Thursday, November 1, 2007

A Good Way To Spend An Evening

I just had an interesting evening. A friend of mine lives next door to the brother of Salty Parker. Parker was a baseball man who spent 58 years in the game as a player, coach, manager, scout, and instructor. In 1936, he got a cup of coffee with the Detroit Tigers.

His brother, who lives here in Granite City, has an autographed team ball from the San Francisco Giants, for whom Parker was the third base coach. Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Cepeda, et al. He wasn't sure exactly what year the ball was from and I helped identify it as a 1960 Giants team ball. It was pretty neat to hold that in my hand.

Parker, who devoted his whole life to baseball, is the kind of guy who helped make the game what it is. I've promised to put together a player profile on Salty Parker for his brother and when I finish it, I'm going to post it here. Although not 19th century related, I think it'll be a nice way to honor a baseball lifer.

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