GOODYEAR, Ariz. — When reporters entered the Reds clubhouse for the first time this spring, clubhouse manager Rick Stowe was proud of himself. With a smile, he pointed toward the locker of über-prospect Elly De La Cruz where a jersey was hanging. Under the arched “De La Cruz” on the back sat the No. 44.
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“I did all right, didn’t I,” Stowe said.
Stowe, who is in charge of numbers, is often the target of good-natured ribbing when he gives away a number of a beloved player (although some former players have been less good-natured about their complaints). The Reds have 11 retired numbers, so it’s difficult at times to come up with an open number. Making it more difficult is the Reds have three single numbers retired and five numbers in the teens retired. At one point last season, the Reds had a player wearing a number in the 90s for the first time in regular season history (Taylor Motter, No. 94).
The No. 44 isn’t retired, but it is storied. It last belonged to Aristides Aquino, but it also belonged to Tanner Rainey, Cody Reed, Kyle Waldrop, Mike Leake and Adam Dunn, as well as Mike Cameron, John Roper, Frank Viola, Pat Darcy and Charlie Leibrandt. But really, to Reds fans, especially those of a certain age, the No. 44 — retired or not — will always be associated with one man: Eric Davis.
Davis, now 60, wore No. 44 with the Reds from 1984 to 1991 and again in 1996. Davis was the must-see highlight every night when those highlights were not easily available on a smartphone. No, Davis was a five-tool player who could do anything on a baseball field. His 162-game stretch from June 11, 1986, to July 4, 1987, would stand as one of the greatest seasons of all time had it occurred in a single calendar year. In those 162 games, Davis hit .308/.406/.622 with 47 home runs, 149 runs, 123 RBI and 98 stolen bases. He was caught stealing just 12 times. He also won a Gold Glove in 1987, the first of three straight years winning the award.
Eric Davis sporting No. 44 during the 1990 World Series. (Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images)In simpler terms, Eric Davis was Superman on a baseball field. He was fast, he was strong and more than anything, he was cool. At 60, Davis is still cooler than anyone else in Reds camp. He has a presence that belies his age or his generation.
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When De La Cruz was asked about the No. 44 hanging in his locker, he smiled and responded that he liked it.
“It’s an honor to wear that number,” De La Cruz said earlier in camp, according to interpreter Jorge Merlos. “We’re going to give it all our best to live up to that number.”
De La Cruz played in his first Cactus League game of the season Sunday and the 21-year-old will have plenty more. Davis, who lives in Arizona and has been a special assistant to the general manager since 2008, has watched De La Cruz since the gangly shortstop was a 19-year-old in the Arizona Complex League, well before anyone outside the Reds organization had any idea of who he was. In De La Cruz, Davis has seen the same thing everyone else is now witnessing — a supremely talented baseball player, with a rare combination of size, strength and speed. Sound familiar?
The Athletic caught up with Davis on Monday and asked him about the latest Reds No. 44. The following conversation is lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Elly said it was an honor to wear your number — he was born in 2002, after your final game in 2001. What does it mean that he knows your legacy?
Well, he knows my legacy because I’ve been here since he started. If you are here, it’s not hard to find my legacy if you’re a part of the Reds organization. They do a great job of highlighting legacies and making sure that the players that are coming in know the players that were here before them. That’s a testament to our organization and me being visible, having been able to watch him, watch him grow and become a friend to him is why you get that from him.
You saw him here in the Arizona Complex League, what have you seen from him?
The question is what haven’t I seen? Right? His abilities are second to none. I think the most important thing that Elly does is the things that you see every day — his smile, his enthusiasm, his ability to understand the game is genuine. And you just don’t see that in today’s game with someone so young. His love for what he does outshines to glory that he gets. And that’s what makes for a special player.
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I’ve talked to a lot of players about Elly and sometimes the discussion becomes just about Elly. It’s players like Matt McLain, Jose Torres — really talented, good players in their own right, but when you ask about Elly, they smile. There seems to be no jealousy, even from guys who play his position. That’s special, right?
I wouldn’t say that’s special, that’s just respect. When you respect someone, it doesn’t diminish you. So it’s not special to be respectful to somebody that plays the game the way you do or might have something extra that you don’t have. That doesn’t take away the respect that we have for Matt or Torres or anybody else. So when you put it in perspective, it’s not anything abnormal. It’s abnormal to the individual who doesn’t recognize talent. if you look at Joe Burrow, do you think he’s in awe of Patrick Mahomes? No, but he knows he’s pretty f—— good. It shouldn’t surprise me that people talk like that. The people that you’re talking to played with him. When you play with somebody, the aura of who they are doesn’t come into play, the respect of what you see is what comes into play. McLain saw when he got to Double A and the other teammates saw when he was in Dayton or Daytona. So when you watch Elly — to me, his personality and his dedication supersede his talent for me.
