WORLD SERIES / CINCINNATI REDS VS. OAKLAND ATHLETICS : Davis’ Injury Puts Damper on Jubilation

The Cincinnati Reds have seen Eric Davis trip while running the bases, crumple with a twisted knee, and still get up.

They have seen him run into a wall, crumple with a badly bruised shoulder, and still get up.

During what Davis has called six of the longest months of his life, his teammates have seen their aggressive star sprawl across the outfield, throw his body against opponents and railings, and always get up.

This is why in the first inning of Game 4 of the World Series Saturday against the Oakland Athletics, they were frightened.

Because when Davis crumpled after attempting a diving catch on a fly ball by Willie McGee, he did not get up.

“It got real, real quiet in the dugout,” Glenn Braggs said. “We know Eric. We know what he plays with. We know how he looks after he gets hurt.

“And this time, he looked different. We were scared.”

Two hours after the Reds won the World Series with a 2-1 victory over the A’s, those fears were realized. Davis was placed in the intensive care unit at Merritt Hospital in Oakland suffering from a severe kidney bruise. He is expected to be hospitalized for three to five days pending further tests.

Ironically, after firing the shot that began the Series sweep, a two-run homer in the first inning of Game 1 against Dave Stewart, Davis was not around to celebrate the ending.

“But we all know he’s here,” Braggs said. “He left us during the game, but he never left us.”

Davis spent most of the postseason emphasizing that the Reds did not revolve around his bat and arm. In his absence Saturday, that was finally proved.

The Reds not only survived without him, but also without Billy Hatcher, the Series’ leading hitter who left the game shortly after being hit in the left hand in the first inning by a fastball from Dave Stewart.

Hatcher was also taken to the hospital for X-rays, but returned to the field in time for the Reds’ postgame celebration after the hand was diagnosed as merely being bruised.

“This is not a team of superstars, we are not just Eric Davis or Barry Larkin,” relief pitcher Rob Dibble said. “This is a team of guys who just played like superstars.

“We’re no Big Red Machine. Maybe we aren’t even the best team. But we are a team . And that was the difference.”

The difference Saturday was the replacements for Davis and Hatcher.

Braggs, Davis’ replacement, drove in the tying run with a grounder in the eighth inning. Herm Winningham, Hatcher’s replacement, set up that winning rally with a two-strike bunt single.

“Our bench was our magic,” Todd Benzinger said. “And tonight, we went to that magic one more time.”

The Reds certainly needed that magic after the A’s second batter, McGee, hit a fly ball to left field that Davis dropped after a diving attempt.

Davis, on his knees, backhanded the ball to the infield before returning to a prone position. It took five minutes for trainers to help him to his feet, and he remained in the game for the rest of the inning.

But during the top of the second inning, both Hatcher and Davis left the dugout for the hospital.

“I thought the world was going to start caving in on us,” Dibble said. “We didn’t want anything to happen that would spark the other team.”

Said Braggs: “We saw them walking out, one right after the other. It was a weird feeling. It was like, ‘What do we do now?’ ”

Even though the Reds were held scoreless until the eighth inning, something that happened in the sixth inning made one young player know they still had a chance.

When Hal Morris ran back to the bench to grab his glove after grounding into a bases-loaded double play in the sixth, he was surrounded by teammates.

Onlookers wondered, was he being scolded? Was he being reminded that rookies who have one hit in 14 at-bats should be more careful in World Series games? Was he being mugged?

“Naw, it wasn’t that at all,” he said later, smiling through lips glossed with champagne. “They were telling me, ‘Don’t let it get you down. You’ve got one more chance against this guy. One more chance. You’ll get him then.”’

Two innings later, Morris got to the A’s. It was his RBI fly ball that gave the Reds the 2-1 lead they did not lose. It capped a World Series belonging to the bit players.

“Nobody else knew who the other guys on our team were,” Joe Oliver said. “But we knew.”

In Game 1, the hero was Hatcher, who hit .276 this season, but .750 in this series, breaking Babe Ruth’s record for the highest Series average of any player with at least 10 at-bats. He had three hits and three runs in that 7-0 victory.

In Game 2, the heroes were Billy Bates and Oliver, who had the first and last hits in the 10th inning of a 5-4 victory. Bates didn’t have a hit for the Reds this season, while Oliver batted .231.

In Game 3, the hero was Chris Sabo, who batted .270 during the season and was considered an average fielder. In the Reds’ 8-3 victory, he tied a record with home runs in consecutive innings while setting a fielding record by handling 10 chances at third base without an error.