Cobra, page 52
—Dave Stewart, Oakland A’s
I could write a whole other book on those two years playing with the Oakland A’s. And if I’m honest, I can’t do justice in only a few chapters on the events of those seasons, especially considering the tragedy of the 1989 earthquake World Series. Sixty-seven lives were lost, and this wouldn’t provide the proper platform that the memories of those deceased deserve. That season felt like it happened in a week. Getting Rickey Henderson in June was like when we got Madlock with the Pirates a decade earlier. There was just no stopping us that year. I would’ve been happy to stay. But Sandy had many millionaire mouths to feed, and it didn’t bother me none. It was a business, and I don’t say that with any bitterness. They had just brought back the icon of the franchise. Of course, they needed to pay Rickey. Canseco needed to get his, too, just like I got mine in ’79 with the Buccos. So my nomadic journey around the American League continued.
Bud Selig, owner of the Brewers, brought me to Milwaukee specifically to mentor their top young player in Gary Sheffield. That was my job, even more than hitting. I was like the Black Bull Durham, man, and I was wildly successful. Young Gary put up strong numbers. I even made my last All-Star team. I was named 1990 DH of the year. Selig promised me a contract extension, but once he decided that Sheff wasn’t the future of the franchise, Selig reneged on our verbal agreement and shipped my ass to Cali.
Being on the Angels in 1991 wasn’t all bad. Finally got to play every day with Dave Winfield. We were the elder statesmen of the ball club. They used to say that I was an imperial presence and Winnie was presidential. He was a brilliant cat. He even analyzed my finances and insisted I get in the fast-food franchise game. But there is a lesson I want to present about my time there. I hit only seven dingers in the first half. My knees were starting to act up again. I played in all but four of the Angels’ games by the time the All-Star break rolled around. I wasn’t generating any power. I realized that my three worst seasons—1981, 1988, and 1991—came after winter surgeries. I tried every remedy—icing them before games, taping them in the trainer’s room. I did everything I could to put off the pain another day. The front office tried bringing in other veterans to provide some power, but those moves didn’t work either. July became August, and as California fell deeper and deeper in the division, team CEO Richard Brown blamed our manager, Doug Rader, for pushing for my acquisition. I motivated myself each morning with a reminder that 3,000 hits was still out there for me. My first goal was just to get past 2,700. By the end of August, California fired Rader and replaced him with Buck Rodgers, who was close friends with Angels owner Gene Autry. Realizing that the organization lacked any depth in the Minors, Richard Brown hired Whitey Herzog to rebuild the farm system. On September 3 I came up in the fourth inning of a game against the Red Sox in Fenway. I smacked a line drive double against the Green Monster, driving home two runs, which would be the final score. Yeah, it took five months, but my knees were finally getting their second wind. Rodgers didn’t play me for the next few games. At this point, the Angels had the CEO, this general manager with no power, a legend in Herzog, who was due to begin running operations within a week, and a new skipper who had the owner’s ear. This is the lesson—everyone was in charge, which meant no one was in charge. Power vacuum, son. Jump ball. Early September, I went to see our interim GM, Dan O’Brien, once we got back to Anaheim from a road trip.
“I was talking with Buck,” Dan said. “We think that maybe it would be best for all of us if we gave you your release.”
TIME.
“Buck wants to see the younger players in the outfield and wants Winfield at DH.”
TIME.
There were things to realize. I knew what my offensive numbers looked like, and I knew the reality of the game. New manager. Things change. The Angels paid out my option, but they left me in a shitty position. What team’s gonna call me with three weeks left in the season? I couldn’t participate in the playoffs, since I was cut after September 1. Clubs out of the playoff hunt would spend the remainder of the year evaluating their prospects. I got back to my house in Cincinnati, hugged my kids, hugged Kellye, looked in her eyes, and found a small frown.
“No messages,” she said, nodding at the answering machine.
For the first time in over seventeen years, I had no baseball home.
