E334: Scott Parker - For the Love of the Game
Scott Parker, creator of Baseball’s Unlikely, joins Back2Basics to share the inspiring story behind a nearly 40-year passion project built from baseball’s strangest, funniest, and most unforgettable moments. By day, Scott built a creative career as a Hollywood online editor and colorist, including work on Naked and Afraid; by passion, he spent decades collecting baseball clippings, ballpark memories, and “you can’t make this up” stories that eventually became a unique book series structured like an actual baseball game. From almost getting signed by Geffen Records to meeting Farrah Fawcett before the 1989 World Series earthquake, Scott’s journey is a reminder that passion does not expire, it simply waits for the right inning.
Learn more about Scott at : https://www.instagram.com/baseballsunlikely/
Show Notes
⚾ [03:14] First game in 1973: Angels vs. Dodgers with Aunt Elva
🎸 [03:56] Discovering KISS's Destroyer: "If they can do this, why can't I?"
🏢 [05:38] Almost signed to Geffen Records: "Timing is everything"
🎬 [06:35] Reinventing himself as an online editor after the band dissolved
📺 [07:45] Coloring *Naked and Afraid* for nearly 40 years
✍️ [09:56] The 40-year passion project: Collecting baseball clippings since the early 90s
👨💼 [16:10] The persistent friend Rusty: "How's your book coming?"
🚿 [20:36] Best story titles come from the shower
🤖 [22:00] AI hallucinations: Baseball history is too complicated for AI to get right
📚 [25:08] Book structure: No chapters, organized like a baseball game
🎬 [27:50] Favorite baseball movies
🎬 [30:11] Meeting Mike Myers and Farrah Fawcett in Hollywood
📈 [32:23] About 50 new stories per year—keeping the series alive
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By trade, I am an editor/colorist in the motion picture industry and worked so many hours that it was impossible to put this book together. Until now!
I’m looking forward to sharing my lifelong dream of creating this series of books for the fellow fan that, to date, no one else has ever done before.
The brand is "Baseball's Unlikely." Unlikely tells you most of what you need to know about the brand and what to expect. The official title is "Baseball's Unlikely: A Constant." So constant that I have two full books of these "unlikely" events totaling 600 uniquely-told stories through the eyes of a fan... ME! The first book is GAME 1 with the second book predictably being tagged as GAME 2. It took nearly four decades of collecting these stories as well as taking 99.99% of the pictures taken at the 37 Major League ballparks I have been to.
Being a creative guy since birth, the book does not contain chapters. The "chapters" instead mimic the game. The first "chapter" is Spring Training which is how every new season of baseball begins. It covers the more known historic moments before embarking into the game.
The next "chapter" is Pre-Game Warmup that gives historic insights into the technologies that bring the games into our homes from the ballparks many miles away.
Instead of a Glossary, there is "The Scorecard," which is something fans would purchase at a game to keep score in. This area is reserved for acronyms and words that the casual fan may or may no… Read More
