Other than Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada, no Yankee was more critical to the team’s second-half surge than Joba "The Heat" Chamberlain. Taking over what had become a seventh and eighth-inning quagmire, Chamberlain lent both stabilizing and dominating elements to the team’s bullpen equation, giving the Yankees their most effective bridge to Mariano Rivera since the days of Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton. Chamberlain also evoked comparisons to a young Rivera, who in 1996 turned the seventh and eighth innings into ongoing nightmares for most opposing hitters. Yet, Chamberlain reminds me just as much of another great Yankee set-up reliever of long ago, one who has been mostly forgotten, even by the team’s diehard observers.
Ron Davis was never a top-notch phenom in the manner of Chamberlain, who leapfrogged through the Yankee system this summer—just one year removed from being drafted out of the University of Nebraska. A non-descript reliever with a common name, Davis came to the Yankees from the Cubs in the middle of the 1978 season. Davis was the unheralded return for a washed up Ken Holtzman, who had become the bane of both Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner. Davis was actually the player to be named later in the deal, with the official announcement of his inclusion not happening until two days after Holtzman had been dispatched to the Windy City. I’m sure that few Yankee fans gave a second thought to hearing the name of Ron Davis for the first time.
Late in the 1978 season, Davis made his major league debut. He hardly made a stirring impression. In four relief appearances, he coughed up runs at a rate of nearly 12 runs per nine innings. Numbers aside, Davis didn’t look very impressive from a physical standpoint, either. With his oversized wire-frame glasses, pointy nose, and wide hips, the tall and gangly Texas looked like a misshapen schoolteacher. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Davis never pitched in the major leagues again.
