Dave Parker and the Vicious Circle

Why Jay Loves Baseball

This post is inspired by a new book, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments. The author (and Substack writer and podcaster), Joe Posnanski, is on a book tour, which brought him to Los Angeles. He spoke on Tuesday, September 12, 2023, at the Ebell Theater and was joined by actor/writer Nick Offerman, sportswriter Molly Knight, TV writer and Poscast co-host Mike Schur.

It was a baseball love-fest, hosted by some of the nicest, funniest people in media. They talked about their particular baseball fandom as a sickness, a disease. But one that’s not so bad for you.

For the Q&A portion of the night, they had audience folk share their story of when and how they caught their particular baseball flu.

“My dad and I snuck out of a wedding to go see Cal Ripken’s last game in our tuxedos.”

“In my Little League championship game, bases loaded, two out in the ninth, and I got hit with the pitch to to drive in the winning run.”

A friend told me her story of living in San Francisco during the 1989 World Series. When game 3 was interrupted by the Loma Prieta Earthquake, her father had to sleep at his office that night. There was no phone service, no cell phones. Her family didn’t know if he survived until he drove home the next day. Once the series resumed, she and her father watched every inning together. Baseball fell pretty far down the list of Things That Are Important, but damn was it nice to have.

Everyone in the crowd at Tuesday’s book event had THEIR baseball moment rolling around in their head. Mine is from 1980.

Memories, especially 43-year-old memories, are fuzzy, funny things. For some, there is no fact checking. There is no validating. There is no corroborating witness. This is how I remember it, so this is how the story goes.

My baseball-nerd origin story.

I was ten years old when the “We are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates overcame a 3-1 deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1979 World Series. I listened to games on a transistor radio, in bed, under the covers, up way past my bedtime, just like you’re supposed to.

I can still name the starting nine. Willie “Pops” Stargell. Phil Garner. Tim Foli. Bill “Mad Dog” Madlock. Omar Moreno. “Hit Man” Mike Easler. John “The Hammer” Milner. Ed Ott. John “Candy-Man” Candelaria. Bert “Be home” Blyleven. Kent Tekulve. Even Dock Ellis pitched the final three games of his career for this team because he ”wanted to come back and die as a Pirate.” They had the black and gold mix-n-match uniforms, the pillbox hats, and their own collective nickname, “The Lumber Company.”

Bad players and bad teams don’t get nicknames. This team was loaded and oozed personality.

The biggest character of them all was Dave “The Cobra” Parker. Great player, top ten baseball nickname. He gets a nice shout-out in The Baseball Project song “Panda and The Freak.”

Parker won the NL batting title in 1977. He did it again in 1978, this time adding an MVP Award. He hit .334/.394/.979, with 30 home runs and 20 stolen bases. The 1979 All-Star Game is forever “The Dave Parker Game” after these two laser beam throws from right field. 

That’s two batting titles, an MVP, All-Star Game heroics, and a World Championship. So coming into 1980 Spring Training, Dave Parker was the best players in baseball. Hands down. No Contest. Says 11-year-old me.

Plus, he was an amazing quote and an excellent T-shirt designer.

I mostly describe Bradenton, Florida, not as where I’m from, but as the land from whence I escaped. That’s probably a tad harsh, since Bradenton’s McKechnie Field has been the gem of the Grapefruit League since 1923 and Pirates’ spring home since 1969. It is the locale of my earliest baseball memories, the whole point of this ramble.

Back to Spring Training, 1980. I was running around, parentally unsupervised, getting anyone in a WORLD SERIES CHAMPION Pittsburgh Pirate uniform to sign my program book. More than once, some Pirate minor leaguer would point at the cover and say, “You’ve already got mine” and walk away. Did I mention I was eleven?

After the game, I spotted a crowd of retirees, along a stretch of chain-link fence, huddling around the largest man I’ve ever seen. I ran over and joined the scrum.

Dave Parker, The Cobra, extended his giant hand over the fence to hand me a baseball. Some geezer reached over my head and grabbed at it. Was it a vicious circle of sunburned old men? Yes, it totally was. Because that makes for a punny newsletter title.

But Dave Parker, The Cobra, pulled the ball back and made sure it got into MY hands. Or more precisely into my Vida Blue (actually bright red) baseball glove. I was too shy to ask him to sign it. Or too scared to let it out of my grasp.

But I had it. A real major league baseball. In my hand/bright red glove. From Dave fucking Parker, The Cobra.

That’s it. That’s the moment. Hooked for life.

I definitely played ball with that ball. I know this because here it sits on my desk as I type. Scuffed, red-brown from use and age, stamped with OFFICIAL BALL and National League President Charles S. Feeney’s signature.

THE BALL

How did this artifact, this ember of my character, survive from that day to this desk?

My parents moved to a new house while I was a freshman in college, so my entire childhood got packed into two large cardboard boxes. I carried those boxes around, unopened, for almost 20 years. When I finally cracked ‘em, it was a bunch of fucking junk (I’m not very sentimental). Lugging those heavy-ass boxes through fifteen moves took SO MUCH effort. All worth it. I have my Dave Parker, The Cobra, ball.

I sure wish Charlie Feeney’s nickname “Chub” was on that ball. Because I’m still a 10 year old when it comes to dick jokes.

And baseball.

Baseball is the best it has been and the best it will ever be when you’re 10 years old.

—Joe Posnanski, from his new book Why We Love Baseball.

Joe, if you ever read this, thank you for the years of incredible baseball writing, the heartfelt baseball love you share, and the 100% legit, not at all paid for, endorsement of Tinker Taylor Soler Spiezio as THE 2ND BEST BASEBALL STUBSTACK!