37 Ballparks. Countless Stories. One Obsession.
Scott Parker has been a baseball fanatic since his first Angels game in 1973 as a nine-year-old, and he’s still a dedicated Angels fan today. He began “collecting” ballparks in the late ’80s and has been to 37 different Major League venues. He was there in person to witness the very first pitch in history between the Angels and each National League team when interleague play was introduced in 1997. He has taken thousands of photos along the way — many of them featured in every version of Baseball’s Unlikely: A Constant.
He keeps a dedicated memorabilia room that includes his vast collection of nearly 10,000 unique Angels baseball cards. A season ticket holder for the better part of 15 years, he attended every postseason home game of the Angels’ 2002 World Series championship run.
He was at Angel Stadium for Rod Carew’s 3,000th hit, Don Sutton’s 300th win, and Reggie Jackson’s 537th home run to break his tie with Mickey Mantle. He was there when Eddie Murray of the Baltimore Orioles had a 9-RBI night — a feat documented in Baseball’s Unlikely: A Constant GAME 1.
He was also in person, sitting in the front row behind the Angels dugout, when star slugger Vladimir Guerrero (“Vlad the Impaler”) set the franchise record with 9 RBIs on June 2, 2004, knocking future Hall of Fame Red Sox starter Pedro Martínez out of the game.
He was at County Stadium in Milwaukee on July 31, 1990 to witness Nolan Ryan’s 300th win for the Texas Rangers. He also saw Ryan’s final complete inning pitched and his record-setting 5,714th and final strikeout on September 17, 1993 at Anaheim Stadium — against his former team, the California Angels. Without recording an out in his next start on September 22nd, Ryan abruptly retired with an arm injury.
He was at Dodger Stadium to see Kirk Gibson’s dramatic walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series — and he did not leave early. It was a free ticket from his friend Ron South, whose father owned season tickets but chose to skip the game because Orel Hershiser wasn’t pitching. Hershiser was the only chance the underdog Dodgers had. And they won.
On the road, he witnessed future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor triple for his 3,000th hit at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City while playing for the Minnesota Twins. He was also lucky enough to secure a ticket to the 1989 All-Star Game at Anaheim Stadium through the lottery.
Sadly, he witnessed the final start of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile’s career at Busch Stadium, a victory over the Anaheim Angels on June 18, 2002 — a day that also marked the death of legendary Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck. Kile was found dead in his hotel room on June 22nd in Chicago, before his next start against the Chicago Cubs.
Scott’s career is still active as an editor in Hollywood, California, where over the last 36+ years he has worked on hundreds of productions — including the Oscar-nominated documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream.
Prior to Hollywood, he played in the progressive hard rock band CASSLE, where he wrote and recorded music with lifelong friend Mike Terry. Some of these rare recordings were bootlegged around the world several times, with original copies selling on eBay for extraordinary amounts — which prompted a remastered version with additional tracks, Midnight Fantasy: Extended, released in 2011.
After CASSLE broke up in the mid-’80s, Scott turned to poetry to fill the creative void. His poem “A Dream To Be” was published in American Poetry Anthology 1988, and he earned a spot in Best New Poets of 1988 with another poem, “Bind And Behold.
