I'm Guilty of Complaining That Players Change Teams Too Much - Let's Look at Someone From My Childhood

I remember Tommy Davis as a bench player in the 1970s.  I also couldn't think of what team he primarily associated with after his early career with the Dodgers.

Sure this card shows him as an Oriole and I know he played for both Chicago teams.  I don't have a best guess so I checked out baseball-reference.com.

Things I didn't know since I'm too young - he won two NL batting titles (1962,1963).  The only year he surpassed 100 RBIs he not only led the league, he had 153 RBIs (1962) - still a Dodger record.  1962 was also his only season with over 200 hits.  He crushed that number with 230 hits.

In 1963 he led the league in batting, hits and RBIs but finished third in the MVP voting.  Frank Robinson (4th) and Willie Mays (2nd) had big numbers like Davis did, but both lost a close race in the MVP vote.  The Dodgers won the World Series and Maury Wills won the MVP with his 104 stolen bases and .299 average.  Will led the league in games, at-bats and triples.

Why Wills?  Besides his second consecutive gold glove Wills also led the league in times caught stealing with 13.  Only 13 to go along with 104 steals!  He was successful 88.9% of the time.  Rickery Henderson's best in a 100+ SB season was 108 of 127.  Lou Brock broke 100 once with 118.  He was caught 33 times.  Vince Coleman (3 times) is the only other player to reach 100 SB since 1891.  Coleman's best season for steals was similar to Will was 107 of 121 (88.4%).  Coleman's numbers dropped almost every year after his first three years.

Back to Davis who played 18 years.  Eight of those were with the Dodgers and more than three of those were with the Orioles.

Let's start with his uniform numbers - 12, 10, 12, 10, 42, 12, 29, 24, 36, 12, 9 and 10.  You certainly "can't tell a player without a scorecard".

Here is his team timeline -

1956 - signed by the Dodgers
1966 - traded after the season to the Mets
1967 - traded after the season to the White Sox
1968 - drafted by the Seattle Pilots in the Expansion Draft
1969 - traded to the Astros during August
1970 - purchased by the A's in June
1970 - purchased by the Cubs in September.  The Cubs released him after the season
1971 - signed by the A's before the season
1972 - released during spring training by the A's
1972 - signed by the Cubs in July
1972 - traded to the Orioles in August
1976 - released by the Orioles before spring training
1976 - signed with the Yankees before spring training
1976 - released by the Yankees two days before the season began
1976 - signed by the Angels in June
1976 - purchased by the Royals in September
1977 - released in January

He never played for the Yankees.  Why did everyone want him?  I remember this part.  He was a great pinch hitter.  When he retired he had the highest career batting average for a pinch hitter - he hit .320.  That's impressive as his career average of .294.

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