The Legend of Joe Davis, the larger-than-life slugger and folk hero of Red Sox farm system (2024)

The legend of Joe Davis can be told many different ways, but this version begins with blood gushing from an open wound in high school. Davis was only a sophom*ore, helping his dad prep firewood with a hydraulic log splitter, when his left middle finger was caught in the device and smashed literally to pieces. His bone was exposed, so Davis’ mother drove him to the hospital while his father searched for and found the mangled bit of flesh. A doctor ultimately tossed the skin in the trash saying it was too damaged to be of any use. The bone was cut and the resulting stub capped with a bit of flesh from Davis’ palm.

“When you get to see your own pearly white bones,” Davis said, “that ain’t normal.”

Neither, according to lore, was Davis’ reaction. A younger boy, it seems, had witnessed the whole thing: the log falling out of the machine, Davis’ gut reaction to put it back into place, and that mistake instantly punished in a flash of brutal, overwhelming force. And the way Davis responded to that life (and hand) altering moment.

“The kid was just quiet,” Joe’s older brother John said. “And then (he said to Joe), ‘You’re not even screaming. You must be like a God or something.’”

Such is the origin of a real-life minor-league folk hero.

They call him Big Joe, and his exploits have been passed around the Red Sox organization like old campfire stories. They say he once survived a week alone in the Texas wilderness, that his family forged its own version of Thor’s mythical hammer, and that he spent last season living in a trailer, hunting small game with a slingshot, and grilling racks for ribs for teammates on off days. Davis hit the second-most home runs in the Red Sox system last year, and by the time he was promoted to High-A Greenville in July, his reputation literally preceded him.

“I was just like, it’s true,” Greenville manager Iggy Suarez said. “The myth, it’s true.”

On the road, Suarez witnessed opposing fans who would heckle the big guy when he first stepped on deck, only to inevitably give him a rousing ovation by his third at-bat. Davis is the rare minor-league player whose notoriety transcends his prospect status. At 25 years old, he gets little attention from Baseball America and does not appear on Keith Law’s list of the organization’s top 20 prospects, but he can hit, and Greenville has announced it will give away a Joe Davis bobblehead this summer after he played only 47 games for the affiliate last year. The plastic figure won’t show Davis swinging for the fences but instead will show him sitting outside his camper cooking one of his homemade sausages on an open fire.

“I guess,” Davis said, “people like rooting for the guy who doesn’t look like he should be in professional baseball.”

That might be part of the story, but teammate and close friend Stephen Scott has a different theory as to what makes the Joe Davis phenomenon so popular and enduring.

“It’s authenticity,” Scott said. “And I think a lot of people respond to that.”

We know #NationalBobbleheadDay was Friday but we’re excited to unveil the Legend of “Big Joe” Davis bobblehead! This will be given away during a 2022 game. Joe was a fan favorite last year, lived in a camper & makes his own homemade sausage! @joedvs pic.twitter.com/L1EHeuO909

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— Greenville Drive (@GreenvilleDrive) January 10, 2022

Here, then, is the legend of Joe Davis, in all its authenticity and bobblehead-inspiring glory.

The tale of Big Joe in the wilderness

In the winter of 2020, when his first full minor-league season had been canceled and the whole world felt rudderless within the pandemic, Davis asked his dad to drop him off at Sam Houston National Forest and to not come back for a week.

Some 150 miles from his home in Austin, Texas, Davis walked into the wilderness carrying a backpack with two gallons of water and a collapsible .22-caliber rifle. He built a shelter, hunted squirrels and rabbits for dinner, and tested his mettle amongst the trees. He sent nightly text messages to let his family know he was OK, but he otherwise kept his phone powered down and his senses wide open. The first few nights were restless, Davis said. Raccoons. But by the end of the week, he’d settled into a calming rhythm.

“I always feel closer to God when I’m out in nature,” Davis said. “When I was out there, that was it for me. I was literally in heaven. I was happy. It was so relaxing.”

Davis grew up in a family of blue-collar outdoorsmen and gearheads. He learned to hunt and fish as a boy, and restored his own pickup truck as a teenager. He grew to savor good Texas barbeque and developed a natural ability to bring people together with food and laughter. But he also came to value his independence and moments of solitude.

At the University of Houston, Davis became an iconic player in a good program, but when the Cougars played their annual conference tournament in Clearwater, Fla., Davis rarely joined his teammates for off-days at the beach. He kept a collapsible four-piece fishing pole in his travel bag and had a favorite fishing hole beneath a local bridge. He’d fish the coast in the morning and go deep in the afternoon.