* * *
I spent the next week taking the kids to school. Based on Winnie’s advice, Kellye started preparing documents for our purchase of a Popeye’s franchise. I was looking forward to working with her on a project outside the house. She was good with managing the details and reading the fine print. I had a good feeling about the investment. Playing for the remainder of 1991? Not so much.
I got a call from a hometown buddy to go golfing. I hadn’t played since the early months in Anaheim. It was eighteen holes of imagining retirement, maybe coaching some youth sports. I saw my future with Kellye, my wife and business partner, and with my children, watching them grow up.
When I got home, Kellye was just finishing a phone conversation with the lawyers.
“Any calls?” I asked her after she hung up. Kellye knew what I meant.
“Yeah, but they didn’t ask for you,” she replied curtly. I nodded and then caught her hiding a grin. “They asked for Parkway.”
Cito. Blue Jays manager.
TIME!
“You wanna come to Canada and help us win this thing?” Remember, I played with Cito Gaston on the Buccos for about a week back in ’78 and a winter in Venezuela. He told me he was at home with a back issue but was almost healthy enough to return. His hitting coach, Gene Tenace, was the interim manager. Toronto was up two and a half games in the AL East over Boston, but the Sox were closing in. The Blue Jays tried to get me back in spring training, but Bud Selig chose the Angels’ offer. One more time? Three more weeks in the dugout? The cat didn’t have to ask me twice.
Passport? Check.
Earring? Check.
Ninety minutes later, Kellye and I hopped in the Porsche. We buzzed over the Spence Bridge toward the airport, in time for the next flight to Canada, in time to make it through security, in time to make one more terminal walk joining a new club as an active professional athlete.
TIME!
Arriving at Pearson International in Toronto, stepping through the gate, hearing the symphony of American and French Canadian instructions over the loudspeaker.
In time for one more fight, to chase one more sip.
* * *
Cito came back the next week. I hung out with him in his office at the Skydome after he got himself settled in. Gaston was an easygoing cat. Six foot three and a little over two hundred pounds, he was Winnie’s roommate on the road with the Padres back in ’73, in many ways like my situation with Clines. Winfield had nothing but great things to say about Gaston.
“We gonna win this,” I told Cito, amusing him.
“Oh yeah? How do you know that?”
“It’s my destiny. One more champagne shower for the old man.”
“Just one? You’re not coming with us if we make it? Probably could use another coach.” I thought about it but declined Cito’s offer.
Everyone involved knew that this was a one-and-done arrangement, and I was fine with that. I was hitting the ball good—if anything, showcasing my pennant-race bat. I wasn’t swinging for dingers, just keeping innings going. We split the next two games against the Twins. But Boston couldn’t get out of its own way, and the Jays’ lead remained up by three and a half games, with six to play, when the Angels came back to town. We lost the first game, 2–1, but the Red Sox lost as well. Up three and a half, with five left. We then beat California, 5–2, to gain another game. The next night, Cito put me in the lineup. The Angels took a 3–0 lead into the bottom of the fifth. Still thinking singles and doubles, I worked out a walk against their starter Joe Grahe, who had been cruising along up until then. That dude walked the bases loaded and then gave up a Devon White single through the hole at third base. I barreled down the line, thinking just maybe I might get one more shot in at a catcher blocking the plate. But Gary Gaetti didn’t throw home, and we got on the scoreboard. In the bottom of the sixth, I was on deck when Candy Maldonado—the man who replaced me in Milwaukee that same season—took Angels reliever Scott Bailes deep with two men on to give us the lead. I knew Bailes was shell-shocked and coming with a fastball—made all the sense in the world.
First-pitch heat. Double off the wall in left-center. Mookie Wilson trotted out to run for me. The game went back and forth until the bottom of the ninth, when a Joe Carter line drive over Dick Schofield at short scored Roberto Alomar to win the game, and the division, in walk-off fashion. The Blue Jays were going back to the postseason.
