After years of waiting, years of being passed over for other players, years of wondering if it would ever be his time, Dave Parker received the call of a lifetime.
A knock on the door is famous in the NFL world; a ceremonial call does the trick in baseball.
On Sunday night, over 25 years of waiting came to an end for a former baseball icon. Dave Parker is a Hall of Famer and is on his way to Cooperstown.
The former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Classic Era Baseball Committee as the MLB Winter Meetings began in Dallas. Seven former players and one manager comprised an eight-man committee to vote on players whose primary contributions to the game came before 1980. Eight candidates, including Parker, Tommy John, Dick Allan, and Luis Tiant, needed 12 of 16 votes to have their names forever enshrined in baseball’s hallowed halls.
Parker earned a ballot-high 14 votes and Allen received 13. The journey took 33 years since Parker retired in 1991.
A Pirates legend who also made waves on the Cincinnati Reds and won a World Series with the 1989 Oakland A’s, Parker was elected to the Pirates Hall of Fame in 2023 as part of the second-ever class. During his induction, members of the Pirates pleaded and continue to plead for Parker to one day have his name etched in bronze at the Hall of Fame. Dreams really do come true.
“The Cobra” mashed 339 home runs, drove in 1,493 runs, slashed .290/.339/.371, and earned a 40.1 WAR in 19 MLB seasons.
Parker played 11 seasons in Pittsburgh spanning 1973-1983 and took on the daunting job of playing right field parts of the year after the most beloved Pirate in franchise history, Roberto Clemente, passed away in a plane crash.
The 1978 NL MVP hit 20 doubles, 12 triples, 30 home runs, 117 RBIs, stole 20 bases, and earned 194 hits in only 148 games. He won back-to-back batting titles in 1978 with an MLB-best .334 average after a .338 mark the year before. Parker led the sport in average (.334), OPS (.979), OPS+ (166), and intentional walks (23) during the ‘78 season but oddly enough did not make the All-Star Game, something unfathomable to think about today. He also paced the NL in slugging (.585) and total bases (340), a stat he led the sport in both during the 1985 and 1986 campaigns in Cincinnati.
“It was a long time waiting,” Parker told MLB Network following word of the announcement.
An adored lefty hitter standing at 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, Parker earned seven All-Star appearances three Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, two batting titles, and two World Series crowns, including the 1979 “We Are Family” Pirates.
Parker hit .345 thanks to 10 hits (three doubles) and drove in four during the seven-game series victory against the Baltimore Orioles.
A Cincinnati native who spent four years in his hometown, Parker is likely to go into Cooperstown with a Pirates hat on and would become the first player to do so since Bill Mazeroski in 2001.
Parker ended his Pirates career with 166 homers, 758 RBIs, 123 steals, and a .305 batting average. He finished in the top three of MVP voting three times (1975, 77, 78) and won all three of his Gold Gloves from 1977-79.
Parker won baseball’s first-ever Home Run Derby in 1985. The Cobra needed only six homers in a 10-out format to win the derby and set a tradition at the All-Star Game going on 40 years.
The ‘70s Pirates earned their nickname “The Lumber Company” for consistently driving in runs and becoming “Lumber and Lighting” hitting for power and stealing bases. Parker bought into the montra and debuted a shirt still worn by baseball fans, myself included, over 45 years later. “If you hear any noise, it’s just me and the boys boppin.”
First eligible for the hall in 1997, Parker never received more than 24.5% of the vote on the BWAA writers ballot. Parker remained on the ballot from 1997-2011 during a 15-year cycle before MLB shrunk eligibility to 10 years in 2014.
When candidates fall off the ballot, their candidacy moves to veterans committees for the remainder of their baseball lives. Put in place to elect overlooked players who the writers may have wrongly left out of the Hall of Fame, players like Mazeroski and Parker earned their rightful spot with baseball’s best.
“I’ve been holding this speech in for 15 years,” Parker joked.
It was probably longer than that and not Parker’s first rodeo on the committee’s ballot.
Parker was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012 and first started as a hand tremor. He made his diagnosis public in 2013 and has dealt with ailment ever since. Now 73, it’s a blessing Parker will take the stage in Cooperstown to address Pirates fans and the other five fan bases he played for during his 19-year career.
Parker’s cannon arm created highlight reels year after year, including throwing Brian Downing out at the plate during the 1979 All-Star Game, ultimately winning All-Star Game and NL MVP in the same season.
Parker will take the stage on Sunday, July 27 along with Allen posthumously being inducted and the player or players voted in by the writers in mid-January.
Dave Parker’s 39 continues to be worn around PNC Park decades after guiding the Pirates to their fifth and last World Series title. He deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame and took too long, but it was worth the wait. Major League Baseball finally got it right, Dave Parker is a Hall of Famer.
