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Dixie Parker

Douglas Wooley "Dixie" Parker, born April 24th, 1895 in Forest Home, AL, was a professional baseball player from 1918-1941. He was a resident of Little Rock, AR, from about 1915-1920.

Biography

Parker grew up in Alabama1 but moved to Little Rock with his mother around 1915.2 He attended Little Rock College and in 1918 was given a tryout with the Little Rock Travelers before beginning his professional baseball career, which parts of four decades.

Excerpts

"Douglas Parker, the former Little Rock College athlete, who was recently released by President Allen of the [Little Rock] Travelers, has located a job in Maryland. Doug will be first string catcher with the Hagerstown club of the Blue Ridge League. Doug should go good in that league. He is a heady youngster, has a good arm and learned a lot about batting in the spring. Little Rock fans will pull strong for him to go."3

"The Oklahoma City club of the Western League has bought Douglas Parker, catcher and a Little Rock boy, from the Portsmouth club of the Virginia League. Dug is scheduled to be first catcher with the Oklahoma club next year and is expected to star in the Western League. He will replace Dave Griffith, former Southern Leaguer, who has catching job with Oklahoma City the last two years. Parker is a product of Kavanaugh Field. He worked around the local park for several years and finished the season of 1917 with the Travelers and catch several games. He gave real promise but at that time he was a mere youngster. Dug went to the shipyards the following year and in 1919 he signed with Petersburg and made good. He finished with the best fielding average made by a catcher in the league that season. Last year he was transferred to Portsmouth where he kept up his good work behind the bat and also improved his batting average. Douglas is the son of Mrs. Fannie Parker of Little Rock and several years ago was a student at Little Rock College."4

Stats

Statistics at Baseball-Reference.com.
2 Parker's mother Fannie Parker (widow of William A. Parker) first appears in Little Rock city directories in 1915. Fannie and Douglas appear living in Little Rock in the 1920 U.S. Census.