For a time, the battery of pitcher Dizzy Dean and catcher Spud Davis formed a dynamic duo for the Cardinals. Dizzy and Spud. Comic strip names. Gashouse Gang characters.
On Nov. 15, 1933, the Cardinals got Davis and infielder Eddie Delker from the Phillies for catcher Jimmie Wilson. The trade was a reverse of one made five years earlier when the Cardinals sent Davis to the Phillies for Wilson.
A right-handed batter, Davis was a consistent .300 hitter. His return to the Cardinals helped them become World Series champions in 1934, a year when Dean became the last National League pitcher to achieve 30 wins in a season.
The hard-throwing Dean and the hard-hitting Davis seemed right for one another, but then their relationship splintered.
Tater time
Virgil Lawrence Davis was born and raised in Birmingham, Ala. He got the nickname Spud at an early age from a cousin who noted his fondness for potatoes, according to the Birmingham Post-Herald.
Sent to a military academy in Mississippi, Davis was a standout in baseball and football. According to the Post-Herald, he was offered college football scholarships, but opted for professional baseball, joining the Gulfport (Miss.) Tarpons of the Class D Cotton States League in 1926.
On the recommendation of their scout, Bob Gilks, the Yankees signed Davis in September 1926. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle rated him “the best-looking catcher in the minors.”
Placed on the big-league spring training roster, Davis was given a chance to make the leap from Class D to the 1927 Yankees. In a March 8 intrasquad game, he was the catcher on a team managed by Babe Ruth. The New York Daily News described Davis as “garrulous, a bundle of energy.”
Three weeks later, the Yankees sent Davis to a farm club, the Reading (Pa.) Keystones, managed by Fred Merkle, whose baserunning blunder prevented the 1908 Giants from winning the National League pennant.
Davis hit .308 for Reading in 1927. A rival manager, Burt Shotton of the Cardinals’ Syracuse club, was impressed. Afterward, when baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis declared Davis eligible for the minor-league draft, the Cardinals chose him on Shotton’s recommendation, the Post-Herald reported.
Contact hitter
Davis, 23, made the Opening Day roster of the 1928 Cardinals and played in two April games for them. In May, he was dealt as part of a package to the Phillies, who had hired Burt Shotton as their manager. The key player the Cardinals got in return was a shrewd, experienced catcher, Jimmie Wilson.
With Wilson as their catcher, the Cardinals won three National League pennants (1928, 1930, 1931) and a World Series title (1931).
Davis, meanwhile, developed into a fearsome hitter with the Phillies. He hit better than .300 for them in each of five consecutive seasons (1929-33). The Sporting News declared Davis “the best-hitting catcher in the National League.”
Davis ranked second in the league in both batting (.349) and on-base percentage (.395) in 1933. The league leader in both categories was his Phillies teammate Chuck Klein, who hit .368 and had a .422 on-base percentage.
Against the Cardinals in 1933, Davis hit .425 (31-for-73).
The Cardinals wanted to get Davis back because of his bat and because Jimmie Wilson was not getting along with Frankie Frisch, who had replaced Gabby Street as manager during the 1933 season, the St. Louis Star-Times reported.
So, the Wilson-for-Davis deal was made. Frisch got the catcher he wanted. The Phillies got both a catcher and a leader. Wilson became their player-manager, replacing Burt Shotton.
Time share
Davis began the 1934 season with a bang. He hit .395 in April. In consecutive games against the Reds in July, Davis totaled eight hits, seven RBI. Boxscore and Boxscore
The Cardinals’ pitching was led by the Dean brothers, Dizzy and Paul. Davis told the Post-Herald, “Paul was the fastest pitcher I ever caught. The difference between him and Diz was Dizzy had everything else _ a good curve, control, change of pace and lots of heart.”
(Davis also told the Birmingham newspaper that the Cardinals’ Bill Hallahan “was the best money pitcher I ever saw. If there was one game you needed, I’d take Hallahan.”)
As the 1934 season unfolded, backup catcher Bill DeLancey impressed when given chances to start. The Cardinals, in third place in the National League at the end of July, surged in August (19-11) and September (21-7) and won the pennant. DeLancey contributed, hitting .345 in August and .311 in September.
