Parker’s Lawyers Say Baseball Ignored Cocaine Use

Lawyers for Dave Parker argued that major league teams ignored evidence in the late 1970s and early 1980s that many top players were drug abusers, because the teams wanted them to keep playing.

Further, they said in court documents filed Friday that Bowie Kuhn, baseball commissioner at the time, failed to act against known abusers, even after his investigator uncovered heavy cocaine use.

Dock Ellis, former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who was a former drug user, said in a sworn statement that in the middle and late 1970s, “The overwhelming majority of major league baseball players in both leagues were substance abusers, and the symptoms were evident and ignored by management.”

The Pirates are suing Parker, now with Oakland, to keep from making $5.3 million in deferred payments owed their former outfielder under the 5-year contract he negotiated in January 1979, shortly after he won the 1978 National League’s Most Valuable Player award.

Parker’s attorney, Louis Willenken, said in a pretrial statement that the Pirates knew about Parker’s cocaine use but ignored it and never complained until it came time to pay him.