Dick Allen played 3 seasons with the Chicago White Sox. Now 78, Allen recalls his time on the South Side fondly: 'I've never been treated any better.'

Waiting on a call from the Hall of Fame isn’t on Dick Allen’s mind these days.

“No,” the former Chicago White Sox star said in a recent phone conversation. “It’s something I’ve never really given any thought to. Period.”

That might be true, but it has been on my mind — and I’m sure his family and friends feel likewise — after the Hall of Fame’s decision to cancel the scheduled vote of the Veterans Committee for the Golden Days Era candidates.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the sports world is a story that has been played out on a daily basis, from outbreaks that postpone college football games to politicians pausing high school seasons.

You feel bad for the athletes and then you turn the page. There is only so much to say anymore, with the spread of the coronavirus rising across the country and the decisions to cancel or postpone events becoming commonplace.

Still, the Hall of Fame’s decision is tougher to swallow because it affects an older group of men that might not have the time to wait another year or more to find out whether they’ll receive the ultimate career honor: a spot in Cooperstown, N.Y.

The last time Allen was a candidate, in 2014 on what then was called the Golden Era ballot, he and former Minnesota Twins outfielder Tony Oliva fell one vote shy in voting by the 16-member Veterans Committee, which selected no one.

Late White Sox outfielder Minnie Minoso wound up four votes shy, and others on the ballot, including Sox pitcher Billy Pierce, Twins pitcher Jim Kaat and Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, were well behind.

Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said at the time that he was disappointed Minoso and Pierce didn’t get in because “they clearly deserved” to make it.

But when I asked him about Allen coming so close, he replied: “Dick Allen had kind of a checkered career. If I had been on the committee I wouldn’t have voted for him. He only really had six really good years. … But when he was with the White Sox he certainly had Hall of Fame years.”

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and though I disagreed with Reinsdorf, I was certain the 78-year-old Allen would get another shot this time. After the Philadelphia Phillies retired his number in September, it seemed as if the tide had turned and Allen was starting to get the recognition he deserved.

But the Hall decided it wasn’t safe to have in-person meetings to choose candidates because of the pandemic, even though voting is underway for the 2021 Hall of Fame, the Ford Frick Award for broadcasters and the Spink Award for sports writers.

I asked a Hall spokesman why it couldn’t have conducted a Veterans Committee meeting via teleconference.

“Given the open yet confidential discussion necessary to effectively evaluate each of the candidates during the daylong committee process, our board of directors maintains it to be critical that these committees meet in person,” he said via email. “The most productive way to facilitate the hourslong conversations necessary to ensure the integrity of this process is to have committee members together in one room, face-to-face, speaking honestly and directly to one another.

“During recent months, most of us have utilized some form of communication technology to facilitate meetings both at a personal and professional level. While these video conversations provide certain benefits, we continue to feel that they are not ideal for our era committee meetings — nor would be any change to this important process that could compromise its integrity.”

Whether Allen would have been on the ballot again is uncertain, but you would have to think so, based on his close call in 2014 and his career numbers. Jay Jaffe, who created the JAWS measurement that compares players with those already in the Hall, told The Athletic that Allen’s career was obviously Hall of Fame-worthy.

“This is a terrific player who is way better than a lot of guys who are in the Hall of Fame,” Jaffe said. “And that, ultimately to me, is what throws it in that direction. There’s so many guys who could not carry his jock who are in the Hall of Fame. Why are we rewarding some guys from the 1920s who had a good decade in a high-offense environment that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny while we’re holding a similarly ‘short’ career against Dick Allen in some of the most turbulent times in baseball history?

“Just the different times really created some of the conditions that thwarted his career.”

Many of Allen’s peers, including Willie Mays, have said the same thing: It’s time to give Dick Allen his due.

I watched Chicago Cubs great Ron Santo go through repeated disappointments during his Hall of Fame quest. He finally made it after he died, too late to enjoy the honor. Allen hasn’t made the Hall his life goal and in truth didn’t campaign for himself when we spoke.

“I never really cared about it,” he said. “When you’re a kid and you’re playing ball around the house, you’re not playing ball because you’re thinking of the Hall of Fame. You’re thinking of making it to the major leagues. The big leagues. First things first.