In the meantime, friction developed between Davis and Dizzy Dean. According to Dean biographer Robert Gregory in his book “Diz,” Dizzy was complaining in the clubhouse late in the season about how hard it was to keep winning without enough support from his teammates. “I ought to whip the whole bunch of you _ at the same time,” Dean ranted. Davis looked up and said, “Shut the fuck up.”
Davis hit .300 (.375 with runners in scoring position) and had an on-base percentage of .366 for the 1934 Cardinals, but Frankie Frisch decided to start DeLancey (.316 batting mark, .414 on-base percentage) at catcher in the World Series against the Tigers. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, when Frisch, who was fond of Davis, told him about the decision, Davis replied, “The hell with how I or anybody else may feel. Bill (DeLancey) has been hot. He’s winning for us. Keep him in there. The pitchers have confidence in him.”
DeLancey started all seven World Series games and the Cardinals prevailed. Davis made two pinch-hit appearances and singled both times, driving in a run. After his first hit, Davis was replaced by a pinch-runner, Dizzy Dean. On attempting to move from first to second on a grounder, Dean got conked in the right temple by a throw from shortstop Billy Rogell. “The first thing I knew, a thousand little stars and big stars was jumping around before my eyes, but I never did see no tigers,” Dean told the Post-Dispatch. Boxscore
Dissed by Dizzy
Davis and DeLancey split catching duties with the 1935 Cardinals. Davis hit .317 (.398 with runners in scoring position) and had a .386 on-base percentage. DeLancey hit .279 with an on-base mark of .369.
To Dizzy Dean, though, the choice was clear: He wanted DeLancey to be his catcher. With Dizzy on the mound, Davis dropped a pop fly in Cincinnati and called for a pitch in Brooklyn that was drilled for a home run. Dean told the Cardinals he lost faith in Davis after that. “Having confidence in a catcher, no matter how good a pitcher a fellow is, means an awful lot,” Dean wrote in a letter to Cardinals executive Branch Rickey.
(In defending Davis, Frisch told the Post-Dispatch, “Diz didn’t know Spud wasn’t calling the pitches. I was.”
Dean went public with his criticism of Davis after the 1935 season. According to his biographer, Dean said, “I ain’t pitching no more with him back there.”
Rickey wrote to Dean, “I was utterly amazed that you would think about Davis as you do about him.”
Frisch and the team captain, shortstop Leo Durocher, rallied around Davis. Frisch called Dean’s criticism of Davis “unfair and uncalled for” and described Davis as “a great catcher,” the Star-Times reported.
Durocher told the newspaper, “Spud Davis is probably the most popular man on our ballclub. He’s the smartest catcher in the big leagues today and Dizzy overlooks all those games that Spud won for him with his hitting. Davis can catch for my money every day in the week.”
J. Roy Stockton of the Post-Dispatch noted, “The men in the dugout know that Davis is valuable. They know his stout heart.”
When Dean got to spring training, he and Davis shook hands, and, in a statement prepared for him by Rickey, Dizzy said, “Give me a ball and glove and put Davis behind the plate.”
Davis hit .273 for the 1936 Cardinals, ending a streak of seven straight seasons of .300 or better. He was sent to the Reds after the season.
Davis caught more of Dean’s games (68) than any other catcher, according to baseball-reference.com. Dean’s ERA in games with Davis as catcher was 2.87 _ better than his overall career mark of 3.02.
Hitting the best
Frankie Frisch and Spud Davis stuck together. When Frisch managed the Pirates in the 1940s, Davis was his catcher and then a coach. Davis also was a coach on Frisch’s staff when he later managed the Cubs.
In his 16 seasons as a big-league player, Davis batted .308 and produced 1,312 hits. His on-base percentage was .369. In 459 career at-bats versus the Cardinals, Davis hit .305. He batted .333 (11-for-33) against Dizzy Dean and .406 (13-for-22) against another future Hall of Famer from the Cardinals, Jesse Haines.
Asked by the Post-Herald to name the best right-handed pitcher he played with or against, Davis chose Dizzy Dean. His pick for best left-hander was Carl Hubbell of the Giants.
Davis hit .301 (41-for-133) versus Hubbell, who told the Newspaper Enterprise Association, “He’s hard to outguess. I try to make each pitch something unexpected but somehow Spud anticipates a fair number of my offerings.”
