Dave Parker had already grabbed a seat on the temporary stage inside PNC Park's center field gate on the Riverwalk when he was approached by an old colleague from his playing days.
The woman laughed as she recounted a story about how Parker once picked her up and carried her into the Three Rivers Stadium clubhouse.
Parker was one of the strongest men in baseball at that time, strength that led to seven All-Star games, a 1978 Most Valuable Player award and multiple batting titles, Silver Sluggers, Gold Gloves and World Series.
At his peak, Parker would tell his teammates three things before games: The sun's gonna shine, the wind's gonna blow, and Big Dave Parker is going 4-for-4.
Now 71, the Cobra walks with a cane after a nearly decade-long battle with Parkinson's Disease, though he remains in good spirits.
“I’m doing good," Parker told me. "I’ve got to deal with the hand that’s dealt.”
Parker was back in Pittsburgh this weekend to be honored as one of the inaugural 19 members of the Pirates' Hall of Fame Class, with the formal induction coming in a pregame ceremony Saturday at the ballpark.
“It means a lot," Parker said. "The first team I played for, a lot of the guys I’m friends with. It means a lot.”
Parker was one of three living legends honored at the event, alongside Steve Blass and Bill Mazeroski. Parker played alongside the former, received perhaps the best summarization he could of the right fielder's career.
"All they asked you to do was replace Roberto Clemente," Blass said to Parker during his speech. "All you did was take ownership of right field. And boy, did you ever."
“Yeah, I did," he said to me with a slight grin. "I played right field like nobody else. I had a great arm. I competed with anybody that played right field. It was just fun. Fun competing.”
The Cobra. Pirates Hall of Famer pic.twitter.com/f61mshpzjo
— Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) September 3, 2022
Parker's excellence in the late 70s was almost unmatched. He is however, is perhaps the organization's most glaring omission for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Other factor are in play -- Parker's involvement in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials certainly hurt him on the writers' ballots -- but from a strictly baseball standpoint, his candidacy has merit.
Parker was most recently eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2019 via the Modern Era committee, where he was on seven of the 16 ballots, falling short of the 75% needed for enshrinement. It was the second time he was eligible for that Hall via that ballot, also falling short of 50% of the vote in 2017.
The Hall has since altered how they do committees, now separated by contemporary (players whose main contributions to the game came in 1980 and after) and Classic (before 1980). Parker could theoretically fall under either committee's vote, if he is placed on a ballot again.
He's made his peace publicly that he knows he might never get elected, though he believes he belongs among baseball's elite.
"What I did in Pittsburgh is enough to get me in any Hall of Fame," Parker said. "It’s on them.”
Until that next opportunity, Parker's focus is on a different sport: Golf. The Cobra Classic Celebrity Golf Outing will take place later this month to raise money to fight Parkinson's.
“I’ve been involved for eight years," Parker said. "I’m just trying to find something that clicks to find a cure for this disease, because it’s a hell of a disease. It’s a hard fight.”
