Dave Parker: a Strawberry or a Lemon

Dave Parker and Dave Winfield, twin peaks, expect to bat in the middle of the order for the Angels this season. Parker stands 6-feet-5 and packs 245 pounds, Winfield 6-6 and around 220, making both of these Davids borderline Goliaths. Ladies and gentlemen, the Big A just got bigger.

Baseball nuts from Orange County to the Grapefruit League are arguing whether the Angels got themselves a Darryl Strawberry or a lemon. All I know is that with Parker, Winfield and body-builder Lance Parrish on the premises, the Angels will be favored in the American League this season to win any bench-clearing brawl.

Next to the two Daves, Babe Ruth was built like Don Knotts. These guys wear XXL labels and have hands that hold Louisville Sluggers like clarinets. Few non-pitchers in baseball loom larger. When Parker and Winfield occupy an on-deck circle, fans in the stands will yell, “Down in front!” Never mind the game; these two could block your view of Diamond Vision.

They also are old. By baseball standards, you tend to be called old once people discover that you were born during the war. Not the Persian Gulf War. Not Vietnam. The Korean War. Parker and Winfield were born in 1951, four months apart. Baseball was barely televised then. Television was barely televised then.

You know Ken Griffey Jr., Seattle’s All-Star outfielder? Parker and Winfield are about a year younger than his father. Jim Abbott of the Angels, 23, probably will walk around calling both of them Uncle Dave. He’ll ask questions about the “olden days”--like ‘way back when Willie Stargell played.

Parker and Winfield are both older than Philadelphia’s manager. When Bert Blyleven, who also turns 40 this season, pitches for the Angels, they could become the first team in history to start three players in orthopedic spikes. I think Gene Autry just wanted to start hanging around with guys closer to his own age. No wonder the Angels train in Mesa, Ariz., and Palm Springs. They’re retirement communities.

Was acquiring Parker a wise thing to do?

Not everybody thinks so, but I will tell you this: For the first time all spring, people have pumped up the volume about the California Angels. And not just Californians. People on the opposite coast, people who wouldn’t know Dante Bichette from Annette Funicello, are a little more interested in the Angels today, a little more buzzed. This is a lineup we are licking are chops to see.

The long-term investment could be a dud, should Bichette develop his potential in Milwaukee. The Angels might have sold their souls by selling out Dante. But this trade is a beauty, though, if it finally brings Anaheim a championship, because Parker is a relatively inexpensive investment for a guy who supplies 90-plus RBIs per season, as well as one of the few left-handed sluggers in baseball who doesn’t play for the Dodgers.

Parker is an original. They call him the Cobra. I can’t say why. Personally, I always thought he looked regal, a European king or African prince, stately and noble, meant to be wearing a military tunic emblazoned with medals or a multicolored dashiki. Winfield is sort of presidential; Parker is imperial.

Once, I had an indirect run-in with Parker when he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was back in the late 1970s--he and I both remember Annette Funicello--when the Pirates wore yellow and black uniforms that made them look like giant bumblebees. Parker used to strut around looking as though he had just satisfied the queen.

I wrote an article quoting an anonymous Parker teammate who shall remain nameless (oh, what the hell, it was Bill Madlock), talking about what a wild and crazy bunch of characters the Pirates were. In jest, I referred to them as the National League’s Animal Clubhouse, and said that catcher Ed Ott, in his bee costume, looked for all the world like John Belushi.

Next day, I learned that the Pirates were looking for me, and not to tell me what a funny writer I was. Ott had fashioned a bee’s stinger out of a cardboard toilet-paper roll and intended to pin the tail on the donkey, the pinnee being me.

Parker, others told me later, trashed the clubhouse, hurling chairs and threats, demanding to know which teammate had gabbed to the press. Madlock, I heard, also threw a fit and yelled: “Yeah, which one of you chickens was it?” Lord, I liked Bill Madlock.

About five years later, I went looking for Parker in the Tampa training-camp clubhouse of the Cincinnati Reds, just to say howdy.

“Don’t talk to this guy,” came a voice from behind us. Parker and I wheeled around to find a journeyman infielder named Wayne Krenchicki, an acquaintance from Detroit days, who said: “This guy’s trouble, Dave.”

Parker said: “He is, is he?”

I lied, “No, I’m not.”

Krenchicki said, “No, he’s not. I’m just kidding.”

To which Parker said, “OK, I’ll trust you. But if you write something bad about me, I guess I’ll just have to kill you.”

Dave Parker is one of the greatest players ever to play the game of baseball.