Davis explained to the Post-Herald, “I could hit a low ball well and Hubbell’s best pitch (a screwball) was low.”
RetroSimba 
Always interesting to me when teams reacquire players they previously traded like the Cardinals did with Spud Davis. I’m reminded of the Brewers and Jim Slaton who they traded to the Tigers and later resigned as a free agent.
And also interesting and great when a trade works for both teams in this case the Phils and Cards….Davis and Wilson.
I’m moved in the way Davis swallowed his pride and acknowledged what was best for the team by saying, “The hell with how I or anybody else may feel. Bill (DeLancey) has been hot. He’s winning for us. Keep him in there. The pitchers have confidence in him.”
It seems that Davis never retaliated against Dean and maybe that went a long way in Dean eventually sort of apologizing even if the message was prepared by Rickey.
Part of the fun of baseball discussions is how a 1930s player such as Spud Davis can be linked to a 1970s player such as Jim Slaton, and it makes sense. Good stuff, Steve.
The Brewers sure made a slick move in acquiring Ben Oglivie from the Tigers for Jim Slaton and then reacquiring Slaton when he became a free agent. I am glad Slaton got that second stint with the Brewers because it gave him a chance to pitch in their only World Series appearance in 1982 versus the Cardinals. Slaton was the winning pitcher in Game 4.
Spud Davis played in an era when the National League had two other outstanding hitting catchers, future Hall of Famers Gabby Hartnett of the Cubs and Ernie Lombardi of the Reds. In some of the archived news articles I saw rating the hitting skills of Davis, Hartnett and Lombardi, Davis would make the claim that he, of course, had more speed than the other two.
Thanks for sharing this Mark. I can’t help but keep admiring how well Spud Davis hit in clutch situations. And all without exit velocities, launch angles, etc!! I do though have a couple of questions. Is it true that the first time the Cardinals traded for Jimmie Willson it was in the middle of a game against the Phillies? Also, when Dizzy Dean got hit in the head pinch running for Spud Davis was that when he later said that they x-rayed my head and found nothing? Pretty cool baseball stories.
The Jimmie Wilson is true; the Dizzy Dean story (though fun) is not.
On May 11, 1928, the Phillies played the Cardinals at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. Wilson started at catcher for the Phillies and batted cleanup. In the top of the second, Wilson grounded out against Grover Cleveland Alexander. Near the end of the bottom half of the second, Wilson was traded by the Phillies to the Cardinals. He was removed from the game when the second inning ended, the St. Louis Star-Times reported. Wilson changed into street clothes and watched the remainder of the game from a box seat behind the screen in back of home plate, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported. Wilson told the Star-Times, “I should not say I am glad I was rescued from the Phillies, but I really am for this one reason: I have a chance to get into the World Series with a pennant contender.” The next day, May 12, 1928, Wilson made his Cardinals debut at St. Louis against the Braves. He had two hits, a walk, a RBI and threw out two runners attempting to steal.
At speaking engagements and in interviews with reporters, Dean often said that a newspaper headline the morning after he was struck in the head at Detroit read: “Dean’s Head X-rayed; Nothing Found,” or “X-rays of Dean’s Head Reveal Nothing.” For instance, Dean told the Corpus Christi Times, “Yes sir, podner, ol’ Diz remembers that headline. It was a big one and it read; ‘Dean’s Head X-rayed; Nothing Found.’ Yes sir, podner, that’s the way it read.”
However, as Dean’s biographer, Robert Gregory noted, “If such a thing appeared, it wasn’t in a paper in St. Louis or Detroit.”
I’ve never heard of two guys being traded for each other and then having the reverse trade made. It’s like both teams conceding they blundered.
It brings to mind another catcher, Harry Chiti, who basically was traded for himself.
On April 26, 1962, the Cleveland Indians sent Chiti to the Mets in exchange for cash. Harry hit .195 in 15 games for the Mets, who traded him back to Cleveland on June 15, 1962, for cash.
Can’t understand why. A .195 hitter was probably in upgrade for the ‘62 Mets.
Spud…mashed…love what you did there. The reverse trade is wild, and I saw your comment about Harry Chiti. Traded for himself indeed!
Indeed, the Spud Davis trade was no small potatoes.