Remembering Willie Davis: Greatness too often ignored

Willie Davis was guilty. No one could have known it better than him. Others said it, whispered it, wondered about it.

But Willie knew they found him guilty of not being a superstar.

He was a remarkable athlete who did some remarkable things for the Dodgers. Yet somehow with Willie, it seemed less about what he accomplished and more about what he did not.

He couldn’t hit as well as Tommy Davis, steal like Maury Wills. Didn’t have the commanding presence of Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale. He seemed more a role player on the great Dodgers teams of the ’60s, though his flashes of greatness only seemed to leave others yearning for more.

Willie was called up when he was only 20 and played 13 years with the Dodgers, 17 major-league seasons overall. And when he passed away Tuesday, he was still the Los Angeles Dodgers all-time leader in hits, extra-base hits, total bases, plate appearances and triples.

He had a deep voice, distinctive laugh. For a man others claimed was always in search of himself as a player, he gave off the appearance of easy-going happiness.

He won three Gold Gloves, stole 20 or more bases 13 times, still holds the L.A. Dodgers record for his 31-game hitting streak and was twice an All-Star.

And yet unfairly, he is almost remembered as much for the three errors he committed on consecutive plays in Game 2 of the 1966 World Series. For being Willie Davis, and not Willie Mays. For imagined sins of omission.

He could be inconsistent, try different batting stances, seemed to abhor walking (.311 career on-base percentage).

But he was a great player in his own right. Was part of two World Series championships and a key member of those Dodgers teams that cemented their place in the hearts of Los Angeles and began a love affair that continues today.

He even left the Dodgers a parting gift. He was traded to the Montreal Expos before the 1974 season, the Dodgers acquiring reliever Mike Marshall, who went on to win the Cy Young that season.

Willie played for five different teams after leaving the Dodgers, plus a couple seasons in Japan. But he was a Dodger all the way. An L.A. kid who grew up to play for his home team.

If guilty only of not being a superstar, he was still a unique star and special player. He died at age 69, and the only thing he didn’t give us enough of, was years.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Top photo: Willie Davis in 1961. Credit: Associated Press. Bottom photo: Willie Davis robs Baltimore's Boog Powell of a home run during Game 4 of the 1966 World Series. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Chris]

This is a really great piece, Steve. Thanks for writing this.

[KoufaxFan]

RIP Willie. One of the most underrated Dodgers of all-time. One of my favorite players growing up. Willie could do it all--two time World Champion. If there is ever a Dodger Hall of Fame Willie should be there.

[Steve]

Nice remembrance... Three Dog was one of my favorite Dodgers back in the day. He really could do it all and endured much criticism from the writers (not his teammates or fans).

I believed he gave it his all on the field and as noted, only left the Dodgers family too soon.

[Paul Olden]

Willie Davis was my favorite Dodger player. I grew up in Los Angeles and attended many Dodger games as a teenager. I later sold programs at Dodger Stadium and because I was sort of tall and thin and had a big afro hair style, some fans often thought I was Willie. I actually had to sign a autogragh for a kid whose mother didn't buy my story that I wasn't Davis. Willie and I joked about that story early last year when I interviewed him at Santa Anita where he, Tommy Davis and Lou Johnson had a race named after them. Willie - as usual - dressed sharply and still looked like he could go from first to third in the blink of an eye. I still have a glued-together broken bat from his 1969 31-game hitting streak. Ironically, I use the bat to practice my golf swing in my Brooklyn, NY living room. From what I gathered, Willie had devoted his life to teaching golf on a freelance basis at a course near the racetrack. He was living a very private life for the last few years. I would see him walking in and around Burbank from time to time. But I never asked him why. He told me his son was helping produce a golf instruction DVD. He said his teaching style reflected the lessons he learned as a baseball player on the proper way to swing a golf club. He seemed optimistic about his future. He signed many autographs for the horse-playing fans who remembered him. One woman - as he was signing for her - said, "Willie, you are stll loved ..." So true. Rest in peace to the man known as "The Three Dog."

