Backroads and Ballplayers #9
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from the days when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Always free and always short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
Updates, Hall of Fame Thoughts, Spiderman, and One More Cup of Coffee Story…
Happy June. Baseball season is in the middle third and some trends are looking more like surprises than aberrations. Shohei Otani has become more like a very good pitcher and a very good power hitter whose combined skills will earn him about a half billion dollars but in a different uniform. (Dodgers?) That kind of money would seem absurd to Babe Ruth. In fact, it seems unreal to me also.
The Rays seem to be the real deal, and isn’t Acuna something? If he continues at his present pace he can become the first 40 home run and 50 steals guy in history.
Are you ready to pick the World Series winner? This week subscribers were invited to enter a “Pick the World Series Champion” contest. If you have not subscribed, you can do now and enter the contest. There is no catch, subscriptions are completely free and worth every penny!
In May, Gavin Stone became the 163rd Arkansas-born player in big league history. After three shaky starts, he is back with the Oklahoma City Dodgers. Stone had a pretty good outing Saturday, but control problems are keeping him out of the National League. That can be fixed. We will see him in the “Show” again.
“Spiderman” in the Hall of Fame
One of the inescapable facts that compelled me to write about the history of Arkansas baseball was that of the 163 Arkansas-born men who have played in major leagues, about 70% were born before World War II. The only Hall of Fame Arkansan I have seen live on television is Brooks Robinson and Arkansas baseball fans younger than 70 may not recall seeing any Hall of Famer from our state.
Or, maybe they have…
In the 2023 selection process, little attention was paid to the men on the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) Hall of Fame ballot who were removed from the ballot because of a lack of support. Eligible players on the ballot were dropped if they failed to receive 5% of the vote. Torii Hunter of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, received 6.9% and remains on the list for the 2024 selection.
Hunter was the lowest vote-getter of those players who survived the cut and is likely too far back to be selected by the BBWAA. A closer look may improve his resume, but with Joe Mauer and Chase Utley added to a ballot with potential Hall of Famers Andrew Jones, Billy Wagner, and Todd Helton, things do not look good for Torii any time soon. On the JAWS sabermetric (Jaffe Wins Above Replacement Score developed by sabermetrics guy Jay Jaffe) Hunter is 35th all-time among center fielders, just behind Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett and above several old-timers selected when the “eye test” ruled over math.
Torii Kedar Hunter was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on July 18, 1975, the son of a school-teacher mom and an often-absent father. Hunter was an Arkansas high school standout in football, basketball, and track, but he was one of the top teenage baseball prospects in the country. Razorback baseball coach Norm DeBriyn signed him in the spring of 1993, but a lucrative pro offer was a hard thing to turn down.
In an interview with Sarah Coleman in Arkansas Money and Politics in 2022, Hunter revealed he was originally planning to be a Razorback in the fall until he was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (20th overall) of the 1993 MLB June Amateur Draft. According to Hunter the Twins’ offer was “too good to refuse.” It turned out to be a good decision. By age 22 Hunter was in the major leagues.
In the early years of his big-league career, most of his accolades came from his spectacular plays in center field, especially his acrobatic leaps above the wall to steal home runs. Sports Center highlights of Torii Hunter planting his foot on the wall and grabbing a sure home run became an every-week staple. Sammy Sosa is credited with giving Hunter the nickname “Spiderman.”
In Torii Hunter’s words, “When I see that little white ball go up I want to catch it, no matter if I have to knock myself silly doing it, so be it.” Hunter won nine consecutive Gold Gloves from 2001 to 2009. He was simply the best defensive center fielder in baseball.
After injuries diminished his astonishing defense skills at about the mid-point of his career, his hitting continued to improve. He finished his almost 2400-game baseball career with nearly 2,500 hits and more than 350 home runs. Hunter finished in the top 25 in the MVP vote five times and made five appearances in the All-Star Game.
Inexplicably, he seems destined to eventually drop off the BBWAA ballot, but there may be a phone call from the Hall of Fame in his future. Respected ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney predicts that although he may be missed in the current selections, [Hunter] “will be voted in by a special committee someday.”
Cup of Coffee
Last week I introduced a group of former major leaguers who are definitely not going to make the Hall of Fame. After their big-league debut, they did not appear in another major-league game. I often wonder how they felt in hindsight knowing the second chance was never going to come. Were they proud to have made it to baseball's highest level or forever frustrated they played in only one big league game? That question is especially relevant to Arkansas’ equivalent of Moonlight Graham.
A “Cup of Coffee” in major league baseball has become an unfortunate phrase that trivializes a very short big-league career. Of those brief big-league stays, a thousand or so men played only one game at baseball’s highest level. In approximately two dozen of these brief Cup of Coffee careers, the player did not pitch, come to bat, or play in the field. Those poignant biographies include one speedy young man from Charleston, Arkansas.
Otis Davis played in the major leagues, a dream for every boy who ever picked up a bat and glove. To those who dream the dream as youngsters, the length of their major league career never comes into question. In the dream, they play lengthy, distinguished careers filled with last-inning walk-off home runs or World Series no-hitters. In the dream, they bask in the adoration of loyal fans and become renowned superstars in the game they love.
