{"id":57066,"date":"2025-07-11T14:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T14:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/57066\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T14:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T14:31:12","slug":"once-in-a-generation-the-all-star-throw-that-rocketed-dave-parker-to-cooperstown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/57066\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Once in a generation\u2019 \u2013 The All-Star throw that rocketed Dave Parker to Cooperstown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Sliders, a weekly in-season MLB column that focuses on both the timely and timeless elements of the game.<\/p>\n

They had been teammates for one day, nearly four years earlier. One hit a game-tying homer and drove in the go-ahead run with a walk. The other nailed two runners on the bases with some of the most hellacious throws anyone had ever seen.<\/p>\n

Dave Parker, the fielder, was the Most Valuable Player of that 1979 All-Star Game. Lee Mazzilli, the hitter, was not. Reunited with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983, Parker reveled in the reminders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you knew the Parkway, he was a trash talker, in a good way, to everyone,\u201d Mazzilli, a Met in 1979, said by phone this week. \u201cIt didn\u2019t matter who you were. It was always a good back and forth. I\u2019d say, \u2018Yeah, the only reason you won it was because you misjudged the ball!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, Mazzilli said, Parker lost a Jim Rice pop-up<\/a> in the roof of the Seattle Kingdome, only to recover it \u2014 in foul territory by the right field bullpen mounds \u2014 and fire a one-hop strike to third base to nail Rice.<\/p>\n

But that play, in the seventh, merely foreshadowed an even better one in the eighth, when Parker unleashed a rocket, on the fly, to cut down the go-ahead run.<\/p>\n

It was the kind of moment that sent a signal from the spire of the Space Needle to the halls of Cooperstown. And while it took decades to receive that message, the Hall of Fame finally elected Parker last December in a vote by the Classic Baseball Era committee. He will be inducted on July 27, four weeks after his death from Parkinson\u2019s Disease at age 74.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a cannon,\u201d said Larry Bowa, the National League\u2019s starting shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1979. \u201cNot only did he throw good, the ball was always low, one-hop to the catcher. It was of those where you say: \u2018Once in a generation.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took a lot of pride in defense, he could steal bases, hit home runs, hit for average. And he had that saying: \u2018When the leaves turn brown, I\u2019ll be wearing the batting crown.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker had indeed won the NL batting title in 1977 and 1978, his MVP season, when he also led the majors in OPS (.979) and won his second of three Gold Gloves. Keith Hernandez, then with the St. Louis Cardinals, followed Parker as batting champion in 1979 and was co-MVP with Pittsburgh\u2019s Willie Stargell.<\/p>\n

When Parker\u2019s Pirates won the World Series that fall, it further cemented a status widely shared by Hernandez and his peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the best player in the game from \u201978 to the early \u201980s,\u201d Hernandez said last week. \u201cI can only speak for myself, but he was the best player in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hernandez made the last out in the top of the eighth inning in the 1979 All-Star Game, after Mazzilli\u2019s leadoff homer off Jim Kern had tied it, 6-6. Leading off for the AL in the bottom of the eighth was Angels catcher Brian Downing, in the only All-Star appearance of his career.<\/p>\n

Downing played 20 seasons and actually compiled more bWAR than Parker (51.5 for Downing, who walked a lot, compared to 40.1 for Parker, who didn\u2019t). This was Downing\u2019s best season, and he made the most of his chance with a single off future Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter, a master of the split-finger fastball.<\/p>\n

After a sacrifice bunt, an intentional walk and a strikeout, Graig Nettles came up. Here\u2019s how the play looked on NBC:<\/p>\n

