In Memoriam: Dave Parker
JUNE 28, 2025 — Dave Parker was one of the best players in the major leagues in the last half of the 1970s, a powerful slugger known as “The Cobra” whose cannon of an arm in right field might have been considered a more dangerous weapon than his bat.
Parker was a two-time batting champion, a three-time Gold Glove Award winner, and the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1978 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1979, he won All-Star Game MVP honors — highlighted by two jaw-dropping assists from right field — and helped lead the Pirates to a World Series championship. He won another World Series with the Oakland Athletics in 1989, recording 339 home runs during his 19-year career from 1973 to 1991.
After failing to reach 75 percent of the vote from the baseball writers and three different veterans committees, Parker was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Classic Era Committee in December 2024. But he died at the age of 74 on June 28, 2025 — just one month before he was scheduled to be inducted in Cooperstown, New York.
“There isn’t a player alive who plays the game the way Dave Parker does,” said Chuck Tanner, his longtime manager with the Pirates. “Every game is the seventh game of the World Series to him. There isn’t a player alive who can do the things on the field that Parker can do. None.”
Parker’s final totals after 19 seasons in the big leagues were impressive: 339 home runs, 1,493 RBIs, 2,712 hits, and a .290 batting average. He finished in the top five in the MVP voting five times, played in six All-Star Games, and was on the roster for another.
It was a resume similar to that of Jim Rice, Parker’s American League counterpart for MVP honors in 1978. But while Rice was elected to the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers, Parker never received as much as 25 percent of the vote in his 15 years on the writers’ ballot.
Perhaps some voters remembered Parker more as the overweight, injury-prone drug user who was the target of anger and resentment from Pittsburgh fans in the early 1980s when his production dropped off after he signed what was at the time the most lucrative contract in baseball history. Or as the man who testified at a high-profile 1985 trial in federal court about his cocaine use and as a result was sued by the Pirates for fraud.
But over time, Parker’s incredible production and contributions to his teams began to stand out more.
During a five-year span with the Pirates, Parker led the National League in batting average twice (.338 in 1977 and .334 in 1978) and slugging percentage twice (1975 and 1978), was named to The Sporting News’ postseason National League all-star team three times (1975, 1977, 1978), and won three Gold Glove awards for fielding excellence (1977-79). In 1977 he had 26 assists, still the most for any major-league outfielder in a season since another Pirate right fielder, Roberto Clemente, had 27 in 1961.
In his Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked Parker the 14th best right fielder in baseball history. All 13 players ranked ahead of him were in the Hall of Fame. Now, so is the Cobra.
- Click here to read Dave Parker’s SABR biography, written by J.G. Preston
- Click here to listen to Dave Parker and David Jordan’s SABRcast interview with Rob Neyer (2021)
Originally published: June 28, 2025. Last Updated: June 28, 2025.