Dave Parker - RIP

[poindexter]

Bat looked like a toothpick the way he swung it when he came up to hit.

That is a great description.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I remember him in his prime.

Stargell got all the microphones, and Parker was the "bad boy." I remember my little league coaches getting so pissed at him because he caught fly balls with only the glove hand and would sometimes swipe the ball down with a flourish. He was the picture in the dictionary for all-the-tools, though. He won a batting title and would steal 30 bases.

In 2025, he would be immensely popular. In 1978, he wasn't as embraced.

A lot of white Pittsburgh mill hunks called it “showboating.”

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I saw someone comment on this play and say, "you can tell Joe Garagiola was a catcher because he babbled endlessly about Carter's tag while hardly saying anything about the throw."

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

So sad, especially so close to his induction ceremony. I'm still stunned it took him this long to get into the HOF. What a ****ing player. He was a viral star long before YouTube. As noted earlier, he passed the eye test and then some. I guess he was dinged for the drug trials (so was Keith Hernandez) and his advanced metrics are inexplicably not great. That man was not just a 40 WAR player.

The strike and his shortened 1982 season probably cost him 3,000 hits and a fairly easy ride into the HOF on the writer's ballot...if he had two average seasons those years, he'd be at 2950 hits and that certainly changes the equation of his final few seasons and when he retires. RIP to a truly great, iconic player.

 

[Bubbler]

I saw someone comment on this play and say, "you can tell Joe Garagiola was a catcher because he babbled endlessly about Carter's tag while hardly saying anything about the throw."

Yeah. For all of the bitching about today's announcing, it's not as if every single broadcast in the old days was air-tight either.

Joe Garagiola kind of sucked, honestly. He was better with Scully as an analyst, but as a PBP man, he wasn't great. Iconic because he was around for a while and did other media in the 60s/70s, but that doesn't equate to quality.

And what a load of **** on that call. Parker's throw is as good as it gets from RF to the plate. Carter did block the plate well, but so did most catchers in those days, and Downing basically stumbled, which is only slightly related to Carter. Garagiola sucked.

 

[micropolitan guy]

I saw someone comment on this play and say, "you can tell Joe Garagiola was a catcher because he babbled endlessly about Carter's tag while hardly saying anything about the throw."

Which is why Kubek was so much better. Immediately praised the throw. With all the dudes on the bench in an ASG, why was Downing even running?

 

[Slacker]

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

This is definitely worth an hour of your time. Pittsburgh doesn’t have a great history in how it’s treated its black stars. It’s funny how half of the jerseys I saw at the games this weekend were Clemente. Truth is, a lot of the fans found him aloof and to be a complainer about being injured, and the local media didn’t do him a lot of favors.

 

[Scout]

For whatever reasons, he dropped pretty quickly once he turned 30. His 20s, though, were right there with Clemente.

 

[Scout]

Weird stat of the day…

Clemente was in the top-five for MVP four times.

Parker? Five

 

[UNCGrad]

View attachment 19954

Had seen this before but it was great to be reminded of it.

How great would it have been to have been a kid and had this as a poster? Hell, it would be awesome to have now. Just the definition of cool. The whole era, the whole vibe of that team and its mark on baseball is illustrated in this one photo. I love it so much.

 

[Bubbler]

Which is why Kubek was so much better. Immediately praised the throw. With all the dudes on the bench in an ASG, why was Downing even running?

Downing probably substituted for someone else at that point in the game?

That was Downing’s only ASG appearance.

 

[poindexter]

For those who are younger (and there aren't many young people here), that rifle from RF in the '79 All Star game was an iconic baseball moment for a decade. I watched it live on TV and everybody was like "WOW". It appeared on the ending credits of This Week in Baseball for years after.