Downing, 74, lives on a ranch in Texas now and said he has never watched any highlights from his career. But, he said in a rare interview late last year, the details of the Parker play are etched in his memory. We\u2019ll let Downing describe it in full:<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, so I\u2019m thinking Bruce Sutter and Graig Nettles \u2014 just looking at the way Sutter throws it and Nettles\u2019 swing, he\u2019s going to either hit a hard ground ball up the middle for a hit, a hard grounder to right for a hit or, more likely, a one-hop drive right at frickin\u2019 Parker in fairly shallow right on a fast Astroturf field.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m going to get the best lead I can without getting picked off, and I\u2019m going to get as good of a secondary lead as I can, which I\u2019ve always done. And I have to assume he\u2019s going to hit that line drive on one hop, which, to my chagrin, that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got as good a jump as I could get. I\u2019m happy with all that because I was ready for it. And I made the turn and now I\u2019m coming around third. And I have no problem with violence. Full speed, I don\u2019t care. But as I\u2019m coming, I\u2019m thinking of the Pete Rose play (with Ray Fosse in 1970) and all that, I don\u2019t want to hurt somebody. Because if you run into a catcher, which I was at that point, you\u2019re out 99 percent of the time, automatically. You\u2019re not knocking it loose unless you\u2019re Bo Freaking Jackson. And my theory when I was on second is that I\u2019d have to run into him, assuming there\u2019s going to be a play at the plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut from my vantage point coming around third, the front of the plate was wide open, if not the whole plate. And I don\u2019t even see Gary Carter because I\u2019m concentrating on the plate. He\u2019s at least a full step away from the plate. So the plate is wide open and I\u2019m going to take a headfirst dive, which I\u2019ve always done, and try to grab the top, left-side corner. And at that point, when I start to do that, he\u2019s not around.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m in the slide, and all of a sudden he comes up and blocks my hand off. Carter made an awesome play. I was headed to a wide-open plate, and I never saw any of that. It was just like a magic trick. It showed up on me, there it is. I thought it was something I\u2019ve done many times \u2014 headfirst, grab the plate before they can get me \u2014 and it didn\u2019t happen because two Hall of Famers made Hall of Fame plays, both of \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years earlier, in 1977, Parker had recorded 26 outfield assists, a total unmatched in the major leagues since. Most runners knew better than to bait Parker, who gleefully accepted the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved throwing out runners,\u201d he said in December, in his conference call with reporters after the Hall of Fame election. \u201cAnd if they kept running, I would hit him in the back of the head with the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

In interviews after the All-Star Game, Parker said that he had wanted to make a one-hop throw to the plate, but it took off. He credited Carter \u2014 as Joe Garagiola did, effusively, on NBC \u2014 for saving the play. Carter, who was then with the Montreal Expos, told reporters it was \u201cthe biggest play of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Parker, Carter relished the spotlight. He would win two All-Star MVPs himself, in 1981 and 1984, but this one belonged to Parker, who was brash enough to tell his Pirates teammates, before leaving for Seattle, that he would win it.<\/p>\n

In \u201cCobra,\u201d his 2021 memoir with Dave Jordan, Parker said that when commissioner Bowie Kuhn handed him the trophy, it meant more to him than his batting titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI carried that thing through the dugout, up the stairs to the clubhouse, out the stadium, back through the doors of the Olympic Hotel,\u201d Parker and Jordan wrote. \u201cIt sat beside me on the hotel bar while I cooled out with some of the fellas. I might\u2019ve even bought it a drink. I stared at the trophy before I fell asleep. I carried it through Sea-Tac Airport like a damn Cabbage Patch doll.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever won something you really wanted and everyone mocked you for holding on to it for days, guess what. I was right there with you, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker won\u2019t be there in Cooperstown for the biggest honor of all. But he always knew his day was coming. When asked in December if he considered himself a Hall of Famer when he played, Parker had no hesitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout a doubt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gimme FiveThe Mets\u2019 David Peterson on throwing a shutout<\/p>\n

One month ago Friday, the Mets\u2019 David Peterson fired the first shutout of his career, a six-hitter with no walks and six strikeouts in a 5-0 victory over the Washington Nationals. He seemed bound for another in Baltimore on Thursday, but manager Carlos Mendoza pulled him with a 1-0 lead after a leadoff single in the eighth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re already in the eighth inning, 90 pitches,\u201d Mendoza explained later, after the Orioles came back off Ryne Stanek for a 3-1 win. \u201cHe did his part.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

