Chapter 11
Francis "Salty" Parker
Francis "Salty" Parker
The man with the distinctive nickname -- "Salty" -- was the face of the 1940s Shreveport Sports. Francis Parker (and who ever called him Francis?) was the team's on-field manager for eight seasons, and for several of those years, its regular third baseman.
He was in pro baseball for some 60 years -- 23 as a player (briefly in the major leagues), 18 as a minor-league manager (1941-42 and 1946-51, with the Sports), 16 years as a major-league coach with five organizations, and then as a roving minor-league infield instructor and a scout based in Houston.
He was popular in Shreveport, a longtime resident, and with him at third base, the 1942 team won the Texas League playoff championship -- Shreveport's first league title since 1919.
His brief major-league time was with the Detroit Tigers late in the 1936 season (11 games, seven at shortstop, .280 average (7-for-25) with two doubles and four RBI. 
He was in his third Texas League season when he first played for Shreveport in 1938, then returned to manage in 1941 and left after the '51 season (in 1943, he managed St. Paul after Sports owner Bonneau Peters sold his entire franchise).
In the majors, he was an interim manager twice -- 4-7 record with the 1967 New York Mets and for one game (a victory) with the 1972 Houston Astros. He was the Astros' third-base coach from 1968 to '72, the first year teaming with a fellow Shreveport resident and ex-Sports manager, Mel McGaha, who was the first-base coach.
Salty died July 27, 1992, in Houston at age 80.
From Larry Powell: Geez, what a cavalcade there! Salty Parker and Mel McGaha, too.
ReplyDeleteThis means nothing to anybody except me, but when McGaha was named the Cleveland manager in '62, my middle brother and I bought a copy of Sport magazine (I think it was Sport) and took McGaha's cover photo and pinned it to our bedroom wall in the two-bedroom, one-bath house shared by Mom and Pop and three brothers in one bedroom.