Editor of Local Newspaper Recalls the Baseball Scout from Oxford Who Discovered This Phillies Star

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Image of Dick Allen via USA Today.

A ceremony held at City Hall last week pushed forward the effort to get Phillies great Dick Allen inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, writes Phil Heron for the Daily Times.

Allen was discovered in the early 1960s in his native Wampum, in western Pennsylvania, by John Ogden, a Phillies scout from Oxford.

Ogden was especially famous in Oxford among kids who gathered around his house with the hope of getting Phillies tickets, which he often handed out. One time, they got much more than they were hoping for.

“We were stunned one day to see Ogden sitting on his front porch, with the young superstar Allen by his side,” wrote Heron. “It’s a memory I will never forget. A major leaguer in Oxford.”

The player who retired from Major League Baseball in 1977 had a .282 lifetime batting average. He hit 351 home runs and drove in 1,119 runs.

“Dick Allen belongs in the Hall of Fame,” wrote Heron. “And we have a gentleman from Oxford, Pa., to thank for it.”

Read more about the baseball scout who discovered Dick Allen in the Daily Times here.

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