Reds History: Late legend ignites Home Run Derby with a powerful win

Forty years ago, Dave Parker stepped up to the plate at the Metrodome in Minneapolis and began launching balls into the stands. The only witnesses were the cheering crowds who attended the first Home Run Derby – the event wouldn’t be televised live until 1998. Still, Parker, in just his second season with his hometown Cincinnati Reds, left a memorable and indelible mark on baseball history as he claimed the first derby crown.

Ten batters, five from each league, faced off in the 1985 contest. Each received two rounds of five outs to hit as many home runs as possible. Parker’s left-handed swing seemed tailor made for the stadium whose right-field wall stood just 327 feet from home plate. (Ironically, Parker never hit a home run in the stadium during regulation play.)

Eddie Murray, a switch-hitter who slugged better from the left side, was perhaps the other lefty batter in the contest. Although the AL sluggers outperformed the NL on the whole, Parker reigned supreme with six blasts.

Reds History: Dave Parker added to his Hall of Fame legacy with the first Home Run Derby crown

By 1985, Parker was already well on his way to legend status, having been selected as an All-Star five times and winning an MVP Award with Pittsburgh in 1978. He was known for his cannon arm and confidence, but he hadn’t quite emerged as a Hall of Fame slugger. The long balls came during his time in Cincinnati. With the Pittsburgh Pirates he averaged 15 homers per season, but in his four years with the Reds, he averaged 27 homers per season. It’s fitting, then, that he donned a Reds jersey during his Home Run Derby victory.

The derby win likely had little impact on his prolonged Hall of Fame campaign. Just seven other champs are in Cooperstown. (PED suspicion has kept out a handful of others.) But the accolade did add another point of pride in a career filled with achievement.

Parker’s death in late June, then, is doubly tragic. Most importantly, it robbed him of the opportunity to be publicly and duly lauded at the Cooperstown induction in late July, but it also severed a link between this year’s 40th anniversary derby and the original iteration of the event. This year could and should have been a victory lap for “The Cobra.” Instead, we are left with fond memories of his illustrious career.

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