Letter: Recollections of sharing a birthday
As I have a birthday today, I always remember this close friend of mine, the late Mel Parker. His and my birthday are on the same day.
I knew Mel from 1947 until he passed away in 2000.
One day in 1947, Sept. 14, Mel was mowing the lawn at the JV baseball diamond, and I asked him if my brother Oscar and I could practice baseball there, and he told us yes, as long as we didn’t move his crawling sprinklers.
On July 25, 1950, we bought a house on Santa Cruz Street, right behind Madison School, and Mr. Joe L. Flores was our next door neighbor and he gave me a job at night as a custodian. And once again I met Mel.
Joe Flores and I also became real good friends with him and his wife Katie and two daughters, Marcella who is a doctor in Portland and Joetta who is a teacher at Alpha. While living on Santa Cruz Street, I would see Mel working Saturday and Sunday at the ball diamond, and I would always stop by and help him move his crawling sprinklers and hoses. In 1975 the varsity baseball field was named in his honor, Mel Parker Field. I was so happy because I knew all the good work he had done since 1947-1975, as I was the manager of the Madera Merchants Baseball team from 1950 through 2001.
We used to play at Mel Parker Field. In 1989, we had lots of teams playing there. We had Madera High varsity baseball, American Legion, Babe Ruth League, American Legion playoffs and Babe Ruth playoffs. So I got permission in Fresno to use Fink White Park right off 99 and Fresno Street. I got permission from John Nellun who was the director of parks and recreation, who also was a baseball CIF umpire for high school games, and he told me yes because he knew how Mel and I kept up Mel Parker Field.
So March 1, 1989, before our California-Mexican American League got started, I took Mel on a Saturday morning and worked on the field all day. He worked on the pitcher’s mound and the batter’s box while I drug the field with my pickup. Coming back to Madera and driving in 99 he told me “Eddie one of this days you are going to have a baseball field named after you for all the good work you do for all these young players.” So, last year he was right — they named the varsity baseball field at the South High School Eddie Chapa Field. And this year my wife and I had our first grandson Jonathan playing at grandpa’s field.
They named quite a few things after people — like Mel Parker Field, Joe L. Flores Gym, Larry Zimmerman softball field, BJ Robinson Gym at Thomas Jefferson, Bill McCallister Pool, Lee Da Silva Field, Sonny Nishimoto School, and I feel great being among all these people that I knew while working there.
Eddie Chapa,
Madera