For those fortunate enough to realize some variation of the dream, fulfilled by actually reaching the big leagues, the reality is often much less grandiose. These less distinguished major league careers are nonetheless treasured by former major leaguers. Each time at bat, or the simple act of trotting out to play in the field in a major league ballpark, is permanently recorded as a cherished memory. At least that is the case with almost every man who ever donned a major league uniform.
Otis “Scat” Davis was born in 1920 near Charleston, Arkansas. The son of a coal miner, he was born just in time for some of rural Arkansas’s toughest years. The Great Depression hit the rural South hard. Davis’ mother died in 1929, and his father struggled to feed five children as a single parent. He later recalled, in an interview with baseball historian Jim Sargent, that because he was needed to help support the family, it took him a few extra years to finish high school.
Davis had excelled in all sports at Charleston High School. And since baseball was the only sport that offered a way to play for money, he took a chance. After graduation, he found his way to the Ban Johnson Amateur League in the Kansas City area. Davis was playing with Maryville in the BJL in 1941 when the Cardinals discovered him and offered him a contract.
Scat Davis spent the 1942 season traveling the Cardinal farm system from Louisiana to West Virginia, and finally to Canada, where he finished the season. By late summer he was batting .281 in about 100 at-bats with Hamilton when the reality of the times came calling. In early August, like so many young men in America, he enlisted in military service with the US Navy.
Otis Davis could run. Early in his career, he had earned the nickname “Scat” because of his speed. His ability to run the bases well and chase down potential hits in the outfield was astonishing, considering he seriously injured his knee in high school. The knee was so bad, in fact, that the Navy soon granted Davis a medical discharge because his knee would not hold up in basic training. Before the knee repairs that are commonplace today, Scat Davis played his entire career with the troublesome knee.
The Cardinals sent Davis back to the PONY League for the 1943 season where he hit .328 and earned a promotion to Rochester. The 1944 season was a huge jump in the quality of competition. Davis’ batting average fell to .241, although he was in the lineup almost every day.
In 1945, the Cards tried Davis at Rochester again to start the season, and once again he seemed overmatched. He was hitting under .200 when the Cardinals sent him down to Allentown, Pennsylvania in the Class B Interstate League. Scat Davis caught fire in Allentown. He was able to get in 55 games and batted .350 in the second half of the season. Although the war was ending, and the pro baseball players in the military would be coming home the next spring, Davis had earned a good look by the Cardinals in 1946.
When the Cardinals left Florida for St. Louis after spring training in 1946, 25-year-old Scat Davis was on the train. Davis’ time in St. Louis was brief, however, and he never saw the field in the three games he sat on the Cardinals’ bench. A transaction notice ran in the sports pages on April 20, announcing Davis had been sold to the Dodgers the previous day for the minimum wavier price of $7,500.
Scat Davis arrived in Brooklyn to join the Dodgers while they were playing a weekend series with the crosstown New York Giants. Davis did not play in the series, but he made his debut on Monday, April 22nd when the Dodgers started a series with a day game against the Boston Braves.
Boston had built a 4—2 lead going into the bottom of the 9th inning. With some younger players in the lineup, Durocher still had some of his veterans on the bench. One of these veterans was Eddie Stanky, a crafty hitter, who had set a league record with 148 walks in 1945. Stanky would lead the league in walks again in 1946. And predictably, when called on to pinch-hit for the pitcher in the ninth, Stanky walked.
Durocher sent Scat Davis in to run for Stanky, to get a faster runner on base. Davis moved to second when another pinch hitter, rookie Bob Ramazzotti, also walked. With runners on first and second, future Hall of Famer Billy Herman fouled off two bunts before getting one successfully down to advance Davis and Ramazzotti. Davis raced toward third on all three bunt attempts. And on one of the 90-foot sprints and slides into third, he reinjured his bad knee. Davis stayed in the game and limped home on a double later in the inning.
When Boston failed to score in their half of the 10th, Billy Herman’s RBI single won the game for the Dodgers. Scat Davis had played in a major league game and taken part in the 9th-inning comeback. Although his knee was swollen and sore after the game, he had no reason to fear he had played his last major league game.
A few days later, it was obvious Scat Davis could no longer run on his bad knee. The Dodgers sent the rookie down to Montreal and later to Fort Worth to rehab his tender knee. After a handful of games for each minor league team, Davis knew his knee needed rest. He headed back to his adopted hometown of Rochester, New York, married in August, and settled into retirement from baseball.
Retirement lasted only one winter. After resting his injured knee, Davis had second thoughts. Perhaps motivated by his brief stay in the big leagues, he tried minor league baseball for two more seasons. Although he played well, Davis knew he was a player on the way down rather than on his way to the majors.
Thirteen Arkansans had a one-game “Cup of Coffee” in major league baseball. Only one failed to bat, play in the field, or pitch. When Scat Davis was asked if he still had dreams about a different outcome, he answered,
“Moonlight Graham played the field, but he never got to bat. I’d like to have batted, but I could have gone 1-for-1, or I could have struck out.” “Think about this,” Davis added about the opportunity to pinch run, “What if Eddie Stanky had struck out? If he doesn’t get on base, what happens to my shot at the big leagues?”
Big news about Hard Times and Hardball coming next week.
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