Momentous blast will never get old
MESA, Ariz. — Rajai Davis saw the replay over and over. He had no choice. His 1-year-old son kept asking to see it.
“Daddy, baseball. Daddy, baseball,” the toddler would say.
So Daddy obliged and watched the Game 7 highlight again and again.
Not that Davis minded. It was one of the most sensational home runs in World Series history, and he hit it. Once wasn’t enough for little Jordan Michael Davis or his father.
“My son always wanted to watch it,” Davis the elder said. “I had to keep playing it for him. It was pretty amazing.”
Game 7 between the Cubs and Indians topped 40 million viewers, the most-watched baseball game in 25 years, and Davis’ dream-come-true swing against Aroldis Chapman, tying the score in the eighth inning, was a classic moment in a historic World Series.
Four months later, Davis, 36, is shagging flies and hitting in the cage. Far removed from the hullabaloo of the game’s biggest stage, he’s working out at Hohokam Stadium as the A’s new center fielder and leadoff hitter.
It’s the cycle of baseball: getting in shape for the new season and helping a team win games, reach the playoffs and, if fortunate enough, the World Series — and hoping to make a splash once it arrives. Davis did all that last year with the Indians, and he’s back at square one.
“To experience a World Series like that, it’s tough to explain,” Davis said. “It’s a different world.”
Asked about the at-bat now, Davis says, “All fastballs. I remember one that counted the most. Down and in.”
The at-bat lasted seven pitches, and Chapman was throwing a barrage of 97-, 98- and 99-mph fastballs. Not his normal 100mph-plus sizzlers. This was his third straight game, but it still was incredibly hard stuff.
Davis was in a zone. It was his third World Series at-bat against Chapman. His four previous swings in the at-bat, he made contact and hit foul balls. He was choking up like he never remembers, several inches.
It was about taking a short swing and driving the ball. The count was 2-2 when Chapman threw his seventh pitch at 97.1 mph. Right where Davis could handle it best, down and in.
“I felt like I had some divine power. I think that was really helpful in that situation,” Davis said. “I asked God to help me. I asked his angels to help swing the bat for me. I felt like they did.”
Known more for his speed than power, Davis lined the ball to left field, just inside the foul pole and barely over the 19-foot wall. This was a .267 career hitter in his 11th season, with his sixth team, and the moment dwarfed everything else combined in his baseball life.
Davis pumped his fist, pounded his chest, looked to the skies and wagged his tongue as all of Cleveland, including inattendance LeBron James, celebrated. The homer tied the game 6-6, and Davis added an RBI single in the 10th, but the Cubs ended their 107-season drought by winning 8-7.
For Davis, it’s almost as if the Indians won the whole thing. It was that uplifting of a moment for him.
“It was a personal victory in itself,” said infielder Adam Rosales, who grew up in Chicago a Cubs fan, was Davis’ teammate on the 2010 A’s and is again. “The stage you’re on, how important that at-bat was, at that moment, against that pitcher, yeah, all of us benefited from it, all of us who love baseball.”
Jake Smolinski, an outfielder in A’s camp, is from Rockford, Ill., and liked the Cubs as a kid but found himself rooting for the Indians and was excited for Davis after the home run.
“I thought they were going to pull it off,” Smolinski said. “I thought that was going to get it done. That was such a huge moment. To have somebody like that around, it’s been a positive influence. We can take from his knowledge and experience.”
The A’s played the Indians on Saturday for the second time in five days, another reminder of Davis’ connection to baseball lore.
“Just to experience a World Series — obviously, every player can’t experience it,” Davis said, “but it should definitely be on every player’s radar. I want to experience it again. It was so fun.”