 

[ChrisLong]

Just some memories:

-- One of my criteria when I was a HoF voter was how the player affected the game. Parker was near the top of the list of most-feared opponents. He always got one of my votes.
-- If Parker hadn't thrown out Downing in the All-Star Game, I would have won about $100 in a squares pool. I had the final score if Downing was safe.
-- I was on a Kings road trip in October 1979 -- Pirates vs. Orioles. The Kings played the Capitals in Landover during Game 6. The next night, the Kings played the Penguins at The Igloo during Game 7. Only about 1,500 attended, some of them had portable TVs to watch the World Series. I walked around Market Square later that night as fans celebrated. There were continuous chants of "We're No. 1 ... we're No. 1 ...." Four guys on a bench were chanting "Show your tits ... show your tits ...."
-- Probably 1981, Dodgers-Pirates at Three Rivers. Pascual Perez pitching, shouting back and forth with Reggie Smith, who was hurt, but sitting in the front of the dugout chirping at Perez. I was down a level looking for a hot dog when the crowd erupts. I see the Dodgers relief pitchers sprinting toward the infield. I look for an escalator to get back to the press box, when I see Pirates beat writer Charley "Pally" Feeney trying to run down an up escalator. He made it and I followed him to a door that led to the hallways that connect the clubhouses. Seems Perez challenged Smith, who said let's go and pointed toward the clubhouses. Pally and I were among the first ones there. A cluster of players were nose-to-nose under the stands. No punches, just a lot of yelling and shoving. Right in the middle were the 6-foot-6 Parker and 6-foot-7 Rick Sutcliffe. Afterward, Rick Monday said it looked like the opening tipoff at a Lakers game.

 

[qtlaw]

The Cobra was the epitome for a fearsome bat. The Lumber Company teams were so fun to root for (Giants stunk it up then) and he was one of the studs. That’s why I always thought he was a HOF’er. May he RIP.

 

[mpcincal]

Downing probably substituted for someone else at that point in the game?

That was Downing's only ASG appearance.

Downing was still a catcher in 1979, and took over for Darrel Porter, the AL starter. A check of the AL roster for that game shows that Jeff Newman of the A's, the classic at-least-one-from-every-team All-Star, was the third catcher, and being that it was late in the game, the bench was probably thin.
Downing was no speed merchant but that was still an incredible play to get him. The clip shows a quick shot of Downing rounding third before Parker even got the ball, and I'm figure the runner had to have been halfway between third and home when he made the throw, so that was a pretty incredible throw to get him (and Carter did do an excellent job blocking the plate.)
Growing up in SoCal at the time, the Pirates were probably the coolest team in the league, back then with the mix-and-match uniforms, the stovepipe hats, and Sister Sledge blaring during their games, but Parker was a big part of it. He was definitely and "eye-test" guy and consider among the very best players at the time. A couple things I still remember: When he got hit in the face by a pitch, he came back wearing that modified helmet with the half-football facemask for a while. And then there was this game against the Dodgers in, I think, 1977, when catcher Steve Yeager took a throw from the outfield and Parker went full-force into him trying to score. I swear Yeager went heels-over-head and back on his rear end and somehow held on to the ball. Both he and Parker were shaken up actually, but I was surprised Yeager even survived.
RIP, and I hope the boys are boppin' up there.

 

[Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.]

If you are interested and can be patient (I am in Disney with the fam until July 3), I can make available to you from my Google Drive all the original broadcasts from KGO out of San Francisco from Games 1-7 of the 79 WS. A real time capsule and a chance to see Parker at his prime. What a great player he was at that time. Game 1 in particular has a nice pregame segment with him.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

The Pirates and Orioles had alternate uniforms before we even knew what alternate uniforms were. And back then teams weren’t selling authentic jerseys so they weren’t doing it for sales. They were doing it just to do it.

 

[Batman]

The Pirates and Orioles had alternate uniforms before we even knew what alternate uniforms were. And back then teams weren't selling authentic jerseys so they weren't doing it for sales. They were doing it just to do it.

Game 7 of the 1979 World Series, with the Orioles in orange jerseys and the Pirates in gold tops and black pants, is an all-time uniform porn match-up

 

[Batman]

For whatever reasons, he dropped pretty quickly once he turned 30. His 20s, though, were right there with Clemente.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug.