May 17, 1985: Dave Parker’s homer leads Reds over Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium

Three Rivers Stadium was Dave Parker’s home field for the first 11 seasons of his Hall of Fame career, until he left the Pittsburgh Pirates and signed with the Cincinnati Reds in December 1983. Parker’s first home run as a visitor to Pittsburgh came in his second season with Cincinnati. As the Reds and Pirates played past midnight while avoiding the majors’ first rainout of 1985, his two-run homer capped a three-hit game, spearheading a 6-3 Cincinnati win on May 17.

Parker appeared in 630 regular-season games, four National League Championship Series games, and three World Series games at Three Rivers Stadium from 1973 through 1983, all in Pirates’ black-and-gold. He made four All-Star teams, received three Gold Glove Awards, won two batting titles, and was named the 1978 NL Most Valuable Player. It was an eventful, colorful, controversial tenure of cheers,1 boos,2 and ugly incidents of spectators throwing bats and batteries;3 racism,4 fitness struggles,5 and subsequently revealed drug abuse;6 and clutch hits,7 daring baserunning,8 and cannon-armed throws.9 Parker was instrumental to Pittsburgh’s World Series championship in 1979.

But his contract expired after the 1983 season, and he returned to his hometown, joining the Reds as a free agent.10 In six games in Pittsburgh in 1984, Parker – greeted with boos, jeers, and some cheers11 – had a .150 average with only one extra-base hit, a double.

The Reds’ first visit of 1985 to Three Rivers Stadium was on a weekend in May, but it was not Parker’s first time in Pittsburgh that year. In February, he had testified before a federal grand jury investigating drug trafficking to major-league baseball players.12 Parker’s courtroom appearance went unreported until May 15, two days before the Reds-Pirates series opener, when a Pittsburgh newspaper broke the story of his testimony.13

Cincinnati’s middle-of-the-pack 17-16 record was an improvement over its majors-low .422 winning percentage from 1982 through 1984. Pittsburgh, by contrast, had lost 18 of 25 to drop to an NL-worst 10-21. The city’s baseball misery transcended the league’s standings, with drug-abuse allegations propagating,14 relocation rumors festering,15 offseason acquisitions underachieving,16 and home attendance dwindling.17

A steady rain reached Pittsburgh on Friday afternoon and continued past the game’s appointed start time of 7:35 P.M. No big-league game had been rained out all season, and newspapers speculated that the Pirates did not want to add the first postponement to their ledger of ignominy.18

Starting pitchers John Stuper of the Reds and José DeLeón of the Pirates waited out the rain. The Pirates had traded Pittsburgh-area native Stuper to the St. Louis Cardinals less than a year after selecting him in the June 1978 amateur draft. He made the majors in 1982 and won Game Six of the World Series that year.19 St. Louis dealt Stuper to the Reds in September 1984.20

DeLeón was a sensation when he debuted for the Pirates in July 1983, posting a 7-3 record and 2.85 ERA down the stretch.21 Two seasons later, only Dwight Gooden topped DeLeón on the NL’s strikeout leaderboard,22 but the 24-year-old righty had lost 14 of his last 15 decisions, including all five in 1985. A 1984 outing against the Reds exemplified DeLeón’s life of near-misses and sour luck. He took a perfect game into the seventh before finishing with a one-hit complete game – but lost, 2-0. Cincinnati’s sole hit was Parker’s RBI single.23

The rain finally cleared, and DeLeón delivered the game’s first pitch at 9:50 P.M., 2 hours and 15 minutes after its scheduled start, with the remains of a sparse crowd of 7,239 in the stands.24

The starters traded zeros for three innings. The 33-year-old Parker, who was batting .323 with 16 extra-base hits in 33 games, doubled with two outs in the first but was stranded. Reds catcher Alan Knicely, appearing in his first game of the season after a promotion from Triple-A Denver, threw out Bill Almon stealing in the third to negate a leadoff single.25

The early innings’ most prescient sequence happened in the top of the second, when DeLeón struck out three Reds and walked one – while laboring through three straight full-count at-bats.26 In the fourth, Knicely’s two-strike foul tip eluded catcher Tony Peña’s grasp, and he then hit a leadoff single.27 Duane Walker walked on a full count. Nick Esasky struck out, but Ron Oester walked on another full count to load the bases.28

Tom Foley struck out, bringing up Stuper, whose career netted a .112 batting average and .168 on-base percentage. “Stuper was hardly in the box and his first movement at each pitch was a step backwards,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.29 But the count went full, as Stuper took all the way, and DeLeón’s 3-and-2 pitch missed the strike zone, forcing in the game’s first run. Eddie Milner popped out on yet another full-count pitch to leave the bases loaded.30

More Reds’ runs followed in the fifth. Player-manager Pete Rose, in the lineup at first base, singled for his 4,124th career hit, leaving him just 67 behind Ty Cobb’s officially recognized all-time record.31 Parker grounded to first baseman Jason Thompson, who flipped to DeLeón covering first – but DeLeón missed the bag and everyone was safe.32 Parker was credited with a single.

Knicely, a .446 hitter in Triple A, drove DeLeón’s fastball 400 feet off the wall in center.33 Rose and Parker scored. Right fielder George Hendrick recovered the ball, but his throw missed the relay man and Knicely took third on the error.34 Esasky’s sacrifice fly brought in Knicely to make it 4-0.

Stuper’s shutout bid lasted until the sixth. Almon led off with a single. Tim Foli batted for DeLeón – whose five-hit, six-walk, eight-strikeout outing took 131 pitches35 – and singled Almon to second. The runners advanced on Marvell Wynne’s groundout, and Johnny Ray drove in Almon with a single. Bill Madlock had runners at the corners with one out, but shortstop Foley turned his grounder into an inning-ending double play.

Pirates manager Chuck Tanner summoned lefty Rod Scurry for the seventh. Rose, 0-for-12 so far in 1985 against left-handers, let himself bat and sliced a double over first base.36

Next up was Parker. Twelve months earlier, Scurry had fanned his former teammate with a curveball – after signaling a curve was coming.37 They talked about it before the game, and Parker had told Scurry, “[If] I ever hit one off [you], I’m going to have a nice, slow trot.”38

Parker crushed his sixth homer of the season – and 83rd lifetime at Three Rivers Stadium – into the right-field seats. True to his pregame pledge, he took “an extra-long loop toward the home dugout on his way to first base,” reported the Cincinnati Post.39 Cincinnati’s lead was 6-1.

Six more Reds batted in the inning, as they loaded the bases with one out on second baseman Ray’s error, a walk, and a single. Reliever Cecilio Guante retired Foley and Stuper to stall the looming blowout.

The long inning’s biggest impact may have been to uncouple Stuper’s pitching groove.40 Three walks, grouped around a double play, put Pirates at the corners with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. On Stuper’s 87th pitch of the game,41 Almon singled, scoring Thompson and sending Steve Kemp to third.

Tanner picked Lee Mazzilli to bat for Guante; Rose – done for the night as a player, with César Cedeño his substitute at first – countered by replacing Stuper with Mazzilli’s fellow Brooklynite, lefty John Franco. The switch-hitting Mazzilli drove in Kemp with an opposite-field single to right, and Parker bobbled the ball for an error, allowing Almon to take third. Wynne flied to left to keep it a three-run game.

Parker had one more RBI opportunity when Milner walked and stole second against Al Holland in the eighth, but he grounded out to first. The Pirates mustered a final rally in the eighth, bringing the tying run to the plate with one out on Ray’s single and Thompson’s walk. But Hendrick lined closer Ted Power’s full-count pitch to Foley, who threw to Oester at second for Cincinnati’s third double play in three innings.42

Power retired the Pirates in the ninth for his seventh save.43 The final out, a fly ball by Almon, settled in center fielder Milner’s glove at 12:44 A.M.44

The Reds routed the Pirates by a combined score of 15-1 over the next two days.45 Parker had three more hits on Saturday, including a double and another homer, both off rookie Mike Bielecki. Along with the games in Pittsburgh, every scheduled major-league game on both days was played without postponement. On Monday, May 20, the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers were rained out, ending the streak.46

Parker went on to bat .312 with 34 home runs in 1985 while leading the NL with 42 doubles and 125 RBIs. It was his best season since his 1975-1979 glory days with the Pirates, and he was an All-Star, a Silver Slugger and the NL MVP runner-up to St. Louis’s Willie McGee.47 Of his 339 career home runs, 88 were at Three Rivers Stadium, including seven with the Reds.

Author’s Note

The author, age 10 in May 1985, attended the game with his father, primarily because of the Pirates’ Media Guide Night giveaway. After watching the beginning of the game from seats near the visitors’ bullpen down the third-base line, they left during the middle innings, long after the author’s regular bedtime. He remembers seeing Reds catcher Dave Van Gorder warming up Stuper in the bullpen.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Dave Parker, who died while the author was writing it in June 2025.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin. SABR members Gary Belleville and Kurt Blumenau provided insightful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Photo credit: Dave Parker, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT198505170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1985/B05170PIT1985.htm

Notes

1 Bob Smizik, “Parker: It’s a Love Affair Now,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 26, 1983: 25.

2 Dan Donovan, “Parker Learns to Live with Boos,” Pittsburgh Press, July 6, 1980: D-1.

3 Dan Donovan, “Parker Goes to Bat for Critical Pirate Fans,” Pittsburgh Press, June 25, 1979: B-7; Phil Musick, “Parker Won’t Live Life on a Bullseye,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 21, 1980: 9.

4 “If there’s one thing Pittsburghers can take less than a boasting, black ballplayer, it is a media portrayed as being unfair,” the Pittsburgh Press’s Bob Smizik wrote in a 1982 article about Parker and the local media. Bob Smizik, “No Happy Medium for Parker,” Pittsburgh Press, April 21, 1982: C-1.

5 Charley Feeney, “Parker Back; Bucs Return to Abnormal,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 7, 1980: 11.

6 Jan Ackerman and Carl Remensky, “Parker: Used Cocaine for 3 Years,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 1985: 1.

7 Bob Hertzel, “Parker’s Home Run Completes Pirates’ Sweep,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 23, 1975: 13.

8 Russ Franke, “Mets Survive Collison with Pirates, 6-5,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1978: A-6; Larry Eichel, “Pirates Sweep Phillies on Balk: Brusstar Is Victim in 2d Loss,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1978: 1-C.

9 Bob Smizik, “Parker Wins Fans Gunning Down Reds,” Pittsburgh Press, July 22, 1977: B-4.

10 Tim Sullivan, “Dave Parker Joins the Reds Outfield,” Cincinnati Enquirer, December 8, 1983: A-1.

11 Tom Balcerek, “How Fans Welcomed Parker,” Pittsburgh Press, May 23, 1984: D5.

12 Aaron Skirboll, The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven: How a Ragtag Group of Fans Took the Fall for Major League Baseball (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010), 141.

13 Bruce Keidan, “Parker Spoke to Grand Jury on Drug Case,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 15, 1985: 21. At that time Parker’s own cocaine use was not public knowledge. During the September 1985 trial of a Philadelphia caterer for selling cocaine to major leaguers, Enos Cabell testified that Parker used cocaine with him after a game, sometime between 1978 and 1980, when Cabell played for the Houston Astros. Later in the trial, Parker admitted to consistent cocaine use from 1979 through 1982. Jan Ackerman and Carl Remensky, “Hernandez: Over 40% Used Cocaine,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 7, 1985: 1; “Parker: Used Cocaine Because It Was ‘the In Thing,’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 1985: 4.

14 Greg Hoard, “Drug Investigation Following Pirates Like Cloud,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 18, 1985: B-1.

15 Bob Hertzel, “Bucs Expected to Stay Despite For-Sale Sign,” Pittsburgh Press, November 21, 1984: A1; Bob Hertzel, “Madlock: Pirates Will Be Gone in Two Years,” Pittsburgh Press, February 27, 1985: D1; Albert J. Neri, “Ueberroth to Pirates: Find a Local Buyer,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 15, 1985: 1.

16 Bob Hertzel, “Pirates ‘Building with Experience,’ but What Are They Building?,” Pittsburgh Press, May 12, 1985: D3; Bob Hertzel, “It’s All a Blank to Pirates,” Pittsburgh Press, May 13, 1985: D1.

17 The Pirates drew 773,500 fans in 1984, which ranked 25th of 26 major-league teams, ahead of only the Cleveland Indians. Total attendance was even smaller in 1985: 735,900, again topping only the Indians. Tom McMillan, “Empty Seats Cast Cloud Over Future,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 28, 1985: 13.

18 Bob Hertzel, “Rain Falls, but Pirates Play to Avoid First Rainout,” Pittsburgh Press, May 18, 1985: C1; Bruce Schoenfeld, “Pirates Refuse to Bow to Bad Weather,” Cincinnati Post, May 18, 1985: 3C.

19 Bruce Keidan, “Happy Ending: John Stuper, Jilted by Bucs, Enjoying Himself in Series,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 19, 1982: 21.

20 Greg Hoard, “Reds Get John Stuper in Householder Swap,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 11, 1984: C-1; Bruce Schoenfield, “Fresh Start: Reds’ Stuper Throwing Without Pain as He Attempts to Regain His Old Form,” Cincinnati Post, March 2, 1985: 1C.