Davis is currently a special assistant at Reds camp. (J. Meric / Getty Images)I’ve probably seen him 10-12 games in the minors and I saw it, but even others tell me about what a smart player he is, that he knows how to play the game.
He plays the game with a certain moxie that only great ones have. I’m not saying where Elly’s going to be 15 years from now, I don’t have any idea. The only thing that can stop him is Elly, barring injury. The enthusiastic stuff you see every day is genuine. How he moves is genuine. His cockiness is genuine. It’s not disrespectful to anybody else, it’s just the way that he is. And when you have special, you have to recognize that it’s special. And for people who say you treat everybody the same haven’t been around anyone that’s different. You don’t treat everyone the same when someone’s completely different. Understanding that and everything that comes with him is just a matter of time. I don’t know when that time is going to be. It’s just a matter of time before everybody is exposed to what this kid is all about.
You think he looks good in 44?
He looks great in 44. It would be different for me had it been retired and they pulled it off the rafters and stuff like that. That’s when it would be emotional for me. There have been other people they’ve given it to, so it doesn’t bother me.
I didn’t think it’d bother you, I just thought maybe it was cool that here’s a guy who is tall, fast, power, arm …
It’s cool that you guys are asking about it because it’s me. But nobody asked me when Aquino wore it. It’s not the number, it’s the player. If you ask Bernie (Bernie Stowe, Rick’s father, preceded his son in the Reds clubhouse) when he gave it to me, I didn’t ask for 44, he gave it to me. He saw something in me that would match that number. That’s what he told me, “I saw something in you that would match that number” with (Hank) Aaron, (Willie) McCovey, Reggie Jackson and some of the great people that wore that number. That’s why Bernie gave it to me. I was just trying to live up to that. Now my number is being moved on and hopefully he takes it and runs with it the way I took it and ran with it.
Rick was really proud of it. We like to tease Rick, but he was proud of that one. Of course, I’ve never seen a shortstop wear 44.
No. But you’ve never seen Elly. We’ve never had an Elly.
Who has?
(Oneil) Cruz is close.
What’s the difference between the two?
I think that Elly understands the game. Elly’s more dynamic. Elly is a switch hitter. Elly plays with a certain moxie. That’s not to say that Cruz doesn’t. But Cruz’s moxie is more deliberate. Elly’s moxie is more spontaneous. Cruz is more calculated to me, Elly is not.
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It’s an easy cool.
When you’re cool from both sides of the plate, you’re pretty damn cool.
That’s something that reminds me of you — that easy cool, but also plays the game hard, smarter and better than anybody else. He knows it, but he’s not going to beat you over the head with it. But when Eric Davis steps to the plate …
(De La Cruz is) the same way. Even when he was in the (Arizona Complex League), you saw him walk and you just knew that it was different. And then when he got to Daytona, that’s different. And then when he got to Dayton and so on and so forth. As he keeps moving, that’s different. The only thing that I watch for Elly is if he’s going to be allowed to move different and allow his game to catch up to how he moves. Because when you have hype sometimes, people put the cart before the horse. And that thoroughbred has to learn how to run that race at the major-league level. … It’s crazy, because he has his own internal clock. Sometimes your internal clock doesn’t match someone else’s internal clock. They think you should be moving the way they think you should be moving, but Elly moves the way he knows how to move for 7 p.m., or whenever the game starts. He knows what to do to get himself ready. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t need help, but he’s got a pretty good idea of how his body works. He’s real meticulous about how his body works and what he needs to do to be ready. He’ll tell you he’s not tired. You’ve got to tell him he’s going to sit down, because he loves to play. We have to be careful with a lot of things with a guy like that.
Forgive me, but I was young and not in Cincinnati when you debuted, what were the expectations that were put on you?
I was compared to Willie Mays. Is there any other bigger expectation in baseball? It’s crazy because when you talk about me and my buddy (Darryl Strawberry), he came through and we came from the same place, I was compared to Willie Mays and he was compared to Ted Williams — two of the greatest players who ever played this game. To understand what that meant for me, I thought it was a disrespect to Willie Mays. Why? You’re a 19-year-old kid and you’re being compared to arguably the greatest player ever. That’s wrong. That’s unfair for me. But it’s a disgrace to him. That’s how I put the onus on Willie. If I do half of what Willie Mays did, I’m going to be a great player. It’s getting up in what you think a player should be. The joy is watching him become what he wants to be. Not what you want or what I want him to be.
Is it almost a blessing with Elly that we’ve maybe never seen anything like him, so who can we compare him to?
That’s a blessing and curse. The curse is not with him, it’s with other people. The blessing is for him. The curse is for everybody else. They want it now, they want it to be every day, you want this, why can’t he do that? That’s the curse. Other people create the curse. He doesn’t curse himself because he understands his blessings.
(Top photo of De La Cruz: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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