Vic Fangio paid tribute to Dick Allen, his baseball hero, after the former Phillie’s Hall of Fame induction
The Eagles defensive coordinator grew up a diehard Phillies fan. “My all-time favorite Phillie, right there.”
Vic Fangio arrived for his Tuesday morning news conference with a special gift waiting for him at the podium — a Dick Allen jersey, in honor of the newly minted Hall of Famer.
Fangio grew up a Phillies fan in Dunmore, Lackawanna County, watching Allen play infield for the Phillies from 1963-69 and again from 1975-76.
“My all-time favorite Phillie, right there,” said Fangio, the Eagles’ defensive coordinator. “He was their best player when I was young, and he was obviously such a great player. A couple years ago I golfed with Goose Gossage, we played 18 holes and rode the same cart so obviously I talked baseball with him, and he played with Allen in Chicago, said he was the best teammate he ever had.”
In high school, Fangio played baseball himself, and he told The Inquirer in 2024 that he was a “Phillies diehard.”
» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: Dick Allen’s Hall of Fame induction allows the Phillies, and Philly, to turn the page on the past
He grew up equidistant from New York and Philadelphia but picked the Phillies and never looked back.
“Where I’m from, it’s you’re either a Yankees or a Phillies fan,” Fangio said in 2024. “So I became a Yankees hater.”
Even as he started coaching, he still kept tabs on how his beloved Phillies were doing each season. While working for the Philadelphia Stars of the United States Football League in the 1980s, Fangio sneaked into the Vet for Phillies games, taking unoccupied seats in the stands thanks to his friendship with the Hot Pants Patrol. His career took him across the nation in the NFL, but he would always circle back to the Phillies.
“I still don’t go to sleep at night until I know whether the Phillies won or lost, even if they’re on the West Coast,” Fangio told The Athletic in 2017.
Now, decades later, Fangio finally got to see his childhood hero earn his long-deserved recognition while coaching in Philadelphia himself.
» READ MORE: Truths from a Phillies diehard: Vic Fangio, the grizzly Eagles DC and baseball traditionalist, plays it straight