The fellas had a time in the clubhouse. Bubbly flowing, hootin’, hollerin’, you know the drill by this point. Only, now I felt what was going through Dock’s heart when we clinched with the Buccos in ’79. At first, I stayed a little off to the side—this was their celebration. But the boys still came over and doused me, so I shrieked in joy every time I got sprayed. I savored every swallow of that Dom. After a while, I washed my hair with it. I double fisted. That night, I went out for a late dinner with Cito and celebrated long into the night, good food, great times with friends old and new. When we were all done, I returned to my room up in the Skydome Hotel, sat on the bed, and let out a big-ass sigh.
Time.
Shit.
* * *
Yeah, I know. It’s kind of a cliché, but it’s like a death in the family. It was over. My way of life spanning two decades. Done. It’s never easy. I went back and forth on retiring with the dignity of elite performance versus having them tear the jersey off my body. I cherished every moment with Kellye and my children, but, hell, I loved my boys. All of ’em. Even Garner. Heh-heh, especially Garner.
That’s not to say I didn’t keep my options open. In March of 1992, the Phillies offered me a $500,000 deal. No strings, no-cut situation. Philly was rebuilding. The team had some solid players in John Kruk at first, Dave Hollins at third, and Lenny Dykstra in center. Dale Murphy was also there. I’d get paid a little bit, but how much would I play? Kruk only missed nine games at first all season, and even Murphy played 153 games that year. Did I want to be a thrice-a-week, deluxe pinch hitter? Like a player-coach?
I politely declined the Phillies’ offer. I spent that year building out our Popeye’s franchise. Just about all of me cherished the time I spent working alongside Kellye and creating something together.
From a baseball standpoint, though, a very, very small part of me regrets that decision.
* * *
The store opened in the summer of 1992 off Route 75 in the Cincinnati suburbs. We did nice business. Kellye managed the place really good, handling the hiring and compliance work. Winnie’s idea was a good one.
Toward the end of the 1992 season, I was asked to join Jesse Jackson at a rally in Louisville during the winter meetings. Mrs. Schott was sued by a former Cincinnati Reds executive for wrongful dismissal. There were some pretty heavy allegations in the depositions, especially her use of the N-word in referring to me and Eric Davis. Team executives said they would scold Marge for making racist remarks. She would apologize, genuinely, and then say another one ten minutes later. It was almost involuntary. Ingrained is probably a better word.
Rev. Jackson, representing his Rainbow Coalition, rightly used the dispute as a teaching moment to convince Major League owners to substantially improve their hiring practices, taking meetings with teams and scheduling a press conference. There were a number of active Black ballplayers invited to support Rev. Jackson’s call for reform. A few days before the meetings, I had a chat with one of my ex-teammates who was called repeatedly by Jackson’s people to show up in Louisville. I asked if he was going.
“I can’t do that, man,” he replied. “I’m not retired.”
“I ain’t retired, either,” I replied quickly. “I just took a year off, and I’ll be there.” My former teammate showed restraint by not correcting me. My appearance at the press conference would handle that.
I flew into Louisville and grabbed a cab for the Galt House Hotel, where the press conference would be held. A crowd had already gathered, in anticipation of Rev. Jackson’s speech. I entered this waiting area, and when I opened the door, there he was.
Frank Robinson. We shook hands as equals. I remember once asking him if he recalled giving me all the equipment that began my love for the game of baseball.
“I remember you almost destroyed Belanger at second base in the World Series,” Frank replied, half joking, but only half. Another former player, Leon Durham, showed up as well. Moments later, I shook hands with Jesse Jackson.
“Thank you for supporting our efforts,” he said. “Your presence brings a lot of weight to what we’re trying to accomplish.” Once he was introduced, Rev. Jackson lectured the room on the racial inequities in sports, specifically baseball.
“It’s time for the owners to grow up and join real America,” Rev. Jackson said. “American society needs an irreversible structural change to root out the institutional racism in baseball, football, and basketball.”
