Perrotto: It Will Be Bittersweet in Cooperstown Without The Cobra

It was a race against time for Dave Parker.

The former Pittsburgh Pirates great had been battling Parkinson’s Disease since 2012. Parker had given the disease the fight of its life, but it was clear that his health was failing fast.

Parker had a hard time making it through a video conference with the media on Dec. 8, the night he was elected to the Hall of Fame. He did not make the trip to Dallas for a press conference scheduled for the next day at the Winter Meetings.

The word around baseball during the last six months was that Parker’s condition was getting worse. Many of his friends and former teammates worried that he would not live long enough to attend the Hall of Fame ceremony on July 27 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Sadly, Parker lost the race on Saturday when he died at 74.

Many people knew it was coming. Yet it was still stunning when PNC Park public address announcer Guy Junker asked the crowd before the game between the Pirates and New York Mets to pause for a moment of silence because Parker had passed away.

That was the first public acknowledgement that The Cobra – or Parkway, as his teammates called him – was gone.

Parker won’t be in Cooperstown for the ultimate baseball honor. And that’s hard to swallow for those of us who grew up watching Parker be the most dominant player in the late 1970s and advocating for his Hall of Fame candidacy.

Parker retired following the 1991 season and appeared on the Baseball Writers Association of America ballot for the first time in the 1997 Hall of Fame election. I began voting a year later after reaching 10 consecutive years of BBWAA membership.

Parker was on the ballot for each of the first 14 years I was eligible to vote. Back then, players were dropped from the ballot after 15 years.

I voted for Parker 14 times. Yet he never received more than 24.5% of the necessary 75% of the vote to gain election.

Hall of Fame oversight committees then passed over him in 2014, 2018, and 2020.

Because I was in the minority when it came to voting for Parker, I’d occasionally be accused of being a homer. The critics said I voted for Parker only because I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and he spent the bulk of his career with the Pirates.

I admittedly might have had some bias, but I genuinely believe Parker had earned his way into the Hall.

Those who didn’t vote for Parker often said his overall statistics fell short of Hall of Fame standards because his career started to decline in the early 1980s. Then there were the 1985 baseball drug trials in Pittsburgh, and Parker was one of seven Major League Baseball players receiving one-year suspensions that were commuted.

I was angry about Parker’s drug use and how it affected his career. Nobody wants to be let down by their heroes.

However, Parker put his career and his life back together. He finished with a .290 batting average, 339 home runs, 1,493 RBIs, and 154 stolen bases over 19 seasons.

His list of career accomplishments included winning the 1978 National League Most Valuable Player award, seven All-Star Game appearances, three Silver Sluggers, three Gold Gloves, two batting titles, and 1979 All-Star Game MVP.

Topping it off were two World Series rings, one with the Pirates in 1979 and the second with the Oakland Athletics in 1989. Neither franchise has won a title since.

The greatest compliment I can give Parker is that it was almost impossible to take your eyes off the 6-foot-5, 230-pounder when he was in the field. At his best, he could hit for both average and power, run like a deer, and throw like few other outfielders in baseball history.

Parker played hard and with flair. He was both an entertainer and a ballplayer. He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.

Parker had a larger-than-life persona. It bugged some people, but he backed up the braggadocio with great performances.

There was only one Dave Parker, and he should have been elected to the Hall of Fame nearly 30 years ago.

Parker will finally get his day in the sun in Cooperstown next month. It’ll be bittersweet that he won’t be in that magical upstate New York village to enjoy it.