In lieu of actual baseball, I’ll be posting snippets that were cut from The Baseball Codes as a way of amusing myself and, hopefully, you. Today’s theme: intimidation.

When Dave Parker returned from a broken jaw in 1978, he wore specially fitted headgear for protection. “He would wear a football helmet, said longtime shortstop Chris Speier, describing what was actually a football facemask attached to Parker’s batting helmet. “Here’s a guy who was 6-foot-5, 240, with a fuckin’ mask on, huffing and puffing, yelling, ‘I’m comin’ to get you!’ … When you’ve got that ball at second and you turn and look and you see nothing but this massive man coming at you, can’t even see the first base bag … That feeling he put into you … Oh, god.”