Douglas Parker: From Watergate to the World Series

Doug Parker is a retired attorney who worked for the legendary Len Garment in a white-shoe NYC law firm. After his narrow loss to JFK in 1960, the firm gained a new partner, Richard Nixon. When Nixon regained the White House in 1968, he brought along some of his former associates, including Doug. When the Watergate scandal broke, Parker represented President Nixon in front of the "steely-eyed Judge Sirica" during one of the most tumultuous political moments in American history (until now). We also talked about one of his most important, and fun, cases, representing the Toronto Blue Jays as one of their players tried to get out of his contract, and major league baseball, to go the NBA and play for Red Auerbach as he built the Boston Celtics into world champions. That erstwhile infielder was named Danny Ainge. A lifelong Cubs fan, Doug is also one of the few people to span both World Series appearances, between 1948 and 2016. He also wrote the only authorized biography of famed humorist Ogden Nash: 'The only way to keep your marriage brimming / with love in the loving cup / whenever you're wrong admit it / whenever you're right, shut up.' Or 'Oh what a tangled web parents do weave / whenever they think their kids are naive. We talked about the parlous state of American politics, the decades of "wait'll next year!" that Cubs and Buffalo Bills fans have endured, and why Ojai is a special place. We did not talk about walleye rigs, the Humboldt current or Japanese confections.