When he turned pro in 2019, his first assignment was to short-season Lowell, Mass., where he discovered the Merrimack River flowing directly behind Edward A. LeLacheur Park. He went almost immediately to Walmart. One of his first purchases as a professional baseball player was a brand-new fishing pole.

Well THAT was exciting! @LowellSpinners @SoxProspects @joedvs pic.twitter.com/Jet13arxMp

— Kelly OConnor (@sittingstillsox) September 6, 2019

The origin of Big Joe the ballplayer

James Bowie High School is the largest public school in Austin, and it’s named for the legendary frontiersman, knife fighter and defender of the Alamo. It was a fitting place for Big Joe to find his footing. He, too, is a throwback to another time.

By all accounts, Davis was a good student. His high school coach called him “a perfect gentleman,” a real “yes, sir” and “no, sir” kind of kid. He was the youngest of four Davis siblings, and the youngest by a decade. His brother and two sisters played either baseball or softball in college, and their father, a sheet metal worker who’d played some junior college ball, would break down swings when the family watched baseball games on television. Some of Davis’ earliest memories are of shagging foul balls at his siblings’ games while feeling an obligation to live up to their achievements.

“Even as a kid, he would do things, and (he) would be kind of a legendary icon in his age group,” his brother said. “… He was a real competitive little guy. I just remember him one time as a little kid saying, ‘I just want to be better than you are.’”

The family’s first hint that Joe might surpass the rest of them on the diamond was the way he threw rocks as a little boy. By the time he was old enough to pick up a bat, they noticed something natural about his swing. Davis began to feel worthy of the family legacy as a teenager when he played in a Perfect Game tournament in Georgia and led the whole thing in batting average. In high school, he won the Area Code Games home run derby, and he led the state of Texas in home runs as both a junior and senior. A decade after his brother homered against potent Woodlands High School in the state playoffs, Joe did the exact same thing. His high school coach, Sam Degelia, came to dread throwing batting practice because Davis hit so many balls that were lost and never found.

“Coaches from other teams still bring up stories today about Joe and how far he could hit the ball,” Degelia said.

Drafted by the Rays after his senior season, Davis wanted to sign but his dad convinced him to follow through on a commitment to the University of Houston, where he became the American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year, regularly made the All-Academic team, and eventually set the school record for career home runs.

“He kind of reminds me of guys who played probably in the Babe Ruth era,” his college coach Todd Whitting said. “They were just good ol’ ballplayers who played hard. There’s not a lot of science behind what he does. He basically gets up there, grabs a bat, looks for a pitch over the plate, and tries to hit a home run.”

The fable of Big Joe’s mythical hammer

Like their father and grandfather, Davis’ brother, John, became a sheet metal worker when his own baseball career ended. When he had some free time, just for fun, John forged a stainless-steel replica of Thor’s hammer, the mighty weapon of Norse mythology famous today for its role in the Marvel comic books and movies. John’s version weighed some 20 pounds and was extremely top-heavy with a solid steel handle wrapped in braided, 10-gauge copper wire.

The hammer was purely decorative until Davis brought it to college and made it the centerpiece of his team’s home run celebrations. Any University of Houston hitter who went deep would circle the bases and lift the hammer, having proven himself worthy of wielding such a weapon. He would remain keeper of the hammer until the next Cougar to hit a home run took ownership. The tradition continues to this day, and the school now etches its annual leaders in home runs, RBIs, doubles and hits onto the hammer’s four sides. And, yes, Davis’ name is on there.

“He’s kind of a folk hero among all of our fans,” Whitting said. “They knew every time Joe Davis came to the plate, there was a really good chance something exciting was going to happen.”

After such a decorated college career, Davis was disappointed to fall into the 19th round of the 2019 draft and had stopped paying attention by the time his name was called. He didn’t find out the Red Sox had taken him until a teammate called to say congratulations. He left the hammer in Houston, but the folk hero status followed him into pro ball.

Davis’ two professional managers, Suarez and Luke Montz, offered nearly identical scouting reports: Davis is a soft-spoken but potent leader in the clubhouse, a tireless worker pregame, a surprisingly nimble defender at first, and a powerful hitter willing to go the other way when teams pitch him outside. It takes a lot for any pure first baseman to get much prospect attention, but Davis hit .297 last year and has been difficult to dismiss. He’s been impossible to ignore.

“Not co*cky. Not conceited. The word is confidence,” Montz said. “The guy can hit, and the guy believes he can hit. He’s sometimes a little too hard on himself (about everything else). He crushes his weight. He crushes his defense. (He’ll say), ‘sh*t! Aw hell, I might not be able to play first, but gosh-dog-it I can hit.’”

