’s arm struck the wall, knocking the ball loose.17

Allen had a two-run triple, and the Phillies’ lead was 3-0. Johnny Callison drove in Allen with a single, and Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh relieved Friend with Roy Face.18

Knocked out in the first inning five days earlier by the Milwaukee Braves,19 Mahaffey held the Pirates hitless until Jerry Lynch singled with two outs in the fourth. By then, Mahaffey had helped himself with a run-scoring hit. Thomas singled to lead off the third, advanced on a sacrifice and a groundout, and scored on Mahaffey’s first-pitch single to center, making it 5-0.

Murtaugh replaced Face in the fourth with another member of Pittsburgh’s 1960 World Series champions’ pitching staff, Vern Law, and the 34-year-old right-hander contributed two perfect innings.

Rookie righty John Gelnar, in his sixth major-league appearance since a late-July promotion from Double A,20 took over for the Pirates in the sixth. Amaro walked and Mahaffey sacrificed him to second. González hit a one-hopper back to Gelnar, and Amaro ran for third. Gelnar, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer, “looked surprised” by Amaro’s gambit and threw late and wild to third. Amaro scored and González reached second on the error.21

On a two-strike pitch, Allen drove Gelnar’s inside fastball over the left-field wall for his 24th homer of the season.22 The Phillies had a commanding 8-0 lead.

Mixing in occasional changeups with his fastball, Mahaffey battled the elements – a muggy, 98-degree summer afternoon – and persistent baserunners in the middle innings.23 Burgess’s single and Dick Schofield’s double put two Pirates in scoring position with one out in the fifth for pinch-hitter Donn Clendenon, who hit a hard grounder up the middle. Mahaffey, his back to the plate from his follow-through, knocked the ball down with his gloved hand and threw out Clendenon at first as the runners held.24 Bob Bailey’s fly ball ended the inning.

Clemente and Lynch drew one-out walks in the sixth, but Stargell grounded into a double play. In the seventh, three straight one-out singles loaded the bases for Bailey, and Mahaffey fell behind, 3-and-0. The count went full, and Bailey pulled a liner toward third. Bobby Wine, who had replaced Allen by this time, gloved Bailey’s bid for a hit, waist-high, and stepped on third to double off Bill Mazeroski.25

“[The] Pirates hit the ball harder for their outs than they did for most of their hits,” the Pittsburgh Press noted.26

The Phillies tacked on two more runs in the eighth. With González on second and one out, Callison clubbed Tommie Sisk’s waist-level fastball into the third row of the lower deck in right-center, his 23rd homer of the season.27 It was a 10-0 game.

Mahaffey took a six-hit shutout into the eighth, but Bill Virdon’s leadoff walk began the erosion of Philadelphia’s seeming landslide. Back-to-back singles by Clemente and Lynch brought in a run and caused Mauch to remove Mahaffey for John Boozer.

Stargell greeted Boozer with a double off first baseman Thomas’s glove, scoring Clemente.28 Burgess drove in Lynch and Stargell with a single. Boozer set down the next three batters, but the lead was down to 10-4.

Boozer retired Bailey to begin the ninth, but Virdon and Clemente landed pop-fly singles in the outfield.29

“They just started throwing flares out over the ballpark,” Mauch commented on the rash of soft hits against Boozer.30

One out later, Stargell’s bloop over shortstop scored Virdon.31 Burgess’s single down the right-field line drove in Clemente,32 and Mazeroski pulled a fly ball to left. John Herrnstein, who had entered in the seventh, went back to the brick wall but could not make the catch. The ball bounced away, and Mazeroski reached third with a two-run triple.33

Less than 24 hours after overcoming a ninth-inning deficit, the Pirates had gone from a 10-run deficit to the potential tying run at the plate. Mauch replaced Boozer with fireman Jack Baldschun, making his team-high 54th appearance of 1964. Schofield took a strike, then flied to center for the final out.

The Phillies had needed every bit of Allen’s two-hit, two-run, four-RBI day.

“Maybe the watch helped his timing,” Mauch said of Allen afterward.34

A day later, Allen committed an error, struck out, and hit into a double play. The Phillies lost to the Pirates, 10-2.35 They held first place until they lost 10 games in a row in September. Philadelphia and Cincinnati finished a game behind the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals.36

At the end of the Phillies’ 1964 slate in Pittsburgh, Allen downplayed his rookie-year struggles there. “They [his hometown fans] come and see me play in Philadelphia and nobody says anything about it then,”37 he said. He eventually cracked Forbes Field’s code, pounding out a .333 average and .970 OPS in 23 games from 1966 through 1968.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin. SABR members Gary Belleville and Kurt Blumenau provided insightful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Photo credit: Dick Allen, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196408290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1964/B08290PIT1964.htm

Notes

1 Allen Lewis, “Phils Score Four in 9th, Nip Pirates: Herrnstein Socks 2-Run Pinch Double to Decide Tilt, 6-5,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 24, 1964: 1.