21 Bob Hertzel, “DeLeon Could Be the Special of ’80s,” Pittsburgh Press, February 22, 1984: D2.

22 The New York Mets’ Gooden had struck out 57 batters for the season. DeLeón and Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros had struck out 55. “League Leaders,” Pittsburgh Press, May 16, 1985: C6.

23 Bob Hertzel, “No Way, Jose: DeLeon Endures Another Near-Miss,” Pittsburgh Press, August 25, 1984: C1.

24 Schoenfeld, “Pirates Refuse to Bow to Bad Weather.”

25 Knicely, who celebrated his 30th birthday two days after this game, had appeared in 139 games with the Reds and Houston Astros from 1979 through 1984.

26 Bruce Schoenfeld, “Parker Delivers Against Old Mates,” Cincinnati Post, May 18, 1985: 1C.

27 Paul Meyer, “Reds Respond Knicely to New Hitter,” Dayton Journal Herald, May 18, 1985, 13.

28 “Reds Respond Knicely to New Hitter.”

29 Greg Hoard, “Big Night for Parker as Reds Win,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 18, 1985: B-1.

30 Bruce Schoenfeld, “Parker Delivers Against Old Mates,” Cincinnati Post, May 18, 1985: 1C.

31 Cobb’s official tally of hits – as of 1985 and as of 2025 – was 4,191. Other sources, however, credit him with 4,189 career hits. For example, as of July 2025, MLB.com’s Cobb page has a hit total of 4,191, but the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org websites have him at 4,189 hits. Accordingly, Rose broke Cobb’s record on September 11, 1985, with a single against Eric Show of the San Diego Padres (his 4,192nd hit); or three days earlier, with a single against Reggie Patterson of the Chicago Cubs (his 4,190th hit).

32 Bob Hertzel, “Rain Falls, but Pirates Play to Avoid First Rainout,” Pittsburgh Press, May 18, 1985: C1.

33 Paul Meyer, “Knicely Comes out Swinging as Reds Stomp on Pirates,” Dayton Daily News, May 18, 1985: 6.

34 Schoenfeld, “Parker Delivers Against Old Mates.”

35 Bob Fulton, “Knicely Rude to Pirates, Wields Big Bat in 6-3 Victory,” Indiana (Pennsylvania) Gazette, May 18, 1985: 21. The loss dropped DeLeón’s record to 0-6, on his way to a 2-19 mark. In 1989, as a member of the Cardinals, he led the NL with 201 strikeouts.

36 Meyer, “Reds Respond Knicely to New Hitter.”

37 On May 29, 1984, Scurry struck out Parker with two runners on base and two outs in the eighth inning of a tie game in Cincinnati. The Reds went on to win, 5-4, in 10 innings. Bob Hertzel, “Pirates Thrown for a Loss,” Pittsburgh Press, May 30, 1984: D1; Mike Tully (United Press International), “Parker Helps Reds Dump Bucs,” Danville (Pennsylvania) News, May 18, 1985: 9.

38 Tully, “Parker Helps Reds Dump Bucs.”

39 Schoenfeld, “Parker Delivers Against Old Mates.”

40 “I think [Stuper] got a little stiff [during the top of the seventh],” Knicely remarked after the game. Fulton, “Knicely Rude to Pirates, Wields Big Bat in 6-3 Victory.”

41 Schoenfeld, “Parker Delivers Against Old Mates.”

42 “Parker Delivers Against Old Mates.”

43 Stuper’s record improved to 5-2 with the win. In June, with his ERA more than 5.00, the Reds moved him to the bullpen. The 1985 season was his last as an active player; he went into college coaching at age 28 in May 1986. He went on to serve as Yale University’s head coach from 1993 through 2022. Pete Zapadka, “Stuper Returns Home to Coach Butler CCC,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 3, 1986: 30. “Stuper to Retire After 2022 Yale Baseball Season,” yalebulldogs.com, January 18, 2022, https://yalebulldogs.com/news/2022/1/18/stuper-to-retire-after-2022-yale-baseball-season.aspx.

44 Fulton, “Knicely Rude to Pirates, Wields Big Bat in 6-3 Victory.”

45 On May 23, with their record 12-25, the Pirates fired Harding Peterson, their executive vice president and general manager. Charley Feeney, “Peterson out, but Tanner Is Safe: Brown Back for Rescue Operation,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 24, 1985: 15. They finished the season 57-104, the worst record in the major leagues.

46 Paul Hoynes, “History Rains on Indians and Brewers,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 21, 1985: 1-D. A total of 458 games were played in 1985 before the first rainout.

47 The Reds came in second in the NL West Division, 5½ games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.