Yesterday baseball lost another one of the game’s great players. Dave Parker of the Pittsburgh Pirates passed away at 74 years of age. Known to be a powerhouse of the game in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s he swung a big bat for the Pirates and at least in my opinion he had one of the best outfielder arms in the game. He passed away just short of his induction into The Hall of Fame—at least he was aware that he had been selected. May he Rest In Peace.
The Cobra....think he won an all star mvp without getting a hit cause he threw out 2 guys. Him and Jimmy Toy Cannon Wynn could gun you down from anywhere
Yes, we’ve been privileged to have seen some of the greatest arms in the MLB outfield ever. To go along with Parker and Wynn I would have to put Dwight Evans, RFer for the Red Sox in that caliber of outfield arms.
Honestly Parker did one of the most dickish things I had ever seen and it is his prerogative. I grew up in Bradenton,Parker would never sign anything for the white kids, just black Kids. That's what I remember him from, I was older and wasn't wanting an autograph, but that was what he did. RIP. That's what I remember about him and the throw in th All Star game.
I just read an article on Dave Parker that said he had suffered from Parkinson’s for 13 years. I didn’t know that.
I wouldn't hold that type stuff against that generation of players. Some players were like that and some were not like Joe Morgan for example. It was what it was. Black players in the 50-60-70-80s timeline when they got into MLB finally took a lot of crap back then and I mean I a lot of crap from all different angles on the field and off the field. I would imagine it would create much jaded attitude about a lot of different things. To go along with issue drug issues he got caught up in there was various baggage he developed off the field.
When I was a kid- 7 years old- or so- I saw Rocky Colavito cut off a ball in deep left center turn and fire a perfect strike to 3rd to get the runner trying to go first to third. That was at Yankee Stadium with a very deep LCF and Colavito made it look effortless. The ball was a frozen rope and must have travelled 250'. The best arm in baseball.
I have seen lots of great arms at the MLB level. But that is only half of the equation. Tommy Henrich said it best "Catching a fly ball is fun, but figuring out what to do with it once you have it is a business." To my eye Clemente is the GOAT. I always cringed at outfielders that over threw the cut-off man even if they got the out. Low percentage baseball. And announces fawn all over it. If it fails you give up an extra base and the run and most of the time it will fail.
