City Pays Tribute To Richie Ashburn

Richie Ashburn will be remembered at a day-long viewing at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park on Friday.

It will be the public’s only chance to say good-bye to the Hall of Fame centerfielder who died Tuesday morning in New York, hours after describing a Phillies-Mets game as a television broadcaster.

The Phillies also will pay tribute to Ashburn before tonight’s 7:05 game against the San Francisco Giants at Veterans Stadium.

Ashburn, who was 70, spent nearly five decades with the Phillies as a player and a broadcaster.

The public viewing will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Family members, people from the Phillies organization, and other officials will be allowed in from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

No one can remember an event in Memorial Hall quite like the honor being accorded Ashburn.

After the death of oarsman John B. Kelly Jr. in 1985, a memorial service there drew several hundred mourners.

The decision to have the public viewing there was made by Mayor Ed Rendell, who telephoned F. Eugene Dixon, longtime president of the Fairmount Park Commission and a minority owner of the Phillies, early Wednesday morning with the request.