We’re going to miss seeing this guy at the plate. @UHCougarBB’s Joe Davis left his mark in #AmericanBSB history with 7⃣ career records.

☑ 288 Hits
☑ 223 RBIs
☑ 53 HRs
☑ 52 Doubles
☑ 503 Total Bases
☑ 0.95 RBIs/Game
☑ 235 Games Played

Davis was drafted by the @RedSox. pic.twitter.com/HtcxYR0cc8

— American Baseball (@American_BSB) June 24, 2019

The story of Big Joe and the trailer

College seniors drafted in the 19th round don’t get much of a signing bonus, and that’s why Big Joe lives in a trailer. He figured renting a lot in an RV park would be cheaper than a hotel room or a short-term apartment, and so he contracted Scott — a kindred spirit out of Vanderbilt who’d become his closest friend in Lowell — to ask whether he would be up for sharing a trailer if they were again assigned to the same affiliate. Scott agreed, and so Davis bought in a 36-foot camper with a queen-sized mattress in the bedroom, a full bathroom, a slide-out kitchen, and an extra set of bunk beds behind the couch. Davis spent last season in the bedroom while Scott took the bunk beds, sleeping on the bottom and using the top for storage. They insist the trailer is surprisingly comfortable, modern and downright impressive.

Still, there are limitations. Scott is 5-foot-10, 210 pounds, and Davis is 6-feet, 240.

“I’d feel the trailer kinda shakin’ when he’d get up, or he’d feel it kinda shakin’ when I’d get up,” Davis said. “It was like, alright, time to meet in the middle for breakfast.”

Scott would make the coffee while Davis cooked the sausage and eggs. Mondays were off-days, and so the trailer became a weekly barbeque joint. Sometimes, Davis would grill a pair of “ginormous” steaks for only the two primary residents, and sometimes he’d cook a couple racks of ribs for the team. Their first week in Class-A Salem, Davis served brisket, and when he and Scott were promoted to Greenville within two weeks of one another, Davis simply drove their lodging some 300 miles down the road, and the roommates were back together again.

If there were anything artificial about Davis’ country boy exterior, it would surely be exposed over six months in a camper while also rooming together on the road, but Scott said time and familiarity revealed only more authenticity. Sure, Davis has a soft side, a teddy bear heart beneath the Grizzly Adams beard. His Instagram account is loaded with pictures of his new wife — they were married this offseason — but it’s mostly photos of baseball games, arrowheads, caught fish and old Chevy trucks. This offseason, Davis has taken the camper kayak fishing off the Texas coast. He hasn’t been secretly recording episodes of “The Bachelor” on his DVR.

“I don’t know that he even knows what ‘The Bachelor’ is,” Scott said. “It’s like an onion. You keep peeling back the layers and they just keep being the same.”

Wow. Big @joedvs really got a hold of this one! pic.twitter.com/ffkMLFdwIa

— Greenville Drive (@GreenvilleDrive) August 8, 2021

The ballad of Big Joe and his trucks

A few years before the log-splitting accident, Davis and his father were driving around Austin, Texas looking for old trucks when they spotted a 1959 Chevy Apache abandoned in an unfamiliar backyard. Joe had been obsessed with trucks since he was a boy, and he especially liked the older ones, so father and son stopped to knock on the door. The woman who answered said she’d sell the truck, but she never offered a price, and so it was agreed Davis would mow her lawn for more than a year until he’d earned the truck as payment.

On the day he finally brought it home, Davis and his father got it up and running, and Davis kept that old truck going through all four years of high school.

To this day, Davis and his dad still like driving around looking for old trucks, and Davis has a new one he’s working on. It’s a 1956 model, and it sat unused on a Texas ranch for some 35 years before one of his dad’s co-workers gave it away. Davis has been slowly rebuilding it, literally replacing everything but the body. He found an engine, transmission and wiring harness at a junkyard, and he plans to upgrade every nut and bolt until it’s a modern-day vehicle with an older shell; built for today but with the look and feel of another time and place.

“My dream is to fix this truck up, and I want to drive that to pro ball,” Davis said. “I want to take it to spring training. That’s kind of my brand. I feel like I’m a renaissance man. I like classic rock. I like old cars and trucks. I just wanted to get in an old truck and be able to drive it 1,000 miles at a time without any problems.”

A truck built for the long haul, put together by a ballplayer made to capture the imagination. The legend of Joe Davis is a campfire story. It’s a folktale. It’s a great American novel. And it’s still being written.

(Top photo: Tom Priddy / Four Seam Images via AP)