Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Draft still dream come true for Ben Davis
There was no live TV broadcast of the 1995 baseball draft, no internet leaks about how it was unfolding, no cyber-platforms from which to spray out any good news.
There was, though, a land line telephone, and there was Mario Civera’s Malvern Prep graduation party. For Ben Davis 25 years ago, that would work.
Davis was the catcher from Aston and Malvern, and he would be the second overall player selected, going to the San Diego Padres. He remembers taking the phone call, thinking about how his life was about to change, then spreading the news the way news was spread at the time. He drove to the graduation party in Upper Darby and said, “Guess what?”
“That was it,” Davis would remember, 25 years later. “It wasn’t like you could blast it out on social media. People were just calling and I told them. Then I remember my dad (Bill) saying, ‘Why don’t you go hang out with your buddies?’ So I went to Mario’s party and I told everybody what happened.
“And that’s how it kind of got around.”
Davis was a popular baseball figure around Delaware County long before his excellence at Malvern. With his brother Glenn, a first-round draft choice of the Dodgers in 1997 out of Vanderbilt, he had been a star on the Aston-Middletown Little League team that came within one game of reaching the World Series in Williamsport. By 1995, his appeal to major-league scouts was well-documented enough that there were a couple of local TV crews at his home to film the moment the phone call from the Padres arrived.
It was just different then than what it has become. All of baseball was different, and Davis has been thinking about it this summer as he waits to resume his career an analyst on NBC-Philadelphia telecasts of Phillies games. He thinks about it every time he passes a quiet Little League park and laments that, this summer anyway, kids won’t be able to enjoy what he did in 1988. He thinks about it when he takes his oldest son, Tague, 14, a promising, Malvern-bound pitcher out to work out on an empty field. And he thought about it the other night when the Phillies selected high school pitcher Mick Abel in the first round of the draft, yet couldn’t promise him a place to play as long as the minor leagues remain shut down amid flu concerns.
“First and foremost, I think Mick Abel a great pick,” Davis said. “He’s got a perfect body. He’s got a big arm. I think he is going to really fill out and get to the big leagues. Hopefully, it will be on the fast path. But it’s weird. You get
drafted, and it’s like getting all suited-up for the prom and have no dance to go to. It’s strange.”
No 2020 major-league draft choices will be experiencing what Davis did in 1995. They won’t be flown to a big-league city and sit behind the plate in the owner’s box and watch, as Davis did, Pedro Martinez throw a 10-inning perfect game for the Expos against the Padres. “I’ll never forget that,” he said. “Ten perfect innings. I remember thinking, ‘I could be a part of this.’”
He was a part of that quickly, the draft coming even before his Malvern graduation, his $1.3 million signing bonus arriving shortly after, plenty to inspire him to de-commit from the University of Miami.
“I reported to Idaho Falls in the Pioneer League,” Davis said. “I get off the plane and there’s a team of 24 other guys, half of whom don’t speak English. They all college kids, and I’m thinking, ‘I’m 18 years old. Can I play with these guys? Am I good enough?’ But I was able to have a really good season that year in rookie ball.”
He hit .279 with five home runs and 46 RBIs in 52 games, and after minor-league stops at Rancho Cucamonga and Mobile, he joined the Padres for a game in late September of 1998. After a Class AAA tour in Las Vegas, he would play 79 games for the 1999 Padres.
Davis spent seven years in the major leagues, playing for San Diego, Seattle and the White Sox, hitting 38 home runs, including 11 in 2001. He caught a National League-high 135 games for the 2001 Padres, and his 43.9 caught-stealing percentage was second best among American League catchers for Seattle in 1992.
Davis retired from professional baseball in 2010, joined NBC Sports-Philadelphia and, since 2015, has added his insights to Phillies broadcasts. Sometime this season, he expects to report to work, though preliminary plans are for only home-team crews to be permitted in the stadium. If the Phillies are on the road, he believes he and broadcast partner Tom McCarthy will be in the booth at Citizens Bank Park, commenting
on what they see on a TV monitor.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Davis said. “You know what I am going to miss the most? Being able to say, ‘I was talking to Joe Girardi today and he said to look for this tonight out of J.T. Realmuto, or look for this out of Bryce Harper.’ We’re not going to have a chance to interact like that. We’re not going to be able to have that complete scoop.
“But Tom is a tremendous professional. We will find a way to make that work.”
They’ll find a way, but only if the owners and players find a way to present the games at all. Davis believes there will be some majorleague baseball, even if the commissioner has to order a 50-game season. Either way, he is optimistic about the Phillies.
“I think they will be very, very consistent offensively,” Davis said. “I just like the consistency of the lineup. It’s made to succeed. And if the National League does do the designated hitter this year, that helps the Phillies, having Jay Bruce able to get in there on a more consistent basis. But it will come down to the pitching. Can the starters be more consistent?
But I think that combination of Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler is something special.”
Among baseball’s charms is the opportunity to look at something and project excellence. It’s what the Padres did in 1995 when they dialed-up that land-line in Aston, setting Ben Davis on a dream of a career.
Davis lives in West Chester with his wife, the former Megan McGonagle, an AllDelco athlete at Sun Valley High. With son Tague, they have daughters Finley, 12, and Riley, 11, and a 5-yearold son, Mickey.
“I am very happy,” Davis said. “I get on my knees every night, thankful that I was able to do what I did for as long as I did. I’m really healthy; at least I think I am. I have a wonderful wife from Aston, the same hometown. I have four wonderful children. I get to talk about the team I grew up rooting for and still be a fan and root for them still. And I got to play seven years in the big leagues. I wish I could have played a little more. That wasn’t in the cards. That’s the way it is.
“But I have no regrets. I really don’t. I love the position I am in. And hopefully I can do it for a long time.”