American baseball player (born 1961)
Baseball player
George Earl "Storm" Davis
(born December 26, 1961) is an American former professional
baseball
player who
pitched
in the
major leagues
from 1982 to 1994. He is a two-time
World Series
champion.
World Series experience
[
edit
]
Davis was the winning pitcher for the
Baltimore Orioles
in Game Four of the
1983 World Series
versus the
Philadelphia Phillies
. He was the losing pitcher for the Oakland Athletics in Games Two and Five of the
1988 World Series
versus the
Los Angeles Dodgers
.
In 1989, he won a career-high 19 games for the A's during a season which the A's won 99 games, more than any other team in
Major League Baseball
. After Davis (and reliever
Rick Honeycutt
) pitched in the only
AL Championship Series game
that the A's lost that year, Davis was originally scheduled to be the A's starting pitcher for Game Four of the
1989 World Series
.
[1]
When the
Loma Prieta earthquake
caused Game 3 to be delayed by ten days,
Tony La Russa
decided to re-use the winners of Games 1 and 2,
Dave Stewart
and
Mike Moore
, as the starting pitchers of Games 3 and 4; La Russa also penciled in Davis as the starting pitcher for Game 6, if necessary.
[1]
La Russa's strategy worked: both Stewart and Moore won their games, and Davis, publicly angry at La Russa for the change,
[1]
became a
free agent
at the end of the season.
[2]
1989-1991
[
edit
]
Years later, Dave Stewart described Davis as the "best fifth starter [Stewart] had ever [seen]....[Davis] pitched 165-170 innings (actually 169), won 19 games (19-7) and spent some time doing a pretty good job out of the bullpen, too. Storm was the perfect fifth starter."
[3]
Stewart's high opinion of Davis' 1989 season is not shared by
sabermetrician
Bill James
, who cites Davis' 19-7 winning record as a canonical example of how a pitcher's win-loss record can be misleading.
[4]
After the 1989 season, the
Kansas City Royals
signed Davis to a three-year, $6 million contract; this turned out to be a major blunder. Davis had an
ERA
that was worse than the league average in 1989, but Royals pitching coach
Frank Funk
said, "We don't want pitchers with good ERA's. We want pitchers with wins."
[5]
In his two seasons in Kansas City, Davis had a
win?loss record
of 10?19. He pitched mostly in relief in 1991 before being traded to the Baltimore Orioles.
[2]
Later career
[
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]
Starting with the 1991 season, Davis made the majority of his appearances as a
relief pitcher
out of the
bullpen
. Following the 1991 season, he was traded by the Royals to the
Baltimore Orioles
for backup catcher
Bob Melvin
. During his second stint in Baltimore, Davis teamed with relievers
Todd Frohwirth
,
Alan Mills
, and closer
Gregg Olson
to form one of the better bullpens in the American League.
On December 8, 1992, Davis signed a 2-year, $2 million contract with the
Oakland Athletics
, reuniting with A's manager
Tony LaRussa
and pitching coach
Dave Duncan
.
[6]
The deal did not work out for either side, with the 1993 Athletics posting their worst record in 10 seasons, ultimately finishing last in the division. Davis was released mid-season on July 9, after posting a 2?6 record with a 6.18 ERA in 19 appearances over 62 innings, including 8 games started. On July 23, Davis signed with the
Detroit Tigers
, a team that was leading the AL in runs scored, but had the second-highest ERA.
[7]
Pitching exclusively out of the bullpen, Davis posted a 3.06 ERA over 35.1 innings, with 4 saves. Davis returned to the Tigers in 1994. Again pitching exclusively as a reliever, he posted a 3.56 ERA over 48 innings.
In 1995, Davis appeared in 4 games for the
AAA
Indianapolis Indians
, at the time the top minor league affiliate of the
Cincinnati Reds
.
[8]
Pitching style
[
edit
]
Jim Palmer
remembered that Davis was very coachable. "The thing about Storm was you could practically program him, tell him what to throw and he'd just throw it."
[9]
Coaching
[
edit
]
Davis formerly served as pitching coach for the
Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp
, a Class AA farm team for the
Miami Marlins
. He is currently coaching at Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville.
Personal life
[
edit
]
According to his 1987 Topps baseball card, Davis' nickname derived from a character in a book his mother read while pregnant. Another story traces his nickname to similarities with Palmer, the Orioles' Cy Young Award-winning pitcher; he was a "cyclone" or "storm."
[10]
Storm Davis' parents are the adoptive parents of
Glenn Davis
,
[11]
also a former major league player.
Davis worked as head baseball coach at
The Bolles School
for the 2008 and 2009 seasons after spending the previous two seasons as an assistant on the Bolles baseball staff. He resigned to become pitching coach at Low-A Hickory team in the Texas Rangers organization.
Davis' son Zachary played football for the
Liberty University
Flames. He is currently the head football coach for the class AAA Buckhannon-Upshur High School Buccaneers in Buckhannon, West Virginia.
[12]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Davis Is Still Angered by Switch
, an October 22, 1989 article from
The New York Times
- ^
a
b
"Storm Davis Statistics and History"
. baseball-reference.com. Retrieved November 27, 2011.
- ^
Storm Davis Stats
from baseball-almanac.com
- ^
Bill James Answers All Your Baseball Questions
, an April 2008 blog entry from the
Freakonomics
blog
- ^
Neyer, Rob (2006).
Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders
. Simon and Schuster. pp. 230-233.
- ^
"NOTEBOOK - The Washington Post"
.
The Washington Post
.
- ^
"Tigers Sign Storm Davis After Athletics Let Him Go"
. July 24, 1993.
- ^
https://img.mlbstatic.com/milb-images/image/upload/milb/gmij8lynq9qimvspljxy.pdf
[
bare URL PDF
]
- ^
Palmer, Jim; Dale, Jim (1996).
Palmer and Weaver: Together We Were Eleven Foot Nine
. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel. p. 155.
ISBN
0-8362-0781-5
.
- ^
"Storm Davis"
. Retrieved
July 29,
2009
.
- ^
Schmuck, Peter.
"Storm Davis' Double Reunion with Orioles and Glenn Davis"
.
The Baltimore Sun
. December 18. 1991.
- ^
"Warrior Football"
.
kcs.kana.k12.wv.us
. Retrieved
September 26,
2017
.
External links
[
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]