Davis Finding It Harder to Avoid Blame for Jokes, Credit for Saves

In becoming one of the National League’s top relief pitchers for the Padres last summer, Mark Davis appeared in so many different situations, throwing so many different types of pitches, that at times it seemed there was more than one of him.

He’s happy to report there is.

“Every where I go, there’s a Mark Davis,” he said recently. “I go to work at the gym this winter, and who is the coach there? Mark Davis. Then we apply for a mortgage loan, and they pull out a credit history of a Mark Davis. I take one look it and tell them, I have never owned an 18-wheeler in my life.

“Then I go to my doctor and they pull out a file of a 36-year-old Mark Davis, and I tell them, I hope that’s not me.”

Then there’s Mark Davis’ gardener. Interesting guy. Name of Mark Davis.

“That’s the one nobody believes,” said Davis, 28. “They ask who does my yard, and I tell them Mark Davis, and they all say, ‘We didn’t know you had a green thumb.’ I tell them, ‘I don’t, that’s why I get somebody else to do my lawn.’

“Then they ask who does my lawn, and I tell them Mark Davis and . . . “

True story. Davis laughed. Life is plenty of Abbott and Costello for last year’s Padre All-Star representative, who enjoys anonymity not because of its accompanying privacy and lack of pressure but because it lets him get away with anything.

It lets him get away with sneaking a curveball that scouts say may be the best of any left-hander in the National League, a pitch that last year helped him to 28 saves (fourth in the league) with a 2.01 earned run average and a club record 27 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings.

And, oh yes, it lets him get away with planting a stink bomb that once cleared an opponents’ bench, or planting exploding cigarettes that clear teammates’ heads, or planting hot balm in undershorts.

You see, from his beloved spot in the woodwork last year, Davis did more than get people jumping with his arm.

Said Padre pitcher Mark Grant, recently cited in a national magazine as one of baseball’s top pranksters: “When it comes to practical jokes and stuff, I’m not even in Mark Davis’ league.”

“Who, me?” Davis asked.

“See?” Grant said. “Anytime anybody talks about a National League reliever about anything, they mention a guy like John Franco. Good, hearty name, John Franco. It’s like, Mark Davis? Oh yeah, isn’t he, uh, who is he?’

“It’s easy for M.D. (Davis). He can just do his thing.”

“Who, me?” Davis asked.

His thing, first, is the the look. This is a man who, after having spent nearly three decades testing any number of expressions and emotions, looks as if has decided he doesn’t like any of them. This is man who looks as excited as a country music singer. This man looks like a Mark Davis.

“I have learned something,” Davis said. “No emotion works.”

Which leads to his next thing, pitching. After a five-year career spent wandering between the bullpen and the mound, Davis last season was made the left-handed stopper by Pat Dobson, the pitching coach who sometimes judges a man as much by his eyes as his arm.

“I could look at Davis and tell that he wasn’t rattled by anything, that he didn’t go crazy after bad outings, that he was very even-tempered,” Dobson said. “He was perfect for the job.”

It only made sense, really. Davis was always more comfortable on the mound than anywhere else. Take his wedding day in 1981. A couple of hours before the ceremony, he became a little nervous, so he did the obvious thing.

He found a nearby pitching mound, found some sweats, found a groomsman with a catcher’s glove . . . and he pitched.

“I don’t think it was that big of a deal,” Davis said. “I just needed to work on some mechanics.”

He made it to the church on time, but his arrival at success was a different matter. He was Philadelphia’s No. 1 secondary draft pick out of the Northern California town of Livermore in 1979, but he was traded from the Phillies to San Francisco four years later with nerve problems in his arm. He spent parts of the next five years with the Giants never knowing quite where he was.

In 1984 he started 27 games, including opening day. In 1985, he started one. When he was finally traded to San Diego in the middle of 1987 as part of the seven-player deal that sent Dave Dravecky, Kevin Mitchell and Craig Lefferts to the Giants, he had achieved the ultimate in mixed-up mixes. He had started 11 games for the Giants that year and relieved in nine. He had a respectable 3.71 ERA with 51 strikeouts and 28 walks. But he had no confidence.

“Because I didn’t know my role, every time I gave up a hit or two, I was looking around to see if I was coming out,” Davis said. “It was so frustrating. It was no fun.”

So he came to San Diego July 5, 1987, and five days later, he was brought in to face four Pittsburgh left-handed hitters in the seventh inning with a 4-1 lead. Nice to see you. He gave up a double, a single and two walks . . . and the game.

But late that night, he calmly met the media and explained each mistake. And the next day, he was thrown back in, this time retiring five of the six Pirates he faced to pick up his first Padre save. Now, that was fun.

“I realized, I was going to stay in games longer here, I was going to be allowed to find myself,” Davis said. “So I did.”

So when he was made the stopper in 1988, it actually relaxed him. He found it no big deal to tie St. Louis’ Todd Worrell for the league lead with 16 saves at the All-Star break. He walked into his first All-Star clubhouse in Cincinnati, smiled and said, “It looks like ESPN in here.”

Then it was no big deal to break Goose Gossage’s club scoreless innings record of 20 1/3 in late July, or to finish with a 1.19 ERA for the season’s second half, including no homers allowed after June 3 (just two allowed overall).

“I don’t like to think about any of that,” Davis said. “I think that good numbers come from forgetting about the numbers. They come from just making the pitches.

“And they don’t come from looking or acting mean or anything. I don’t want to show the hitter anything because I don’t want them to know what is on my mind. I don’t want to give anything away.”

Ah, but his teammates know him. His teammates have learned what is behind that blank face.

“Any more, anything funny happens in the clubhouse, he is blamed for it,” reliever Dave Leiper said. “And that’s good, because chances are, he did it.”

The itching powder down the infielder’s shirt? Davis did it. The salt in the relief pitcher’s coffee? Davis did it.

And then there is his unusual attraction to telephones. Davis has put both eye black and shaving cream on the headset, and he once actually rigged the bullpen phone so that when the bullpen coach answered, he couldn’t hear what the manager was saying.

“I take credit for none of that stuff,” Davis said. “Why are they always picking on me?”

What he will acknowledge is his farewell gift to the Giants in 1987, a few weeks after he was traded. He sneaked behind their dugout at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and tossed in a few stink bombs while they scattered.

“I watched that one, but I don’t think a good practical joker has to watch anything,” Davis said. “Just knowing that somewhere, you got somebody good, that is the real pleasure.”

That, and knowing that few will ever guess it was you.

Probably Davis’ finest moment last year was not on the field but in a national baseball publication. Accompanying a story about White Sox minor league outfielder Mark Davis--the brother of Dodger outfielder Mike Davis--was a photo of the Padre reliever.

“I loved it,” the Padres’ Davis said. “You read that story, you think I can hit. It was great. They can do that all the time.”

They can, but if Mark Davis continues to hammer batters into the chalk, they won’t. They’ll get the message. Davis will be discovered.

Oh well, Davis figures. He will cross that whoopee cushion when he comes to it.