WINNIPEG — “Ike” is the nickname and baseball is his game. And from early appearances, it seems the man can flat out play the great American pastime at the big league level. What’s more, this rookie who plays first base for the New York Mets has power, hits for average, can field and happens to be Jewish.
Isaac Benjamin Davis, 23, grew up in Edina, a suburb southwest of Minneapolis. He’s the son of a Jewish mother, Millie Davis, who named him after her grandfather.
In late April, in an interview with New York sportswriter Dave Waldstein, Davis shared the fact that “a large portion of his family on his mother’s side, which was from Lithuania, perished in the Holocaust.”
Davis also added that he learned about his family’s history by doing family trees as part of school projects. He also noted that his great-aunt on his mother’s side was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the United States. It was through her that the family story has been preserved.
His dad is Houston-born former major league pitcher Ron Davis, who never started a game in the majors. Instead, he made his mark as a reliever, appearing in 481 games. He saved 130 and had a won-lost record of 47-53 and an ERA of 4.05 with the Yankees and Twins from 1978 to 1988
Ike was originally drafted out of Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he helped his team win three state titles. The Tampa Bay Rays selected him in the first round (19th overall) of the 2006 draft, but he chose not to sign and instead registered at Arizona State University (ASU), where he earned a degree and polished his game.
He was drafted again in the opening round in 2008 (18th overall), becoming Mets property and had the distinction of being the first Jew to play for the Mets since former Blue Jays outfielder Shawn Green, who ended his career in New York in 2006-07.
(Another popular Jewish Met was outfielder Art Shamsky, a platoon player between 1968 and 1972, who was instrumental in helping the 1969 Mets to a World Series victory over the Baltimore Orioles.)
While Davis is a first baseman in the the majors, in college, he was also a pitcher and outfielder. In 2006 he was named Pac-10 newcomer of the year, becoming the first freshman ever to lead the league in RBIs during the regular season. A variety of All-American honors followed when he averaged .353 during his days on campus, totalling 244 hits, 33 homers and 69 doubles.
As for his part-time pitching record with the ASU Sun Devils, his career numbers show Davis had a 7-5 mark with four saves and 78 strikeouts.
Davis made it difficult for the Mets to ignore him in spring training, batting .480 while hitting three homers and 10 RBI. The powers that be thought he ought to play at the AAA level in order to gain experience.
Last year with St. Lucie in the Florida State League Class A, he hit .333 with five home runs in his last 14 games before moving up to Double-A Birmingham in June, reports Baseball Prospectus. “There, despite the great challenge, Davis, if anything, got even better, hitting .309 with 13 home runs in his 55 games with the B-Mets, followed by a .341 mark in the Arizona Fall League.”
Following fewer than two weeks in AAA with the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, the 6-4, 215-pound slugger was summoned to the Big Apple, where he appears to be a big deal. In 113 at bats in his first 34 games, he was hitting .283, which included nine doubles, four taters and 12 RBIs.
But can he field? In one mid-May game, Davis chased down a high fly foul ball that was going to land in the Mets’ dugout. He took the guard rail in the midsection, flipped upside down and almost landed on his melon. Lucky for him, it was his own team’s dugout and the players on the bench darted to his rescue, perhaps preventing serious injury. He made the catch and held it high as if he was doing an impersonation of the Statue of Liberty.