OUTS RECORDED AFTER THE SIXTH INNING THIS SEASON BY METS STARTERS<\/p>\n

David Peterson: 25
Everyone Else: 8<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tim Britton (he\/him) (@timbritton.bsky.social<\/a>) July 10, 2025 at 1:56 PM<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mendoza\u2019s decision \u2013 despite Peterson\u2019s reasonable pitch count \u2013 highlights the relative disappearance of the shutout, something only seven others have accomplished this season: Cincinnati\u2019s Andrew Abbott, Detroit\u2019s Tarik Skubal, St. Louis\u2019 Erick Fedde and Sonny Gray, San Diego\u2019s Michael King and Stephen Kolek and Texas\u2019 Nathan Eovaldi.<\/p>\n

Baseball, then, is on a single-season record pace for fewest complete-game shutouts. Last year, teams threw 321 shutouts but pitchers went the distance just 16 times, tied with 2022 for fewest in a full season in AL\/NL history. No active pitcher has more than three in a season, and the active leader, Clayton Kershaw, hasn\u2019t had one since 2016.<\/p>\n

Peterson, a first-round pick from the University of Oregon in 2017, threw 106 pitches in his shutout, seven shy of his career high from 2023. After Thursday\u2019s start, he is 6-4 with a 3.06 ERA, and his 109 innings easily lead the Mets\u2019 battered pitching staff.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Peterson with a few thoughts on the increasingly rare pitching gem.<\/p>\n

Strikeouts and shutouts don\u2019t always mix:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m trying to go as deep as I can in every game. My goal is if I can go all nine, then I\u2019ll go all nine. But there\u2019s a lot to do with pitch counts and workload management and all that stuff that kind of gets in the way of guys getting to that position. A lot of people are fascinated with chasing the strikeouts and doing all this and doing all that. There\u2019s a price to pay that comes with that, which is usually the pitch count goes up if you\u2019re going to be trying to chase punchouts.\u201d<\/p>\n

His last shutout, in 2017, was a big one:<\/strong> \u201cIt was very special \u2014 I struck out 20 guys. It was like 128 pitches, I think. (Writer\u2019s note: Actually 123.) I knew (the strikeout total) because earlier in the year I had struck out 17 against Mississippi State, and after the eighth inning, I overheard somebody say where I was at. But it wasn\u2019t really like a thought in my mind until I overheared something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overanalysis hurts the cause:<\/strong> \u201cFor me growing up, watching guys in the \u201990s and 2000s, they would be regularly at 110 pitches in a start. But now I feel like teams can take so many things into account, they probably overanalyze the situation a little bit: \u2018Well, he went 100 last start and he\u2019s getting close again now, and where are we in the season?\u2019 I think early in the year somebody had a chance to get a complete game, and they got pulled at like 85 pitches or something like that. So it feels like there\u2019s a lot more factors that work against it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It helps to be a student of pitching:<\/strong> \u201cAndy Pettitte was a huge guy that I watched growing up \u2014 Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, all those guys. It didn\u2019t really matter for me, left or right. Josh Beckett, (Jered) Weaver for the Angels. And then Kershaw, (Max) Scherzer, (Justin) Verlander, that next wave, I felt like there was such an abundance of good starting pitchers to watch. There\u2019s a ton of guys and everyone did stuff differently and they had their own way of going about it. I felt like you could learn a lot from people just in terms of the individuality of their pitching style or the mechanics or how they go about the game on the mental side.\u201d<\/p>\n

One for the trophy case:<\/strong> \u201cPete (Alonso) gave me the final out and then I got the lineup card, too. It was special for me and it was especially special to share with my teammates, because you only see it every now and then. As the game changes, some of those things get held in a different regard over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Off the GridEarly Wynn: 200 wins, Cy Young Award<\/p>\n

