THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996 TAG: 9601160392
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
In March of 1991, Glenn Davis said in an interview: ``When I go to my grave, I want people to be able to say, `That guy really cared about other people.' I want something to keep going after I'm gone, instead of just a tombstone saying I was a good ballplayer.''
In the same 30-minute conversation before a Baltimore Orioles exhibition game at Miami's Joe Robbie Stadium, Davis also acknowledged owning a violent temper:
``I know it's within me, but it's more controlled now. I think it comes out in a quiet way. I get pretty intense.''
As Davis' $5.3 million civil suit against an ex-nightclub bouncer resumes today in Norfolk, I think of both statements and reflect again, as I did then, on the complexity of the former major league slugger.
Too, I remain struck by the sad irony of the situation that began on a Sunday night in June, 1993, when Davis had his jaw broken in the parking lot of a now-defunct Virginia Beach nightspot.
People unfamiliar with Davis probably thought ``just another drunk ballplayer.'' Actually, if Davis' temper was going to surface anywhere off the field, a fight outside a bar probably was the least likely venue.
Oh, Davis was a bad-ass kid, all right. He put in plenty of drunken, street-fighting nights in Jacksonville, Fla., where his father walked off and his mother beat him.
In various interviews, Davis revealed his flirtations with suicide, pressing knife blades against his neck, pistols to his head.
Once he punched a school principal, breaking his glasses. ``A basic juvenile deliquent,'' Davis called himself, he eventually found refuge with the family of his high school baseball coach.
But when Davis pursued unsavory behavior into pro baseball and his stepmother publicly washed her hands of him, Davis broke down, admitting his desperation and begging her help.
She steered Davis to religion, and it took. He got married, started a family, stopped drinking and going out after games. It was a big deal in Houston when Davis refused to have his name and home runs used in a promotional deal with a beer company.
Then Davis founded a home for troubled boys in Columbus, Ga. He won a Caring Award given by a baseball alumni organization. He talked of playing baseball out of social responsibility. Of acting as an example to youth. Of showing gratitude for his ``second chance in life.''
Last Friday, as I sat in the gallery of Courtroom 3 of the federal courthouse on Granby St., the public details of Davis' past sat with me.
According to testimony, at the very least Davis confronted a bouncer, loudly swore at him and repeatedly wagged a finger in his face.
He wasn't drunk. Randy Ready and Mark Parent, Davis' former teammates with the Rochester Red Wings, said they drank two margaritas and three beers each in a few hours that night. Davis had iced tea and non-alcoholic beer.
Ready, who first sparred verbally with a bouncer, ended up getting choked, but Davis was punched three times. The blows shattered his jaw and, Davis claims, ruined his major league career and earning potential.
That's what the case, expected to continue through this week, is all about. The obvious part, at least.
Underneath, I think of the valiant struggles in most of our lives. Of the difficult roads that lead us to become better than we are. And whether we can ever leave behind, completely, what we were. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Glenn Davis' $5.3 million civil suit against an ex-nightclub bouncer
resumes today in Norfolk.
by CNB