At the time, Cito and Hal McRae of the Kansas City Royals were the only Black managers in the Major Leagues, and Felipe Alou of Montreal, a Dominican, was the only Latino. Donny Baylor, my former A’s teammate and highly admired Black player, finally got the job he longed for, managing the new Colorado Rockies franchise. There were still no Black general managers in either baseball or the NFL, and that just wasn’t right. You had qualified dudes waiting in the wings for a managerial role, cats like Dusty Baker, who days after Rev. Jackson’s press conference was named manager of the San Francisco Giants. The Marge Schott situation created an urgency to address the lack of nonplayer opportunities for minorities in our game. In the end, Mrs. Schott received a one-year suspension from day-to-day baseball operations of the Cincinnati Reds and a six-figure fine. She was forced to sell out in 1999.
I’ve gone through life giving my fellow man the benefit of the doubt. I can’t exist with hate in my heart. You cross the line, shit’s gonna go down, but I lived all these years fueled by hope and a path to progress. My final image of Marge Schott is this. A racist person, a symbol of verbal ugliness in recent America, ending up a seventy-three-year-old woman sitting alone at the Hyatt Cincinnati hotel bar, the social consequences for her behavior. That was the last time we crossed paths before she died in 2004. Admiration is a privilege, not a right.
Standing there, behind Jesse Jackson, glancing at my boyhood idol, Frank Robinson, recalling what my ex-teammate said about appearing at the press conference. It hit me.
I’m a retired player.
Time.
Epilogue
Everyday People
Baseball is work, and it’s not often when you come into work and it’s such a pleasure to see someone that you could talk with, joke with, someone who gets you, who inspires you to play well. And that was Parker. All those All-Star Games through the years, all the times we’d joke about playing together one day, it finally happened. The Angels made T-shirts of us together once the season began—“Daves of Thunder.” Think I still have a few somewhere in the house.
—Dave Winfield, California Angels
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, man? Why do I have to hear about this shit on ESPN?”
“Hey, Larry,” I replied, answering my cell phone as I headed to the doctor’s for an update on my condition. It was like he saw me an hour ago, but it had been almost four years.
Demery called me about two weeks after I announced to the public that I was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Through the years, I’d hear from Demery whenever important life moments went down. He always made sure to stay on top of old teammates who were in bad shape. Didn’t matter if he played with the cat for twenty-two days. If you wore a jersey and sat on a bench next to Demery, you were brothers for life. We talk frequently on the phone, and he remains one of my best friends in the game.
My days get filled with work on the Dave Parker 39 Foundation, raising money in the hopes of finding a cure for Parkinson’s. Every year, I throw a charity golf tournament, getting anywhere between 100 and 150 folks for eighteen holes and suntans in the sand trap. I see local teammates like Tom Browning and Ron Oester, with a special guest thrown in the mix sometimes.
Winfield’s advice about franchises proved to be one of the finest investments I ever made. I enjoyed a fruitful relationship with the Popeye’s brand. We opened another restaurant in 1995 and a third in 1998. After my final sip, I spent a few years managing the store with Kellye, coaching my children’s sports, and just living the retired life. The best business advice I can offer is, when you start a venture or a store, you can’t rely on others to possess the same level of passion. I was working the fryer, man. Kellye managed the books and examined which products resonated with the customers. She could count the number of biscuits sold every day to make sure the flour and oil levels weren’t out of whack. Our kids worked there, along with their friends. It was a family business with strong connections in our community. With the growing income from the franchises, life was satisfying. I still got calls from the fellas. Job offers. In 1996 that group of Pittsburgh-based companies sold the Pirates to the McClatchy family for about $90 million, an impressive margin from what they paid in ’86. I still wasn’t taking their phone calls when the franchise reached out to me, even when I was putting out feelers about a gig in baseball. Late that year, I got a call one morning at my house.
