3 Former Dodgers Implicated : Howe, Baker, Thomas Are Linked as Parker Tells of Cocaine Use

Dave Parker said Wednesday that the man who was his primary source for cocaine became so well known among the Pittsburgh Pirates and other major league players that “he was selling (drugs) directly and frequently in front” of Three Rivers Stadium after games.

The outfielder, a former Pirate star who is now with the Cincinnati Reds, said that Shelby Greer, a former Pittsburgh resident, gained “unhassled” access to the Pirate locker room because of their friendship and sometimes traveled with the team on road trips at Parker’s request. Parker said he sometimes arranged Greer’s travel with the Pirates’ traveling secretary.

Parker also told the FBI that Greer visited a Pittsburgh hotel room in 1981 and furnished cocaine to Parker, former Pirate outfielder Lee Lacy and Derrel Thomas, Steve Howe and Dusty Baker, then of the Dodgers, according to documents entered as evidence.

Greer, 29, now of Philadelphia, was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on 10 counts of distributing cocaine in Pittsburgh. His case has yet to come to trial.

Parker, testifying in the U.S. District Court trial of another man accused of dealing drugs to major league players, said he first tried cocaine in 1976 while playing winter ball in Venezuela, where he said the drug was plentiful and commonly used by the players, and began using it regularly during the Pirates’ 1979 world championship season.

Parker said that the defendant, Philadelphia caterer Curtis Strong, 38, also became so well known among Parker’s former teammates that he was invited to the Pirates’ 1981 New Year’s Eve party at the home of former team captain Bill Madlock.

In his first courtroom admission of drug use, Parker said he bought cocaine from Strong and used it with him in Pittsburgh and in Philadelphia. Parker testified that Strong also sold the drug to former Pirate teammates Lacy, Dale Berra, John Milner and Rod Scurry.

The two-time National League batting champion said he stopped using cocaine after four years because it was hurting his performance and interfering with his personal life and because friends who used it “were out of control.”

He said he first met Strong in a Pittsburgh hotel room in 1980, with Baker and Thomas also present. He did not say if the four men used cocaine then.

Parker also testified that Strong first sold him cocaine in Pittsburgh in 1981 in the presence of California Angel pitcher Al Holland, then with the San Francisco Giants. Holland has been identified as a friend of Strong and has been linked by others to cocaine use.

Earlier Wednesday, Jeff Leonard of the San Francisco Giants, another witness in the trial, said he has been embarrassed and “can’t really enjoy things” because his cocaine use has become public.