“I really don’t get it. To me, that’s all (up to) the voting. After all is said and done, it’s what people thought of you after you leave. And after I left, it was only what the sports writers thought of me, not what people thought of me.”

Some sports writers labeled Allen as troublesome early in his career in Philadelphia, which led to Phillies fans booing him and the famous moment when he wrote “BOO” in the dirt near first base. It really wasn’t until he came to Chicago in 1972 that Allen was treated with respect by fans and the media alike.

The stories of his MVP season in 1972 became legend, like the time he was walking outside Comiskey Park under a 35th Street viaduct to get a couple of hot dogs while still in his uniform.

“I don’t know about ‘in uniform,’ “ he said with a laugh. “But I know the fans were that friendly, so you could actually walk where you wanted to and not be bothered. They didn’t rag on you, rag on you, rag on you.”

Allen almost single-handedly revived the Sox franchise and provided fans with one of the enduring moments in team history — the so-called “Chili Dog game” against the New York Yankees on June 4, 1972, when he came off the bench in the ninth inning in Game 2 of a doubleheader and hit a walk-off three-run home run off closer Sparky Lyle.

Allen was eating a chili dog in the clubhouse when manager Chuck Tanner sent in a clubbie to get him.

“All of a sudden, he’s got sauce all over his chest, he throws on a new shirt and comes out and wins the game,” former teammate Bill Melton said in a phone interview.

Allen came out of the dugout to massive applause from the remnants of a sellout crowd of 51,904, the biggest at Comiskey since 1954. He had spilled some chili on his shirt, but put on a new jersey and came out of the dugout to massive applause.

“(Teammate) Mike Andrews says to Sparky, ‘Hey, you’re in some deep (bleep) now,” Allen recalled of the moment he stepped up. “And just after he said it, gazinga! He was in some deep (bleep). After that, the (chili dog) story went around and it still goes around.”

According to the New York Times’ account of the game, the home run “touched off a wild scene among the White Sox players, who mobbed Allen at the plate as if it were a victory in the seventh game of the World Series.”

So was it all true? Did he really spill the chili dog on himself?

“Most of it’s true,” he said, laughing.

Melton, who stays in touch with Allen, said “everything Dick did was amazing,” and much of his greatness fans didn’t even get a chance to see.

“He never took batting practice, as everyone knows, but then one day he comes out and starts hitting left-handed home runs,” Melton said.

“He was reinvigorated, coming to Chicago and playing under Tanner. He was going to quit, said he hated the game. But everything changed, and we all loved him. He was a great teammate, and the sports writers in Chicago liked him, too, Jerome Holtzman and Bill Gleason and all the rest.

“He didn’t say much to them unless he was asked a question because he didn’t want any publicity. Then they’d ask him something and he’d say: ‘Were you at the game?’ Players today, they all want the exposure on social media. He wouldn’t have survived today. No way would Dick Allen be on a cellphone in the clubhouse.”

Allen spent only three seasons in Chicago but was so beloved here that organist Nancy Faust played “Jesus Christ Superstar” when he came to the plate. He even hosted his own TV show, which he said he would love to rewatch if he only had some of the old videotapes.

Chicago is still in his heart after all these years.

“I think about the White Sox fans all the time,” he said. “Not only the Sox fans, both sides, North and South Side, because they really draw a lot of fans there.”

Hopefully Allen will be invited back to the South Side when it’s safe to attend games. Allen said the Phillies’ decision to fete him last summer, even in an empty stadium, was the “cherry” on his career.

“It was an honor, but I didn’t realize it until I had gotten home,” he said. “A month or so went by, and I got up and looked out the window, and golly, it was like a little cherry in a bottle. I thought about me alone for one time, because I never really do.

“I always thought of others before myself. When I start thinking about myself, usually the thoughts that come over my mind are ‘How selfish?’ But that one little cherry, jeez … unbelievable.”

The Sox have honored Allen before, though there are few reminders around the ballpark of his cometlike career in a Sox uniform.

It doesn’t matter to Allen. He said he’ll always feel like a part of the Sox and indebted to Sox fans for treating him so well.

“My gosh, yes,” he said. “It’s better than anywhere I’ve been my whole baseball career. I might say my whole baseball life.

“I’ve never been treated any better. You guys are the best for my money.”

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