Joe DiMaggio

Should Dave Parker be in the baseball hall of fame?

Parker has more hits and runs batted in than Jim Rice, who just got in a couple of years ago. Rice does have more home runs however. Parker won two batting titles and an mvp award. He won a world series in 1979. I don't believe that Parker was a hall of fame player. He is close, but not a hall of famer. What do you think?

Public Comments

1. No. I look more to individual seasons than career summary stats, and while Cobra had three great seasons in the late 1970s and one resurgent 1985, the rest of his seasons do not stand out -- and that is not enough. He fell off a cliff in 1980, and in general we know why. Stay off the blow, youngsters. Rice makes a poor comp (as a Hall honoree, not as a player), considering how controversial his candidacy was, for the full 15 seasons. He was never a sure thing, and his election to the Hall was more a victory of attrition than great performance. (I don't much like the "A is in, so B should be in" line of argument anyway.) ---------- "Countless"? "Countless" does not exist in baseball. "Uncounted" perhaps, but not "countless". Yeah, Parker was an excellent RF and had a great arm. That does get overlooked, but with his hitting stats, that is understandable. Even so, he still does not measure up in my view.
2. Yes. There are the offensive stats, which are close. But then there are the things the writers seem never to consider. Besides being a very good offensive player, Dave Parker had a missile launcher for an arm. I watch him save countless runs gunning guys down at the plate or just holding them to the base they were close to. Throw in his defense, and he's a shoe in. Writers don't dig defense much.
3. I don't think he's a hall of famer, either. Comparing him to Jim Rice is only fair because their careers overlapped so much. Parker was a great right fielder with a cannon, but defense only really comes into play when you can be considered one of the greatest at your position of all-time (Ozzie Smith and Bill Mazeroski come to mind as the two that are in more for defense than hitting). He just didn't sustain the level that he played on in the late 70s for long enough, and the drug issues are going to hurt him in the voters' eyes. I remember the 1979 all star game where he threw runners out at third and at the plate, pretty much wrapping up the MVP, and he was definitely in the same category as Dwight Evans as far as his arm was. Very few runners tried to take an extra base on him, that's for sure. Can't really say his world series title should sway voters- too many great players never won a world series, and it didn't hurt their chances.
4. I was a real big fan of Dave Parker. I thought he was a very good player. But I never, at any time, thought hall of fame when watching him play...
5. Parker had a similar career to that of Andre Dawson. Both had great throwing arms, won a MVP, led the league in a triple crown category, made All Star teams and won Gold Gloves. Parker was more of a contact hitter while Davwson put up better power numbers. Parker probably should have fared better than he did in the voting but the thing that hurt him was the Cocaine scandal with the Pirates back in the 80's. Put him in the Hall of the Very Good but just short of the Hall of Fame.