I just
had to give two time batting champ Tommy Davis, a fellow Brooklynite, a
card in my long-running 1971 "Minor League Days" sub-set since I feel
the man is a bit overlooked.
So here you go:
Davis
was a 19-year-old Minor League stud when this photo was taken while
playing for the Victoria Rosebuds back in 1958, a season split with the
Montreal Royals that saw him hit .304 with 14 homers and 74 runs batted
in over 136 games.
He
would put in one more year in the Minors the following season, a
monster, hitting .345 with 211 hits for Spokane before a late-season
call-up where he appeared in one game for Los Angeles.
In
1960 he was off to the races, going on to play 18 years in the Big
Leagues, the highlight being his 1962 season when he won the first of
his two straight batting titles, hitting .346 with 230 hits, 27 homers,
153 RBIs and 120 runs scored.
Incredibly,
those numbers only got him a third place finish in the National league
MVP race at season's end, with teammate Maury Wills taking the award and
Willie Mays seemingly robbed with a second place finish.
By the time he finished up, he played in 1999 games, with a nice
.294 lifetime average, 2121 hits, 153 homers and 1052 runs batted in.
The advent of the Designated Hitter prolonged his career between
1973 and 1976, as the previous few years were sporadic efforts at best
with no less than five teams: the White Sox, Pilots, Astros, A's and
Cubs.
As a D.H. he found new life with the Baltimore Orioles as their main "man with the bat" between 1973 and 1975.
One last thought: interesting to remember that between 1949 and 1998,
Tommy Davis was the ONLY Major League player to reach 150+ runs batted
in for a season, when he did so in 1962, funny enough the ONLY time he
even topped 100 in his 18-year career.
Go figure...
