Through It All, Orioles’ Davis Keeps Groovin’

There is no lament from Eric Davis, no tendency to say “Why me?” He turns the question around, in fact.

“Why not me?” he was saying Thursday in a quiet interview. “I’m a firm believer that the Lord won’t give me more than I can handle. He obviously felt I could do some good with this. I don’t have time to ask why.”

Time is valuable as the right fielder of the Baltimore Orioles moves ahead. He is battling back from cancer surgery and the death of a brother and living a remarkable story that stretches beyond the box scores.

He has been an inspiration to his team, but he turns that around too.

“It works both ways,” he said. “My teammates have been an inspiration to me--spiritually, emotionally and visibly with the way they wear my number on their caps and helmets. It’s been therapeutic. They wouldn’t let me ride off into the sunset.”

He wasn’t going to do that anyway.

Once doctors assured him there was nothing to prevent him from playing again, he began the process that has brought him back as a pivotal performer on a team that absorbed a stunning setback Thursday night. Marquis Grissom hit a three-run homer off heat-dispensing Armando Benitez in the eighth inning to give the Cleveland Indians a 5-4 victory and tie the American League championship series at a game apiece.

Davis, who did not start in Game 1, was one for five in Game 2, grounding out as the potential winning run to end it.

The calendar says October, but Davis’ skills, dormant through the summer, are mid-March.

It is amazing he is in uniform, let alone swinging a bat.

As teammates headed home dejectedly late Thursday night, Davis left for Johns Hopkins Oncology Center for two hours of chemotherapy, an ongoing and precautionary follow-up to his June 13 surgery for removal of a malignant colon tumor.

The chemotherapy is normally done Friday mornings, but Davis wanted it out of the way so he could join the Orioles on their flight to Cleveland today.

Teammate B.J. Surhoff shook his head and said, “Forget about baseball. The man’s life was on the line. He’s given everybody a shot in the arm the way he’s handled it. The other part of it is that he loses a brother on top of everything. He could easily have shut down for the season. He could easily say ‘Why me?’ But we’ve never heard that from him.”

Jimmy Davis, older by a year at 36, died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on Aug. 1.

“Tragedy is bestowed on us every day,” Davis said. “It’s part of our life. We know we’re going to die from the day we’re born.

“You don’t anticipate losing someone that young, but I tend to look at the 35 years I had with Jimmy and not the time I’ve lost.

“He’d want me to keep groovin’. That was his thing, the way he put it, and that’s what I’m doing. I just keep groovin’.”

It is an unwaveringly positive approach that allows Davis to deal with the debilitating impact of chemotherapy and to spread his message in interview after interview.

“Eric has been kind of a miracle,” Manager Davey Johnson said. “My concern is because so much attention has been on him he’ll be worn out by all the questions.

“He’s been on ‘Nightline,’ . . . just about everything. I just want him to relax so he’s not mentally tired. That’s why he didn’t play [in Game 1]. It wasn’t because of chemo or weight loss. He was mentally tired.”

Said Davis: “It’s the postseason. There are reporters here from all over the country. I feel obligated, but at some point I’m going to have to stop.”

Thursday’s chemo treatment was his 11th of 18. They are conducted in blocks of six, with two weeks in between. The final six will be done in Los Angeles, his hometown. It is an IV procedure, and Davis has coped well. Wife Sherrie brews herbal tea to help him with the nausea.

Doctors told Davis they are confident the cancer was removed. The survival rate from his particular cancer is better than 50%.

“I expect to see my kids [Erica, 11, and Sacha, 7] grow up, and I expect to see their kids grow up,” he said.

The Orioles have provided unstinting support. Teammates refused to pose for the team picture until he returned in September. His 1998 option at $2.5 million has already been picked up.

He is a long way from Fremont High and the albatross of the great expectations put on him as a young player with the Cincinnati Reds. Injuries and illness diminished his skills and playing time. He retired in 1994, mentally and physically exhausted, but was the National League’s comeback player of the year with the Reds in 1996 and signed with the Orioles as a free agent last winter.

“He’s an exceptional athlete and person,” General Manager Pat Gillick said. “He’s very driven.”

The cancer was found after Davis began experiencing stomach pains in late May. He was activated Sept. 15, had nine hits in his last 13 regular-season at-bats and delivered a key two-run single in the Game 1 division series victory over the Seattle Mariners.

“I compare where I am to the middle of spring training,” he said, “but I’ve been blessed. I’ve been able to come back and handle it physically.

“I’ve heard people say I put things in perspective for them, but I changed my own perspective when I retired in ’94.

“Everybody should take a year off to put in perspective how fortunate we are to do what we do, how blessed we are. I love to play and play hard.

“What happens, happens.”

One thing scheduled to happen is an Eric Davis Golf and Gala at Lakewood Country Club on Nov. 7-8, benefiting cancer research. Davis hopes it’s an annual event. He plans to be teeing it up for many years to come.