[Carroll Wills]

Very sorry to hear of Willie Davis' passing. For Dodger fans my age who grew up with the mid- to late-60s teams, he was like one of the founding fathers. Watching him run out a triple on the basepaths was a thing of beauty, and I still remember the thrill of his 31-game hit streak.

Rest in peace.

[Zen]

Nice remembrance, thank you.

[Seattle Maggie]

Despite my mother's objections, Willie Davis was my childhood hero. She couldn't forgive him for the Koufax game; I cried for three days when the Dodgers traded him. I once got so excited to find his baseball card in a cereal box that I ripped the card in half in my eagerness to open the plastic packaging.

[scooplew]

I remember the fanfare that accompanied Willie Davis’ arrival in the majors, a September call-up in 1960. He was a local, having been signed out of Roosevelt High in East Los Angeles, not far from where I lived as a kid.
He hit .318 in 22 games in 1960. He was a gazelle, who probably went from first to third faster than anyone else, and he covered a remarkable amount of ground in centerfield. It was simply fun to watch Willie Davis play baseball.
Two games in Willie Davis’ strong career stand out in my mind.
The first was in May of 1964 against Juan Marichal and the Giants at Dodger Stadium. I was sitting between home and first with a perfect view of what was about to happen. The Dodgers were already behind 3-0 when they came up in the bottom of the first. Maury Wills was on first with one out. Willie hit a sinking liner into left field that Willie McCovey failed to catch or to stop. As the ball rolled to the left-field fence, and McCovey gamely tried to catch up with it, and the crowd went crazy, both Wills and Davis scored, one of seven inside-the-park homers Willie hit in his career. The Giants won the game, 6-3.
The second was more than five years later and more memorable.
I was sitting with friends on the reserved seat level near third base in Dodger Stadium on a warm, early September night in 1969. Davis came in with a 30-game hitting streak. Claude Osteen was dominant, and the Dodgers led 4-0 after seven innings. However, Davis had failed to get a hit in his first four at bats, and he was not likely to bat in the bottom of the 8th, as he was due up eighth. The Dodgers, with Osteen in command, weren’t likely to bat in the 9th.
The Amazing Mets, however, who would improbably win the World Series that year after finishing ninth in 1968, jumped on Osteen in the 8th, as Tommie Agee and Donn Clendenon each hit two-run homers to tie the game, 4-4.
The Dodgers put two on in the bottom of the 8th but failed to score, and Pete Mikkelsen retired the Mets in the top of the 9th. Willie was due to bat third in the bottom of the 9th, giving him one more chance to extend his batting streak.
Wills singled to lead off the 9th, and Manny Mota sacrificed him to second, bringing Willie up.
All baseball logic said that Willie would be intentionally walked, setting up the double play with one out and with Wes Parker and Andy Kosco to follow.
But Gil Hodges was the manager of the Mets, the same gracious and gentlemanly Gil Hodges who had been such a key member of the great Dodgers teams for so many years. And he allowed Jack Dilauro, whose entire major league career consisted of 65 games, to pitch to Willie. Was it because he wanted Dilauro, a lefty, to face the left-handed batting Davis with the switch-hitting Parker and the righty Kosco next in the lineup? Call me a romantic, but I prefer, then and now, more than four decades later, to think it was because of Gil’s ultimate sense of fairness and Dodger history that he offered Willie, who had been his teammate in 1960 and 1961, one more chance. Whatever the reason, my friends and I were astonished that Willie would get another opportunity to swing the bat. He didn’t waste it, doubling into left field to score Wills, end the game, and extend his club record batting streak to 31 games. It would end the next day.
Willie would hit over .300 that year, for the first time in a full season in his career, and follow that up with a batting average over .300 each of the next two seasons with the Dodgers, the only three times in his career that he surpassed that plateau.
RIP, Willie Davis. And thanks for the memories.

