Dodger great Wes Parker hit .279 in his last year in the Bigs, but he struck out big time as the team’s union representative in 1972. Parker told SABR members at the national convention in Long Beach – the inside story of Major League Baseball’s first ever player strike.
Gold Glover Wes Parker Fields Questions at SABR Convention
It turns out Parker was the only player rep who voted against the strike.
I asked him why he voted not to walk out – in an interview at the Long Beach Hilton.
“I loved baseball so much that I didn’t think it was worth striking,” he told me. “No matter what. The O’Malleys had been great to me . They gave me a chance – I signed for no bonus; I begged the Dodgers for a chance to play. That’s why I’m still here talking to everybody because I love this game so much. And I was so fortunate that I got to play it.”
“You don’t know this,” Parker told a group of two dozen SABR members huddled in front of him. “I called the Dodgers on the phone and said, ‘I want to play for you’.
“I talked to Charlie Dressen, he was a coach then – this was 1962. He said, ‘Son people don’t call us, we call them’.
SABR members laughed heartily as Parker reeled them in with the rest of the story.
“I said, ‘well you know me’, because he’d seen me play American Legion ball around L.A. And I said ‘I really want to play , can you just give me a chance?’ He said, ‘I’ll get back to you’. Well he found out they had a winter team – the Dodgers did, that played around L.A. He got me on the team. The winter of ’62 I was playing in Long Beach, then San Bernardino, just driving all over. I was hitting something like .450. All high school and college prospects and me. I had graduated,” Parker told the adoring crowd.
“And so the Dodgers after three months of this they said, ‘okay we’ll give you a contract, but no bonus’. They shipped me off to Santa Barbara, which was fine – I led the team in hitting at the All-Star break. In ’63 they moved me to Albuquerque which was AA. I hit .350. Next year I was with the Dodgers. It happened that fast.”
Wes Parker made it clear he was not about to bite the hand that was feeding him.
“I always had this gratitude,” he explained. “I was so lucky, I always felt I was so fortunate just to get to the Major Leagues – because I almost didn’t even get signed. So when it came time to strike after 8 years of the O’Malleys being great to me and giving me this chance – no way I was gonna strike against baseball. No way.”
“No scout offered me a contract,” he reminded us. “You know what they said. ‘Oh this kid grew up in Brentwood , he had wealthy parents so he’s not gonna be hungry. Forget him. He’s not gonna last through the first road trip. He gets on those buses he’ll quit.’
“And then they said, ‘Look at his numbers, they were all achieved against small school talent’. My high school was a senior class of 35. I hit .470 my senior year but they said, ‘Yeah but look who it’s against – small high schools, no talent’.”
“So I go to Claremont (McKenna College) and I hit .400 for three straight years and make small college All American as a junior. Who does that? Well they said again, ‘Small schools. They’re playing Laverne, they’re playing Cal Poly Pomona, they’re playing Redlands, Whittier, schools like that, so what does it mean?’ So nobody offered me a contract. That’s why I had to call the Dodgers after I graduated and BEGGED – and that’s why I voted against the strike.”
So why in the world did Parker’s teammates select him as their union representative? It was undoubtedly because the Dodger players respected him as an athlete and as a person. In 1972, Parker was honored with the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award – given each year to the Major League player who best exemplifies the selfless leadership and courage of the legendary Yankee first baseman.
Parker is the first to admit his teammates threw a wild pitch by selecting him.
“The team screwed that up because I didn’t run for player rep,” he laughed. “They nominated me and voted me in.”
One of the SABR members asked Parker how his teammates reacted to his No Strike vote.
“They didn’t like it,” he said. “In fact, they impeached me. Here’s the thing – if you’re representing a ballclub, you have a conflict immediately. Do you represent your own beliefs or the beliefs of your teammates?”
“I started out representing the team,” Parker said in answering his own question. “The team – I went to the meeting which was in Dallas and they said, ‘Okay we don’t want you to vote either for or against the strike.’ We had a meeting before I left. And the whole team said we don’t know which way we want to go. We need more information. So when I got back there I abstained when it came to the vote. Because I said, ‘the team wants more information – so we abstain’. Then somebody came up to me and said, ‘well how do you feel about it?’ I said, ‘I’d vote against it’ – for the reasons I told you. So that’s what happened.”
“But you have to either compromise or you have to decide who you’re going to represent,” Parker continued. “Your thoughts – or those of the team if they feel differently than you do? Which is what happened – I was against it and the team wound up for it. But they were for it for a different reason – they were for it because they wanted a bigger pension plan after they retired. I was against it, not for that reason, but because I was so doggone grateful that I got the chance to play in the first place. And the O’Malleys were so good to us.”
In 1972, the players went out on strike – for the first time ever. Major League Baseball was forced to cancel games from April 1st – April 13th, in a dispute over pensions. The owner eventually agreed to some concessions, including allowing salary arbitration as part of a collective bargaining agreement.
But Parker remained loyal to the O’Malleys.
“They did everything,” he told me. “When we checked into a hotel, let’s say we’re going to Cincinnati, we stayed at the Nederland Hilton. When we checked in, we never went to the front desk – we walked in the front door and the traveling secretary Lee Scott said, ’Here’s your room key’. You took the key and went up to your room and then five minutes later the bags were there. When you checked out, you just put all your stuff in a suitcase, took it down to the lobby and left it there and walked out. You never paid the bill – never had to. We got on a bus that took us to the airport – with our own plane. We never went through an airport lobby ever. Not once. We got to the airport, the bus drove us out on to the tarmac, right to the steps of the airplane. You get off the steps of the bus, take two steps and climb up into the airplane. Of course they didn’t have metal detectors back then. But you never had to go through an airport. And then everybody was on board before the plane took off – why? Because we had our own private jet.”
And having a private team jet in 1972 really made the players feel special.
“I’ve been on the president’s jet at the Ronald Reagan Museum,” Parker exclaimed. “Our jet was better than his.” The crowd roared with laughter.
“That’s how good we got treated. So am I going to strike against an organization that does all that for me? Just to get a pension plan? My god after baseball I can work at something else. There were just so many other options that to me were more worthwhile than striking, just because these guys in 20 years after they retire want a bigger pension plan? That was my thinking. Some people say ‘oh that’s pollyannish or that’s because you came from wealth’. No I would have done that no matter what.”
Wes Parker stayed true Blue to the O’Malleys when most players could only see green – as in the big money they were about to get.
Coming up next: Wes Parker describes his first Major League hit – and explains why other teams were afraid to go after Dodger batters with a knock down pitch. Hint: A secret weapon who wore #53.
