Mud Hens fall in Parrish's 1,000th game
4/30/2010There was no cake, no fireworks, no signs of a celebration at Fifth Third Field last night.
And there were no presents for Larry Parrish in his 1,000th game as Mud Hens manager as Toledo suffered a 2-1 loss to Syracuse in front of a sellout crowd of 10,300.
Parrish said he didn't remember his first game as skipper of the Hens. That game took place in early May of 1994 when, as Detroit's roving hitting instructor, he took over after then-manager Joe Sparks quit.
“I have no idea; should I remember it?” he said yesterday. “I only had clothes with me to stay for a couple of days.”
But there have been a lot of good memories between then and now, including Governors' Cup titles in 2005 and ‘06.
“There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and this is leaps and bounds better,” Parrish said. “The first time we were in the old ballpark, which was a terrible stadium and baseball field.
“There are a lot of good vibes here: it's a great place to play, and you couldn't find a better place to manage than right here.”
Parrish ranks second on the all-time list of Toledo games managed behind Cal Ermer, who led the Hens in 1,115 games from 1978-85. Parrish's 512 victories here is second only to Ermer's total of 540.
Last night Parrish got to manage a pitcher's duel between the Chiefs' Andrew Kown and Toledo's Armando Galarraga. The game was scoreless until the seventh, when Syracuse scored a pair of two-out runs that essentially decided the game.