Storm Davis Signs With Padres; Adopts Openness

Pitcher Storm Davis, acquired in a trade last October with Baltimore, signed a one-year contract with the Padres that’s expected to pay him in the neighborhood of $560,000 in 1987.

Davis’ signing Tuesday reduced to four the number of Padres seeking salary arbitration. Davis said he would have preferred a multiyear contract, “but one year’s fine right now,” he told Associated Press. He was reported to be seeking $615,000 after making $500,000 last year.

Davis, 25, had instructions from his wife, Angie, to be more amiable at a press conference introducing him to San Diego reporters. He’s a yes-sir, no-sir kind of guy, and, though he doesn’t mean to, he tends to make bad first impressions. He says people think he’s “standoffish.”

Well--stand back, because the impression that Davis made Tuesday was very open. He talked about how his baseball career has gone from “Cy Clone” to a singular “Sigh.”

And he talked about his shyness. He’s not the only one in his family. His dad, George, was a quiet guy who coached Storm from Little League through high school. It became like father, like son, even though Storm’s mother had the gift of the gab (she was host of a local talk show for eight years).

When the Baltimore Orioles drafted Davis in 1979, he was 17 years old and a chip off the old block. He rarely spoke. When he pitched, he would block out everything, including coaches.

“I’m prone not to listen,” Davis said Tuesday. “I need to correct that.”

Nonetheless, he moved up rapidly in the Oriole organization. By 1982, he was in the big leagues, and was being compared to Jim Palmer, then the Orioles’ best pitcher.

In other words . . .

Storm had a great fastball.

Storm had a great body.

And so on.

Fellow pitcher Mike Flanagan promptly nicknamed Davis “Cy Clone,” which had something to do with Palmer’s propensity to win the Cy Young Award. Davis didn’t know what to make of this.

“I was really too immature and young to understand everything that goes with that,” Davis said.

What he tried to do was rear back and throw the high, hard one almost every pitch. Being strictly a fastball pitcher is fine in the minor leagues, but it’s not so fine in the majors. For a while, he got by (14 victories in 1984), but it soon became time to learn another pitch or two.

The Orioles tried coaching him.

And, of course, he wouldn’t listen.

Soon, there were trade rumors. He and outfielder Mike Young were going to be traded to Oakland for Rickey Henderson.

Never happened.

The next year, Davis was going to be sent to Seattle for third baseman Jim Presley.

Never happened.

Last year, Davis was going to be traded to the Padres for catcher Terry Kennedy.

It happened.

The Padres needed Davis to replace LaMarr Hoyt, who is serving a prison term and has been released by the club.

Davis moped at first, because he couldn’t understand why the Orioles wanted to trade him so badly. He had had some injuries. He was hit in the right--his pitching--hand by a line drive in September 1985 and had some torn ankle ligaments in ‘86, but was that it?

Maybe it was that tendency to be “standoffish.”

This season is Storm Davis’ chance to start over.

“I’m looking forward to meeting the (Padre) guys,” he said. “I don’t know any of them. I played against Goose (Gossage) when he was with New York, but I was so intimidated by Goose, I never, ever, ever wanted to go meet him. I thought he might hit me or something.”

So he’ll definitely want to make a nice first impression.