RSN: The main character of “Double Play” -- Burke -- has nerves of steel. So, too, did the man the story has him protecting: the real-life Jackie Robinson. Where, in your eyes, does Robinson rate among America's true heroes?
RP: I wouldn't attempt to rate him numerically, but surely the enormous grace he displayed under vast pressure, and the impact he had on American civilization, and the difference he made in the lives of Americans, make him one of the great men of the 20th century.
RSN: A key aspect of the book is your coming of age while following Robinson and his team. Among the memorable lines in these pages is: "What I cared about was sex and the Brooklyn Dodgers." Talk about the role those years played in your life.
RP: The signing of Robinson made the team I loved not only the team I loved, but a standard for moral conduct. They were not only playing well, they were doing THE RIGHT THING.
RSN: Tell us about your lifetime following baseball. Does it mirror Doris Kearns Goodwin's evolution from a Brooklyn fan to a Red Sox fan, which she has described as "a rather ominous progression?"
RP: Well, I like baseball, and the Sox are the local baseball team. I suppose I followed Doris, but without the passion that an adolescent kid can bring. I loved the Dodgers from the time I was nine. When they moved to LA I was 25 and my wife was pregnant with our first son. My adulthood and their betrayal coincided, and other things took precedence.
RSN: You and Robinson each served in the military. Like yourself, Burke saw action in the war, barely surviving a battle. Talk about the survivor symbolism that parallels Robinson and Burke.
RP: One of the reasons one uses "symbolism" (not always in full consciousness) is that it enables one to talk about the otherwise inexplicable. I guess that’s my answer.
RSN: You share a birthday with Rube Foster, a Hall of Famer, who played a major role in Negro League history. In the book you touch upon the damage integration did to the Negro Leagues. Do you have any memories of that part of baseball history, or of barnstorming?
RP: Very few. I knew the Negro Leagues existed. I never saw a game, and had some sort of vague sense of the fact that some of the teams barnstormed.
RSN: You include several box scores in the book. Tell us their significance.
RP: My intention was to remind people of who was playing in the big leagues in 1947. Also, I think the box scores, with the names now nearly 60 years gone, give one some sense of era.
RSN: You do a fine job of capturing the essence of the ballpark, writing that "Everything's in place…all the way it should be." Does that feeling still live with you when you visit Fenway Park?
RP: Sure, all is orderly in a ball park. The game is a product of rules often arbitrary (why 3 strikes -- why not 2 or 4?) and while you may not agree on whether the third strike was a strike, you don't even think to argue that even if it was 3 strikes you should not be out. Thus, while there is disagreement, there is never disorder and every time you go the grass is green and the clay is reddish -- and the Monster is green.
RSN: How often do you make it down for a game?
RP: I don't go live all that often. Television is nice. That way I can listen to the Remdawg!
RSN: The Dodgers are coming to Fenway Park this weekend, for the first time. What does that mean to you?
RP: Nothing much. They are the Los Angeles Dodgers. They don't count. And I don't like inter-league play either.
RSN: You spent your boyhood listening to Red Barber. Do you still enjoy radio baseball, including Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano?
RP: I love the sound a game broadcast makes. Jonathan Schwartz, the New York radio guy, used to talk about the sounds of his childhood, coming back from Jones Beach on a Sunday afternoon in August, listening on the car radio to the second game of a double-header where the Yankees were beating the A's 15 to 2. One didn't even fully know the score, but was charmed by the sound of play-by-play. I like our guys.
RSN: Talk about the baseball references that can be found in your novels. Have they existed primarily to give "Boston flavor" to the settings, or did they in any way portend that a baseball related novel was coming someday?
RP: They did not portend a baseball story to come. I have no such master plan. I guess they simply seemed a good idea at the time.
RSN: Was any thought given to "Double Play" being a Spenser novel? How different would it have been, and could you have told the same story?
RP: No, I gave no thought to it as Spenser. One point about the book is how damaged Burke is and how Robinson helps redeem him, i.e. Burke saves Robinson; but Robinson saves Burke. Spenser (aside from being a boy in 1947) is already redeemed!
RSN: What are some of your memories of the Red Sox from that era -- the Ted Williams years?
RP: They always seemed to me a great team which underachieved. It was fashionable in those days to think of them as a "country club" team. That attitude, if memory serves (and it doesn't always), was promoted by the Colonel, Dave Egan, in his column in the Record.
RSN: The Red Sox reportedly turned down a chance to sign Jackie Robinson prior to Branch Rickey’s doing so. What are your thoughts on the team's racial past, and how different history would be -- including your own, as a fan -- had Robinson played here instead of in Brooklyn?
RP: The Sox were the last team to take advantage of the vast talent pool that was untapped prior to 1947, and probably suffered the consequences of limiting their talent selection to white only. I would have been a Dodger fan regardless.
RSN: Baseball has long mirrored society, and America is a different place than it was when young Bobby Parker loved the Dodgers. Looking back at Ebbetts Field, The Dodger Sym-Phony, and Hilda Chester's cowbell, did you grow up in the true Golden Age of baseball?
RP: I think so, but I suspect most people's youth seems a golden age to them.
RSN: When you played stickball as a youth, which Dodger did you pretend to be?
RP: Because I was a first baseman, I pretended to be Gil Hodges.
RSN: The Dodgers, after a history of heartbreaking seasons, finally won the World Series in 1955. What did that mean to you at the time?
RP: I was in the army in Korea at that time and listened at a very odd hour over Armed Forces Network, and found it thrilling, but less so than the prospect of going home.
RSN: Will the Red Sox ever do what Brooklyn finally did -- win a championship?
RP: It seems unlikely that the Sox will never win a World Series again. Maybe this is the year.
RSN: Are there any Red Sox players who could someday appear in one of your books?
RP: You never can tell when Kevin Youkilis will show up in a novel.
RSN: Any reason?
RP: Nope.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Robert Parker is one of the best mystery novelists of our time. Would we have really wanted him to give a reason, rather than leave us guessing?
