Cobra - by Dave Parker & Dave Jordan (Paperback)

About the Book

Cobra is the autobiography of Dave Parker, one of baseball's greatest and most controversial players in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during the peak of Black participation in Major League Baseball.

Book Synopsis

Dave Parker was one of the biggest and most badass baseball players of the late twentieth century. He was a seven-time All-Star, a two-time batting champion, a three-time Gold Glove winner, the 1978 National League MVP, and a World Series champion with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Oakland A's. Here the great Dave Parker delivers his wild and long-awaited autobiography--an authoritative account of Black baseball during its heyday as seen through the eyes of none other than the Cobra.

Cobra is the story of a Black athlete making his way through the game during a time of major social and cultural transformation. From the racially integrated playing fields of his high school days to the cookie-cutter cathedrals of his prime alongside all the midseason and late-night theatrics that accompany an athlete's life on the road--Parker offers readers a glimpse of all that and everything in between.

Parker recounts the triumphant victories and the heartbreaking defeats, both on and off the field. He recalls the complicated politics of spring training, the early stages of the free agency era, and the notorious 1985 drug trials. Paying tribute to the enduring power of relationships between players, Parker tells an epic tale of friendship, success, indulgence, and redemption, but most of all, family. Cobra is the unforgettable story of a million-dollar athlete just before baseball became a billion-dollar game.

Review Quotes

"For that period of time, he was the greatest player of my generation."--Keith Hernandez

"Cobra is one of the most gripping and revealing baseball memoirs I've ever read. With vivid stories, richly textured characters and unvarnished insights on the good and the bad, Dave Parker and Dave Jordan take the reader on a captivating journey through one of the most compelling careers in baseball history."--Tyler Kepner, New York Times-- (7/10/2021 12:00:00 AM)

"Dave Parker gets his due in Cobra. One of the greatest to ever play the game of baseball. We get to see what made the first Million Dollar Man. He is a giant among men, larger than life."--Chuck D, founding member of Public Enemy

"Dave Parker made a lasting mark on the imagination of an entire generation of baseball fans, standing out with his unforgettable combination of swagger, style, and skill. Cobra is a memoir that's truly worthy of his legend, filled with Parker's insightful, hilarious, and long-overdue perspectives on the game he played, the era he played it in, and the guys he played it with. I've been waiting forty years to read this book, and let me tell you--it was well worth the wait."--Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass

"Dave Parker played hard and he lived hard. Cobra brings us on a unique, fantastic journey back to that time of bold, brash, and styling ballplayers. He reveals in relentless detail who he really was and, in so doing, who we all really were."--Dave Winfield

"Dave Parker's autobiography takes us back to the time when ballplayers still smoked cigarettes, when stadiums were multiuse mammoth bowls, when AstroTurf wrecked knees with abandon, and when Blacks had their largest presence on the field in the game's history. Honest, informative, funny, sad, even at times touching, Parker's book fills a major void about what a great Black ballplayer's life was like in the 1970s and 1980s. I highly recommend it."--Gerald Early, professor of English and chair of the African and African American Studies Department at Washington University in St. Louis

"Impossibly charismatic, remarkably candid, and as cool as his nickname Cobra, Dave Parker is on the short list of the most compelling ballplayers of his generation. It's fitting, then, that in his new and overdue memoir in collaboration with Dave Jordan, Parker tells his story in a way reminiscent of his pair of legendary throws in the 1979 All-Star Game: it's mesmerizing, powerful, and right on the money."--Chad Finn, sportswriter for the Boston Globe

"This is a book that transcends baseball. Dave Parker has finally told his story, and it resonates with the strength and soul that have always made him one of the most compelling, and complicated, figures in baseball history. Cobra is a triumph."--Ricky Cobb (@Super70sSports)

"This is a highly readable and, more importantly, well contextualized work. It provides a chronological recounting of Parker's life, but it also presents insight into what was happening in and around a major league clubhouse during the 1970s and into the next decade."--Jorge Iber, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture

"While reading Cobra you will see a portrait of a man with amazing talent, a huge heart, and the will to be great. You will also see a man who seems to have it all but is still searching for peace of mind and love. There are highlights and low moments, excess and loss, brilliance and poor decisions, brotherhood and disagreements, joy and pain."--Preston Wilson, former MLB All-Star outfielder

About the Author

Dave Parker (1951-2025) was a 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee. He played nineteen seasons in the Major Leagues and was the first million-dollar-per-year player. He created the Dave Parker 39 Foundation, an organization focused on finding a cure for Parkinson's disease. Dave Jordan is a writer and filmmaker living in New Jersey. He has written for Sporting News, SB Nation, and the Hardball Times, and he is the coauthor (with John D'Acquisto) of Fastball John.