Jeff Parker traded in his professional baseball career as a front office executive so he could go flip burgers. Now he is doing both as a successful Five Guys Burgers and Fries franchise owner of multiple locations and the new coach of the Discovery Canyon High School baseball team.

“It’s a community service for what the game has given me,” Parker said of the Discovery Canyon job. “I’m giving something back to the game.”

Parker, 51, has a long and storied history in baseball. He was a batboy for the then California Angels in the 1980s and worked his way up in the organization to the director of player development, laying the groundwork for the 2002 club that won on the team’s only World Series title.

Parker then spent some time as the general manager of the Double-A Altoona Curve of the Eastern League, and had a partial ownership in the Chicago Cubs’ Double-A Minor League team, the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx in Jackson, Tenn. Parker left baseball in 2008 after a 22-year career in the sport and now lives the life of a burger king.

Parker said he learned a valuable life lesson from current Angels skipper Joe Maddon in the 1990s when Maddon was the organization’s field director.

“He told me, ‘Control what you can control,’ ” Parker said of Maddon, who piloted the Chicago Cubs to the 2016 World Series championship.

Parker still keeps in touch with many of his former baseball colleagues, including Maddon, an Angels coach from 1993-2005, and Tim Mead, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and former Angels’ director of communications.

“I check in with those guys from time to time,” Parker said.

Parker was born and raised in Orange, Calif. He started his big league career at the age of 15 in 1986 as an Angels’ batboy. He was promoted to clubhouse manager in 1988, and two years later, Bill Bavasi moved Parker into the front office. Parker was sent to scout school and made assistant director of scouting and player development. Parker became director of player development in 1998.

Parker took over the Discovery Canyon program last summer after Justin Ross resigned. Parker and Ross have been acquaintances since the 1990s when Ross was an outfielder/first baseman in the Angels’ organization.

“I released Justin,” Parker said with a grin. “Justin was a good player, but he was one of those 94% of players in the minor leagues that were there to give that 6% a chance to play in the big leagues. Justin went on to bigger and better things.”

Parker has enjoyed many baseball thrills in the dugout as a batboy and in the front office. But he insists one of his greatest thrills in baseball came on July 18, 2018, when his 11- to 12-year-old Academy Little League All-Star team won the Colorado state championship at Northern Lights Fields in Thornton.

“The other things (I was part of with the Angels) were great, but they don’t make me tear up like this does,” Parker said at the time.

CHSAA has delayed the start of the high school baseball season to late April due to its concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. But that has not detoured Parker from getting to know his players on and off the field.

The Thunder are playing in a non-CHSAA sanctioned spring league that will run until the start of the prep season. Discovery Canyon players are getting to play up to 15 games.

Last summer and fall, Parker and his team played more than two dozen games.

“I saw the character of these kids and I wanted to be involved,” Parker said.

Parker’s coaching staff includes former Pine Creek pitching coach Norm Churchill, as well as catching and hitting instructor Jason Moeller.

Parker seems to be a grounded guy. The Black Forest resident is entrenched in the community. All four of his kids attend Academy District 20 schools.

When he’s not coaching baseball or tending to his duties as a husband and father, Parker keeps a close eye on his Five Guys restaurants located around the state.