2 New Castle is eight miles north of Wampum. Youngstown is 25 miles northwest of Wampum.

3 Don Giffin, “Wampum Speeds Past Columbia in ‘B’ Final: Indians Win Second State Title,” Pittsburgh Press, March 29, 1958: 6; “Freeze Helps Wampum Win State ‘B’ Crown: Indians Beat Montrose in Final, 57-51,” Pittsburgh Press, March 26, 1960: 6; “Krick, Allen Head Little All-State,” Pittsburgh Press, March 31, 1960: 46.

4 “Allen Buses Leave 5:30,” New Castle (Pennsylvania) News, May 26, 1964: 21; Bob Vosburg, “This Afternoon,” New Castle News, May 27, 1964: 38; “Richie’s Night,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 6, 1964: 14.

5 Lester J. Biederman, “It’s Travel Fatigue, Not Playing Game, Which Tires Players,” Pittsburgh Press, May 27, 1964: 50.

6 Allen’s most productive offensive game in his first two series in Pittsburgh was on July 16, when he singled, walked twice, and scored three runs in Philadelphia’s 7-5 win. He was also charged with two errors at third base in that game.

7 John Dell, “Allen Honored by His Friends from Wampum,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 1964: 21; “500 to See Allen Play,” New Castle News, August 26, 1964: 33.

8 Lester J. Biederman, “Burgess Proves He Still Swings Mighty Bat,” Pittsburgh Press, August 29, 1964: 6; Allen Lewis, “Pirates Beat Phils in 9th on Home Run: Burgess Connects with Two on Base, Jars Roebuck, 4-2,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 1964: 1.

9 Jeff Gammage, “Lasting Damage: The Three-Day Outbreak of Violence in the Summer of 1964 Forever Changed a Neighborhood and a City,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 24, 2014: A1.

10 “‘Old Timers’ to Attend Pirate Game,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 28, 1964: 20; John Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 30, 1964: Sports, 1.

11 Stan Hochman, “Like a Dream Crystallized, Phillies Now 7½ Ahead,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 21, 1964: 49.

12 The Phillies had 97 sacrifice hits and the Dodgers 120.

13 Lester J. Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8: NL Leaders See 10-0 Lead Fade at End,” Pittsburgh Press, August 30, 1964: 4,1.

14 Lester J. Biederman, “Hoak Lauds Mauch as Real Strategist Willing to Gamble: Gene ‘Great Handler of Pitchers, Manipulates Bullpen Like Magician,” Pittsburgh Press, August 30, 1964: 4,2.

15 Amaro was starting at second because manager Gene Mauch wanted to give Tony Taylor, struggling with one hit in his last 16 at-bats, a day off. Allen Lewis, “Phillies Break Saturday Slump Against Pirates,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 30, 1964: Sports, 3.

16 Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?”

17 Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8”; Lewis, “Phillies Break Saturday Slump Against Pirates.”

18 Face was the winning pitcher in the previous night’s game with a scoreless inning of relief.

19 Stan Hochman, “Wild Wes Show Flops at Carty Party,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 25, 1964: 57.

20 “Bucs Recall John Gelnar,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 30, 1964: 22.

21 Allen Lewis, “Phils Gain Big Lead, Outlast Pirates, 10-8,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 30, 1964: Sports, 1

22 Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?” Allen had already set a club record for most home runs by a rookie, breaking Don Hurst’s 1928 mark of 19. As of 2025, only Willie Montañez (30 homers in 1970) had hit more home runs than Allen as a Phillies’ rookie.

23 Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?”

24 Lewis, “Phillies Break Saturday Slump Against Pirates.”

25 Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8”; Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?”

26 Biederman, “Hoak Lauds Mauch as Real Strategist Willing to Gamble.”

27 Lewis, “Phils Gain Big Lead, Outlast Pirates, 10-8”; Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8”; Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?”

28 Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8.”

29 Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8.”

30 Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?”

31 Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8.”

32 Biederman, “Phils Nip Pirate Rally, 10-8.”

33 Lewis, “Phils Gain Big Lead, Outlast Pirates, 10-8.”

34 Dell, “Does Art Have a Hex on Bob?”

35 Stan Hochman, “Pirate Poison Tough Pill for Phils to Gulp,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 31, 1964: 41.

36 The Pirates tied the Los Angeles Dodgers for sixth place at 80-82.

37 Hochman, “Pirate Poison Tough Pill for Phils to Gulp.”