Dave Parker At Second Base?
1977
Dave Parker At Second Base?
Somebody uploaded this photo to Facebook a few days ago:
Rather than letting this Facebook post fall into algorithmic obscurity, I thought it would be nice to figure out why in the world Parker was even rated at second base in 1977.
And, as it turns out, there’s a good story behind this.
The Pirates were in a fierce extra inning battle at Philadelphia on July 1, 1977. Pittsburgh limped into this game with a 39-34 record, good enough for 4th place and 9 games out. The Phillies, meanwhile, had a 40-32 record, were 7 1/2 games behind the Cubs (that’s right, the Cubs), and were looking to make a surge that would result in them eventually winning the division.
An Al Oliver single put the Pirates up 4-3 in the top of the 8th inning. Starter John Candelaria couldn’t quite hold on, unfortunately, and gave up a game tying home run to leadoff batter Jerry Martin in the bottom of the 8th. Chuck Tanner brought Goose Gossage in right afterwards, and the Goose kept the Phillies in check — but the damage had been done.
And, yeah, you read right. Goose Gossage was on the Pirates in 1976.
Gossage, and then the infamous Ken Tekulve, held the Phillies in check, while the Pirates struggled against Tug McGraw. Nothing really happened until the top of the 14th, when a Bobby Tolan double and an error on Bake McBride gave the Pirates a 6-4 lead.
However, Tanner had already used up Gossage, and had pinch hit for Tekulve as part of the rally. Willie Stargell, by the way, was the pinch hitter for Kent. That move forced Tanner to use Grant Jackson, and that’s where things fell apart.
Mike Schmidt bunted for a single, one of those classic artificial turf jobs. That brought up Greg Luzinski, who hit a ground ball to Frank Taveras at short.
The newspapers say that Taveras didn’t have a shot at the double play, but at least tried to force Schmidt at second. His throw apparently pulled Phil Garner off second base.
Up next was Richie Hebner, who actually hit a home run.
Here’s how The Pittsburgh Press described it the next day:
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the melee like this:
The best description, however, is probably this from The Philadelphia Daily News:
The Pirates walked Garry Maddox intentionally. Davey Johnson hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score a run, and then Ted Sizemore got the game winning single.
In other words — Parker’s three batter experience at second base was entirely a fluke. No, it’s not realistic for you to start him at second every game in 1979 to open up an outfield spot for another hitter (presumably Mike Easler, with his 198 OPS+ in 19 plate appearances).
Of course, this leads us to an obvious question: should Parker receive a second base rating at all? I mean, this was obviously a fluke.
As far as that game was concerned, this photo says it all:
Strat-O-Matic normally only give a fielding rating if the players put in more than one game worth of innings in a position. I’m surprised they gave Parker a second base five in the 1977 set. That said even in the basic game, it would be nearly impossible to win with a 5 playing every day at second base because it would result in about 70% of the ground ball x’s becoming hits or errors.