Baseball is poetry.

Summer of 1979- I show up to 3 Rivers Stadium as I did every summer to take over dad’s locker to shag fly balls and catch in the bullpen during games… I was 13 this year. Pops sees me and my new Afro, and says “your father would never let you have that long of hair we need to cut that now!!!” 2 minutes later I hear scissors behind me, I look up and it’s David Jean Parker…. In his underwear and a pair of scissors in his hands. Picture this - I take off running for the tunnel with no shirt, just uniform pants and Dave just underwear …. He’s chasing me down the tunnel…. I thought no way he’s going to follow me to the dug out. But I was wrong. He did. He actually chased me onto the field scissors in hand still. The field was too vast for him to catch me but he knew I had to go back to the clubhouse. And there they grabbed me and painted my Afro GREEN. THAT obviously forced me to go get a hair cut. Let’s just say the day Doc Ellis killed our radio in the clubhouse with Pop’s sledgehammer— the next day was so quiet that David comes in and says “Clementine let’s go!!!” There we go, again shirtless into his convertible sports Mercedes and we go across the river into the electronic store and he picks out a massive stereo system to take to the clubhouse and as we are at batting practice those folks set up that beautiful system in the middle of the clubhouse. When we came in the first song on was “WE ARE FAMILY” everyone was happy and dancing… it was a good day because of my friend, David Jean Parker. We will miss you forever thank you for the memories. Rest Easy Cobra. Love, Clementine