CINCINNATI — Terry Francona learned his lesson once on a bus about messing with Dave Parker.
Francona played with Parker on the 1987 Reds and the 1990 Brewers. He learned to appreciate and admire Parker as a fan while growing up in the 1970s in the Pittsburgh area.
“I watched him when I was a young, kind of high-schoolish kid in Pittsburgh,” Francona said before Sunday’s series finale with the Padres. “Then when I came here, I played with him. And when I was in Milwaukee, we traded for him there too. So I played with him twice.”
Parker passed away Saturday in Cincinnati at the age of 74, after a 13-year battle with Parkinson’s.
At the end of Saturday’s postgame presser, Francona noted “you could joke with him, (but) not too much.” On Sunday, he expanded upon those words with an anecdote from that 1987 season, when Pete Rose was the manager.
“One of the funniest things that ever happened, I don’t think he thought was funny,” Francona said. “We were sitting on the back of the bus, and he went in (to the bathroom), and I put my belt around the door, you know, just to mess with him. Well, he shoved it so hard that the belt got stuck. So he’s getting (ticked), and I’m trying to tell him, ‘Hey, man, we just got…’ but I was laughing, and I couldn’t stop laughing, and when he came out finally, he was like drenched (in sweat), and he wanted to kill me. You knew that was a fight you wouldn’t win.
“Fortunately, he knew that, too. We ended up laughing, but it took him a few minutes. He was a scary dude. He was an intimidating presence.”
Terry Francona pays tribute to Dave Parker “you could mess with him, (but) not too much.” pic.twitter.com/DEbi4aTBdm
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) June 29, 2025
NOTES from Sunday:
