Davis Yearns For A Spell Of Good Fortune

It is like Christmas in February for major league players when their new shipment of bats arrive - and Russ Davis dug into his Saturday morning with enthusiasm that died as soon as he pulled the first one out of the box.

“Russ Davies model” was branded into each bat.

“How am I looking?” Davis said. “Even the bat company doesn’t know who I am. It never gets easier, does it?”

Not for Davis, a 27-year-old third baseman still trying to win a job in the big leagues with the Seattle Mariners.

For years, he was a can’t-miss prospect in the New York Yankees organization, putting up impressive numbers - 73 home runs in one three-season stretch - while playing behind Wade Boggs. Last spring, he came to camp with the Mariners, a team without a third baseman.

“We asked Russ to make some alterations to his swing, to work on his weight shift,” batting coach Lee Elia said. “It took him time to adjust. Time to start believing it would help.”

According to Elia and manager Lou Piniella, Davis was just beginning to come on last June when he lunged for a foul pop fly in Kansas City and broke his left ankle.

And the break wasn’t the worst of it.

“The fracture was the least of my worries,” Davis said. “There was a lot of ligament damage. I was in a cast for six weeks because of the ligaments, not the break.”

Davis never played a game after June 7. When he tried to play in Instructional League last October, then winter ball a few weeks later, he still couldn’t run because of stiffness and the discomfort that followed his efforts.

To say the book on Davis remains unwritten is to remind the Alabama native of facts he can recite from memory - he has played high school and college ball, spent all or part of eight seasons in the minor leagues and gotten into only 95 major league games.

“The last two years, I’ve missed a lot of baseball,” Davis said. “I played behind Wade in ‘95, when the Yankees went to the playoffs, and last year I got hurt.”

There is a sense of urgency this spring, a knowledge that his prime is slipping away untapped. For a kid who dreamed all his life of playing in the big leagues, Davis knows he has to win a job now or risk slipping into the role of career journeyman.

And if he chooses to look over his shoulder this spring, there are two veterans - Mike Blowers and Chris Sabo - ready to step into the role he is pursuing.

“By 27, I was hoping I’d have put up a couple of good seasons and earned a little security,” Davis said. “I’m in the same position now I was five years ago. My career is year-to-year. I’m making a little over the major league minimum, and I haven’t earned anything more than that.

“I feel good, physically. I swung a lot all fall, doing what Lee and Lou tried to teach me last year. I come in here with Mike and Chris and I feel like an underdog. The team knows what those guys can do because they’ve done it before. I haven’t done a thing yet at this level. All I have is my belief in my own abilities.”

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Buck Showalter says given the opportunity, Davis will prove himself.

“He played behind a Hall of Famer and was making the tough adjustments to big-league baseball last season when he got hurt,” Showalter said. “This kid is a gamer - tough, gritty. I just hope he gets the chance to shine.”