Who was best? Dave Parker was, a convincing Jim Rice says about SI’s memorable cover photo

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BOSTON — Jim Rice was never teammates with Dave Parker. And they rarely even competed against each other, what with Rice playing his entire career with the Boston Red Sox and Parker playing most of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds — all this happening when “inter-league play” was little more than a fanciful idea being tossed around by marketing people.

And yet Rice and Parker had a connection that continues to this day, thanks to a photo shoot they did for “Sports Illustrated” during the run-up to spring training in 1979. The result was a memorable cover photo by Walter Iooss Jr., for the magazine’s annual baseball issue, showing Rice and Parker, in full uniform, standing back-to-back. The 6-foot-5, 230-pound Parker is flashing that famous smile of his and has his arms semi-folded as he confidently extends his index finger in that No. 1 kind of way. Rice, 6-2 and 200 pounds, looks like an American Legion second baseman next to Parker, and he has a sort of bemused look on his face.

The headline: “Who’s best?”

There’s a good chance you’ve seen the cover sometime over the past couple of days. With Parker dying last Saturday at age 74 following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, that photo from the April 9, 1979, edition of Sports Illustrated has been hurtling around the globe on social media.

And yet when I sat down with Rice on Monday, the idea being that he’d maybe tell a humorous anecdote or two about stuff that happened at the photo shoot, he was much more interested in answering the question that was on the cover.

“I guess the idea was, like, who’s best?” Rice said. “Well, let me tell you, Dave Parker was better. He just was. He was better.”

The easy takeaway here might be that Rice, never a braggart, was submitting a testimonial for a fallen comrade. And yet he spoke matter-of-factly, as though the magazine had posed a question, and now, nearly a half century later, he was answering it.

“Dave Parker had more tools as far as running and his hitting, and he was stronger,” Rice said. “He was bigger, he was taller, he was better.”

Rice paused and then said, “We had that old slogan, walk slowly and carry a big stick. And that’s what Dave Parker was all about. What was he, 6-5, 6-6? You didn’t give him any crap. You stood back and admired the guy. I know I did. They didn’t call him The Cobra for nothing. He could swing the bat.”

In his 16 seasons with the Red Sox, Rice hit 382 homers and had a career slash line of .298/.352/.502. His career WAR was 47.7. He never played on a World Series winner. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2009 on his 15th time on the BBWAA ballot.

Parker played 19 seasons in the big leagues, including 11 with the Pirates and four with the Reds. He hit 339 home runs and had a career slash line of .290/.339/.471. He stole 154 bases and won three Gold Gloves. He played on World Series winners with the Pirates in 1979 and the Oakland A’s in 1989. After failing to get elected in his 15 appearances on the BBWAA ballot and three appearances on various veterans committee ballots, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in January by the Classic Baseball Era Committee. He will be posthumously inducted next month.

The inspiration for Rice and Parker appearing on the cover of SI’s 1979 baseball edition was due to both players coming off MVP seasons. For the ’78 Red Sox, Rice hit .315 with 46 home runs and 139 RBIs. He amassed a whopping 406 total bases. For the ’78 Pirates, Parker won his second straight batting title with a .334 average to go with 30 home runs and 117 RBIs. He also won his second Gold Glove.

“They did a photo shoot in New York and brought us in,” Rice said. “They had uniforms for us to wear.” (Rice wore the home whites. Parker was decked out in one of the Pirates’ snazzy all-gold uniforms with the black pillbox cap with gold stripes.)

“We were just there for the shoot,” Rice said. “There was no time to hang out or anything like that.”

Rice and Parker didn’t see each other again until the Red Sox played the Pirates during spring training.

“It was in Bradenton,”  Rice said. “I think we saw the photo before the magazine came out. But we talked about it later and we both liked it.”

Such was Rice’s respect for Parker that he once asked him for a bat.

“It was a big bat, 37-37, a P72,” Rice said. “I asked for one in spring training. And I think he had one of mine, because normally when you ask someone for a bat, you give one back in return. And I wanted one of Dave Parker’s bats to remember him.”

Rice and Parker later got better acquainted on the golf course, playing in various tournaments.

“Later, we knew he was in pretty bad shape with the Parkinson’s,” Rice said. “When you think of an athlete like he was getting to the point where he can’t help himself, that’s sad. And when I think about Dave dying, I think about Muhammad Ali dying the same way. Dave was a much bigger man, but when you’re an athlete like he was, like Muhammad Ali was, it’s sad to see them get that way, thinking about the pressure it must put on their families.”

Rice doesn’t have the SI cover photo framed and hanging in his house. But that, he said, is because he keeps next to no baseball memorabilia on display. “Just a photo of Hank Aaron and me,” Rice said. “It’s from Opening Day in 1975, when he came to Fenway with the Milwaukee Brewers.”

But, yes, absolutely, Rice has enjoyed seeing the SI cover make the rounds over the past several days.

“Look at my face in the photo,” Rice said. “I’m saying, ‘That’s a big man.’ That’s a big man who could run, a big man who could throw, a big man who could hit. And I see a big man you’d want on your side. That’s what I see when I see that photo.”

(Photo: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)





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