Pirates honoring MLB Hall of Famer Dave Parker

Pirates debuted new “Cobra” patches during this Hall of Fame weekend.

As Dave Parker enters the National Baseball Hall of Fame today as part of the 2025 class, just a month after his passing, the Pirates will continue to honor his legacy this season. On Friday, the team debuted a “Cobra” patch on the jersey that will be worn every game for the remainder of the season. Additionally, the patch design has been painted onto the field at PNC Park behind home plate.

Pirates second baseman Nick Gonzales, who currently wears Parker’s #39, said on Friday that he plans to try to find a different jersey number by next season if one is available to honor Parker and open the door for the team to retire that number.

“It’s not that the number isn’t retired because of me,” Gonzales said. “But I won’t be wearing it anymore, so nobody else will.”

Parker’s induction today, after being selected by the Classic Baseball Era committee in December, is bittersweet. His career was worthy of induction much earlier in his life. Parker was truly one of the toughest players in baseball during his time, and he continued to show fight and courage for the last twelve years of his life, battling Parkinson’s. His son, Dave Parker II, will speak for his father at today’s ceremony.

Throughout an 18-year career primarily with the Pirates, Reds, and A’s (Brewers in 1990, and Angels and Blue Jays in the final year of his career in 1991), Parker hit .290 with 2,712 hits and 339 career home runs, winning two batting titles, three gold gloves and silver sluggers, two World Series championships, the 1978 NL MVP award, the All Star Game MVP in 1979, and the first ever Home Run Derby in 1985.

Parker is one of two posthumous inductees this year, as Dick Allen passed away in 2020. Former Astros left-handed reliever Billy Wagner is joined by first-ballot Hall of Famers CC Sabathia and Ichiro Suzuki to round out this year’s class.