Tim Parker has been around Major League Soccer for a long time and, between playing and his time as a player rep with MLS Players Association, has seen a lot.
Still, when St. Louis City SC traded its vice captain and starting center back to New England on Aug. 2, it drove home a lesson. He already knew that professional sports are ultimately a business, but ...
"This trade," he told the Post-Dispatch by phone Wednesday from the Revolution's training facility, "I think it put a really good stamp on how much of a business it is."
Parker will get to see his former teammates -- and bosses -- face to face Saturday when City SC travels to Foxborough, Massachusetts, to play the Revolution. There's no guarantee Parker will play, having not gotten off the bench in the first two games he has played since becoming eligible to play for the Revs. ("Just kind of getting my bearings," he said.) But it would seem that New England coach Caleb Porter would be missing a really good moment for Parker to make his New England debut.
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Being on another team at this point in the season was not something Parker expected. As negotiations with the team on a new contract had made no progress, he had accepted being a free agent after the season and seeing what the market would bring. But getting traded? He didn't see that one coming, and it likely may not have happened had New England not started clearing payroll from its roster for a rebuild, which led to it being willing to trade center back Henry Kessler and take on Parker's expiring contract.
Parker has been candid about his feelings about the trade, which he first expressed on a podcast and reiterated to the Post-Dispatch.
"It is definitely a jolt to the system," Parker said, "especially when you're not expecting something like this. But there's been times in my career where something like this has been a little bit foreseen. This may not have been foreseen. Midseason is never really an ideal time for these things to happen, but it's an opportunity for me to go somewhere and hopefully have an impact again."
One of the toughest parts of the trade has been leaving behind in St. Louis his wife, Kelsey, and son, Rory, who just turned 1. (Rory may be more closely associated with City SC than any child born in St. Louis, considering how Parker used scoring the first goal in franchise history to announce his wife's pregnancy.) Parker is living by himself in an apartment in the Boson area, and twice since the trade, he has been able to get away and get back to St. Louis for a day or two with his family, where his presence provokes second looks.
"I think I've seen a couple of people that have recognized me but kind of questioning if was actually me," he said. "My neighbors are always asking why I'm back in town."
What has bothered Parker the most about the move was the negotiations that led up to it. He was one of the highest-paid players on the team, with a base salary of $1 million, part of which was being picked up by his previous team, Houston. At 31, he was also one of the oldest players on the team, but he also had been a finalist for the league's defensive player of the year award the season before. The two sides were a good distance apart in negotiations.
"It was a business move, a very simple move," City SC sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel said recently. "Tim was a very important member in the first year and also in the second year, but we also were aware that his contract runs out at the end of '24. We started to negotiate very early in the year, and it was always very clear that we want to keep the player. At the end of the day, it came down that we couldn't find an agreement, and we had an opportunity to go for a trade with Henry Kessler, who is younger, who has a contract, and that's why we made the decision."
The word Parker uses to describe how negotiations went is "interestingly." As much as money is the main factor in these negotiations, he was also looking for a contract with some length to it.
"At the end of the day," he said, "what I was looking for, and what I had voiced, wasn't really in line with what the club was looking for. In terms of what I was looking for, it was a little bit of a commitment from the club. They weren't really willing to commit. That kind of caused, I guess, a little bit of, I don't really want to say a market for me, but at the end of the day, it did. It just created this little spot where I was like: Look, this isn't something that you guys are willing to discuss. I'm a free agent at the end of the year. I have to be able to leverage that opportunity as well.
"Unfortunately, this business is a business at the end of the day. As much as you don't like to think it is, it always is. That's definitely a lesson learned for me."
The team did offer Parker the chance to decline the trade, but he wasn't sure what that would mean for him in terms of playing time at City SC the rest of the season, and he felt it important to keep playing to put him in a better position for whatever comes next.
"I decided to take the opportunity to go to New England and continue to try to get games, play and obviously showcase myself to New England itself but also to the rest of the league that I'll be a free agent during the offseason. Unless something happens here in New England beforehand, I'll be a free agent, and I'm still healthy and ready to play."
One thing no trade can take away is Parker's memories of that golden inaugural season, starting with his goal against Austin and going to where City SC tied the record for most wins by an expansion team and became the first expansion team to finish first in its conference in the regular season. There will always be plenty to remember.
"I think the way the city and fans were able to embrace me," he said. "It really embraced myself, my family and the team. I think that first year was something magical. It's not something that I'll soon forget, that's for sure. It's just unfortunate it was short-lived."
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