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Dave Parker: Stigma of drug use kept me out of the Hall of Fame

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Steak Snabler, Aug 25, 2009.

  1. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    His career OPS isn't as good as Jeromy Burnitz's, and he thinks he belongs in the Hall of Fame?

    OK, Burnitz played in the steroid era, so forget about him. Norm Cash, Joe Adcock and Rocky Colavito all have a better OPS than Parker, and they played mostly in the era when the pitching mound was higher.
     
  2. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    That coke era in baseball from 1978 to 1985 destroyed so many lives...some deadly (Rod Scurry, eventually Darrell Porter). I was a boy in 1985 and only remember seeing players and ex-players walking on a sidewalk, in and out of court, for the Pittsburgh Drug Trials.

    Have researched some of the era and was amazed at what did come up. Some fairly high-level stars for the time (Parker, Tim Raines, Keith Hernandez -- he was no secret, however) but amazed at how it all 'went down'. Shoot, even the Pirates mascot was dealing coke before games to visiting players...
     
  3. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    If you want to know the truth, I don't think the cocaine "problem" was any worse among baseball players than it was among actors or rock musicians who also had a lot of money and were in the same demographic.

    But somewhere along the way, a federal prosecutor correctly decided that bringing baseball players to a trial for low-level, low-volume coke dealers would get him a lot of publicity.

    I have a feeling more lives were "destroyed" by booze in previous generations of ballplayers.
     
  4. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Agreed.

    There was a sense, during that era, that cocaine was just another thing to do after midnight. (I wasn't even a teen then so I'm drawing conclusions here.) :)

    My own anti-drug upbringing -- never used hard drugs, never smoked pot -- came without even parents talking to me.

    I saw the coverage of Len Bias in 1986, as an 11-year-old boy. That June day, I immediately associated: cocaine = instant death.

    While I may be wrong with THAT assertion, the Len Bias story was the most effective anti-drug tale I have ever seen.
     
  5. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    I'm a couple years older than you, but damn, that is exactly what I took from the Bias thing too. I have always--ALWAYS--figured that if I took hard drugs just once, I'd drop dead.

    I've never smoked pot, either, and any desire I'd ever have to do so disappeared the one night in the early '90s when my best friend smoked some pot laced with rat poison or some horrible shit and began gasping for air on our buddy's couch. I was convinced she was going to die right there in front of us. Thankfully she was fine, but it scared the shit out of me.
     
  6. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Parker should be in. While the drugs didn't help, inflated stats didn't help his cause either.

    He also had a reputation for being a nightmare to deal with. I think he attacked a SI writer a couple decades ago for trying to ask him about the drug trial.

    Like Rice, he was one of the best in the game for about a decade, which should put him in Cooperstown.
     
  7. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Coke played a part but is not the sole reason for Dave Parker not being in the Hall. If you look at his career or covered him during his heyday, he was a feared hitter. He was the big hurt before there was a Big Hurt. He was a good player, a star. I can think of a few of his contemporaries - Tim Raines, Blyleven, for starters - who should be in there before Big Dave.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    If Raines, and Andre Dawson for that matter, don't get in, it's a travesty. Dawson is hurt a bit by hanging around a few years too long, but Raines should be a lock and should already be in.
     
  9. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Rock should definitely be a lock and in before Dawson.
     
  10. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    Dawson simply isn't a hall of famer. Period.
     
  11. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    I'm a huge Pittsburgh fanboi, but I cannot see how Parker gets in.

    If he did not go MIA for five seasons (12 HRs a year from ages 28 to 33), then he has a great chance.

    Man, in his prime, though, talk about five freeking tools.

    Sad, but I cannot find anything online that shows his all-star game throws.
     
  12. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    A friend of mine from Pittsburgh, who is older than I am and remembers the 1979 team better than I do, swears that Parker was better than Willie Stargell ever was, even though Stargell was beloved and had the longevity that Parker lacked.
     
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