[DC]

3-dog as I think Vin Scully called him. One of the great LA Dodgers. We always used to say the reason he made those errors in the field is because he was so fast, he got to balls that most others couldn't even get to. Nobody could run the bases like he could with those long strides! Truly a fine gentleman who'll always be remembered in Dodger blue. RIP, God be with you Willie.

[David Coulson]

As a kid and a left-handed batter, I tried to copy the Willie Davis batting stance, though it didn't help my weak hitting. I also loved to watch those loping strides of his in CF. Though it turned out to be a great trade, I was about as upset as I could be when the Dodgers swapped the Three Dog for Mike Marshall. He was one of my favorite Dodgers.

[bob cuomo]

Very nice remembrance, Steve. No doubt about it, Willie Davis has to rank as one of the all-time great L.A. Dodgers...as they say, he could do it all...and he was one of the very few Dodgers from L.A. who played high school ball here (he starred at Roosevelt in 1957-58--as an outfielder and a pitcher, he was also an All-City basketball player as well as an outstanding track and field athlete--he set the City record of 25-5 in the long jump). How do I know all this? I saw a lot of it. I didn't actually know him, but I faced him once in baseball (I was o for 2--a strikeout and a ground out). He wasn't exactly an overpowering pitcher, but he was intimidating...heck, it was Willie Davis out there.

[Mike]

Great player and also my favorite Dodger as I use to wait for Willie after games at the Dodgers
parkng lot in the '60's next to his black El Doraldo Cad at Dodger Stadium and get his autograph. He gave it to me nine out of ten times!
Rest in Peace Willie and thanks for all the triple's and tons of excitment watching you as a kid, growing up in your high school area of Boyle Heights and seeing you play at Chavez Ravine.

Hall of Fame!

[#3]

I am surprised that it hasn't been written here that the one thing fans looked for when Willie raced around second base on his way to third is that the Three Dog would always run out from under his cap.
.
Willie would say later that he intentionally wore his hat loose on the base paths so he would do just that and not disappoint. Willie did have a bit of Hollywood in him.
.
Dodgers like Willie made baseball fun. I wish we had some guys like Willie today.

[Bart Anderson]

Well, let's see....2,561 base hits in his career, about as many as Babe Ruth, not bad!

[HI Dodger Fan]

My absolute all-time favorite Dodger. Vin always called him the 3-Dog. Thought that was the coolest nickname ever. I was always Willie Davis every time me and my friends played stickball. I moved to Hawaii in '73 and then the Dodgers traded my hero to Montreal. We didn't get Dodger games in Hawaii but I remember following Jimmy Wynn and the Dodgers in the papers all the way to the series in '74. When I watched the series on TV that year, I wished it was the 3-Dog in CF. I remember how he didn't wear the long sleeves under his uniform, and how his helmet always flew off as he ran. I remember how deliberate he was at the plate and always tried to copy how he hit. I know he lived in Hawaii for some time after he retired and always thought he lived quite near me. Don't know if it was true or not as I never went to the house but I would always see it and say that was Willie's house. RIP Willie, as Tommy said, I know you're with the Big Dodger in the Sky now.

[Aklonghorn]

Please correct the typo on Dilbeck's obit to fix Davis' L.A. Dodger-record hitting streak. It's 31, not 13. Willie deserves better!

[Steve Dilbeck]

Aklonghorn: OUCH, thanks for pointing out the typo. It has been corrected. You're right, Willie deserves the proper credit.

[Tom M.]

Rest in Peace Sir. Another piece of Los Angeles history is gone, but not forgotten......

[John L Mendez]

Here it is, four months after Davis' passing and I just hear about his admirable achievements for the 1st time. It happened this afternoon. Taking a break from searching for employment, I was watching a 'Bewitched' rerun! Yes, Bewitched! Samantha is pregnant w/ her 2nd child and is craving a ballpark hot dog. Next thing she's at Shea Stadium eating one when she calls Darrin from a payphone informing him where she is. Darrin asks if the Mets are playing why are there no fans cheering them on? Samantha replies, "Willie Davis just hit a grand slam."
God Bless you, Mr. Davis.