The Chicago White Sox\u2019s All-Star next week will be pitcher Shane Smith, a Rule 5 draft choice who earned the spot with a 2.37 ERA in his first 13 starts. Alas, Smith has lost his four starts since then, with a 12.33 ERA. It will be another year without a South Side Cy Young Award winner.<\/p>\n

The White Sox franchise has had only three, including Early Wynn, who fit last weekend in the square for a Cy Young winner with 200 career wins. Wynn, who shares a name with the stat (or a pronunciation, anyway) actually collected 300 exactly on his way to the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Wynn won the MLB Cy Young in 1959, followed by LaMarr Hoyt (1983) and Jack McDowell (1993), who won the AL awards. Those were the only years the team made the postseason from 1920 to 1999, and the similarities don\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n

All three Cy winners led the majors in victories \u2014 Wynn and McDowell were 22-10, Hoyt 24-10 \u2014 and all three had an ERA over 3.00. They also rated lower than you\u2019d think, analytically, collecting fewer than 5 bWAR in their award-winning seasons.<\/p>\n

The deserving winners, by bWAR: Larry Jackson in 1959, Dave Stieb in 1983 and Kevin Appier in 1993. Then again, this stuff tends to even out over time. The White Sox have had three pitching bWAR leaders in the Cy Young Award era, and all fell short: Wilbur Wood in 1971, Britt Burns in 1980 and Dylan Cease in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Classic clipJim Bouton\u2019s \u201cBall Four\u201d \u2014 the sitcom<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a summer beach read, no matter how many times you\u2019ve read it, \u201cBall Four\u201d always delivers. There\u2019s never been a more hilarious, insightful peek into the life of a ballplayer than Jim Bouton\u2019s diary of his 1969 season as a reliever for the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros.<\/p>\n

In the years that followed the book\u2019s publication, Bouton, who died six years ago Thursday at age 80, became a celebrity, appearing in movies, working as a sportscaster, writing more books and turning inventions like \u201cBig League Chew,\u201d with Rob Nelson, into reality.<\/p>\n

Lesser-known, perhaps, is Bouton\u2019s sitcom, also called \u201cBall Four,\u201d which ran for five episodes on CBS in the fall of 1976. Co-created with TV critic Marvin Kitman and sportswriter Vic Ziegel, Bouton starred as a pitcher for the fictional Washington Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted \u2018Ball Four,\u2019 the TV show, to be like \u2018M*A*S*H,\u2019 only in a locker room,\u201d he wrote in the 1990 update to his seminal book. \u201cInstead it turned out more like \u2018Gilligan\u2019s Island.\u2019\u2026 We were first in the American League and last in the hearts of our countrymen, according to the Nielsen ratings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officially the show ranked 76th in the ratings<\/a>, and as you can tell from the opening credits, there was little star power in the cast. Bouton auditioned his old Pilots teammate Gene Brabender<\/a> for the role of \u201cRhino,\u201d but it went instead to a retired football player, Ben Davidson.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main problem with the show was a difficulty in conveying reality,\u201d Bouton wrote. \u201cThe CBS censor wouldn\u2019t let anybody spit, burp, swear or chew tobacco. Any similarity between the characters in the show and the real ballplayers was purely coincidental.\u201d<\/p>\n

The credits open with an exterior shot of RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., and an interior shot of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. A shirtless Bouton chuckles to himself as he writes in a diary, while game footage (from the Vet) mixes with scenes of clubhouse hijinks.<\/p>\n

And naturally, this being the 1970s, there\u2019s a delightfully cheesy theme song:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a boy in me who comes alive each summer\/Won\u2019t you come play ball with me?<\/p>\n

(Top photo of Dave Parker after the 1979 MLB All-Star Game: Associated Press)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Sliders, a weekly in-season MLB column that focuses on both the timely and timeless elements of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,1305,1886,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-57066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-new-york-mets","10":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114835088000542831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}