Despite Fatigue, Parrish Persists

There are some concessions Lance Parrish can’t avoid making, though by nature he concedes little to age or infirmity and nothing to the Angels’ opponents.

Fatigue is a daily foe for every catcher, and Parrish is finding it difficult to overcome. Exhaustion has robbed his bat of its pop recently, dropping his average to .258--its lowest point since May 24 when he was hitting .255--as the Angels open a two-game series at Anaheim Stadium tonight against one of Parrish’s former teams, the Detroit Tigers.

Though he’s been frustrated lately, the 34-year-old Yorba Linda resident deems this season a success. Of greatest significance to him was proving that a 20-home-run season and All-Star status were still within his reach after injuries and a late fade last year left him with a .238 batting average, 17 homers and 50 RBIs--totals that aren’t embarrassing but hardly up to his standards.

“It’s funny the way things have worked out. My big goal coming into this season was just to stay healthy and make a contribution similar to what I did last year,” said Parrish, who needed most of the off-season to recover from a knee injury he suffered Aug. 5, 1989, in a collision with Milwaukee’s Glenn Braggs.

“I was hoping I’d be able to do a little more offensively, and I’ve been able to do that,” Parrish said. “When I look at the whole, I’m satisfied.”

But not wholly satisfied. He has played in a team-high 121 games and hit a team-high 21 homers, the seventh time in his career he has hit 20 or more, but he fell behind in the team RBI lead last week to Dave Winfield, 66-62.

After peaking July 24 at .296, Parrish has gone 27 for 145 (.186) and is six for 43 in his last 12 games. After striking out five times in 11 at-bats in three games against Seattle last weekend, Parrish’s season total climbed to 103, one short of his total last season.

“Fatigue plays a part, there’s no question,” said Parrish, a career .256 hitter. “Toward the end of the season I have a tendency, like most catchers, to wear down. In a position such as that, you can’t help it happening. I try not to make it the focal point and accept it. I don’t ever say, ‘I’m tired and I can’t do well.’ I know I can still do some things and finish a little stronger. I’m still trying to get things going offensively and I think I can.

“My objective now, because I’m not swinging the bat well, is to finish strong behind the plate. I can still have an impact on how we finish by how I handle the pitchers. If I can do that, whatever I do offensively would be a bonus.”

His strength behind the plate hasn’t dimmed. He has thrown out 44 of 103 base-stealers (43%). But it’s difficult for Parrish not to assess his overall performance by his offensive statistics, the prowess that made him the Tigers’ RBI leader from 1983-85 and won him Silver Slugger Awards in 1980 and ‘82-84.

“My whole career has evolved around my offensive skills, being able to hit home runs and drive runs in,” said Parrish, who signed a three-year contract with the Angels last winter worth $6.75 million. “I could have driven in a few more runs this season but I wasn’t in the position (in the batting order) to do it. If they wanted me to be the big RBI guy, they would have put me more in the middle of the lineup. I did what I could.”

The prospect of facing his former Tiger teammates awakened some fond memories--and some bitter--for Parrish. He left Detroit as a free agent after the 1986 season but found little bidding for his services and signed, almost on the eve of spring training, with the Philadelphia Phillies. He and Andre Dawson were the only two free agents to switch teams in the winter of 1986-87, and an arbitrator later found baseball owners guilty of collusion to restrict players’ movement.

As an offshoot of that second collusion ruling in the players’ favor, Parrish was granted “new-look” free agency last winter after waiving his right to free agency when the Angels acquired him Oct. 3, 1988, from the Phillies for pitching prospect David Holdridge. Parrish, who grew up in Diamond Bar and graduated from Walnut High School, re-signed with the Angels last December but keeps a place in his heart for the Tigers.

“They were my beginning in baseball. I had a lot of good years there, and even though we won it only one year, the whole time I was in Detroit we never had a losing record, something you can be proud to accomplish,” said Parrish, who hit .278 in the Tigers’ five-game victory over the San Diego Padres in the 1984 World Series. “A lot of guys go their whole career and never get in a World Series, let alone win one. I was very fortunate.

“I always envisioned myself playing my whole career there, but you never know how things are going to work out. There were a lot of bad feelings after the collusion. I wanted to stay there--why leave a good thing?

“Circumstances were such that I was at a point in my career where I didn’t have a whole lot of options the way negotiations were being handled. It was in the best interests of me and my family for me to pursue something else. It (signing with Philadelphia) didn’t work out like I thought it would initially, but (things) have now, and I hope to stay in this organization for the rest of my career.”

Their pennant chances long ago crushed, Parrish believes the Angels’ mission for the rest of this season is to salvage what they can from a strong September.

“It just seemed from the outset we weren’t very consistent offensively and we pretty much stayed that way,” he said. “We had our moments, games when we hit all the way through the lineup, but a lot of times we didn’t.

“The biggest thing at this point of the season is that this ballclub has taken on an image of not having played well in September, and we want to shake that. If we finish well this year, that’s a good incentive for everybody to jump in and do a good job from the beginning next year.”