Position: Left field, right field
Birthplace: Williamston
Full Name: Wallace McArthur Nickname: Butch
Date of Birth: June 19, 1958
Current Residence: Garner, N.C.
High School: Williamston High School
College: East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C.
Bats: R Throws: R Height and Weight: 6-0, 190
Debut Year: 1983 Final Year: 1994 Years Played: 8
Teams and Years: Kansas City Royals, 1983-84; Pittsburgh Pirates, 1987; Baltimore Orioles, 1988-89; Los Angeles Dodgers, 1991; Texas Rangers, 1993-94
Career Summary
G AB H R RBI HR BA. OBP. SLG. WAR
166 453 110 56 50 7 .243 .274 .380 0.2
Butch Davis played about a season’s worth of games stretched over an eight-year career in the major leagues and has been a coach, mostly in the minors, going on three decades now. Many players have similar resumes. Davis has something on his, however, that no other Tarheel who made it to the major leagues can claim: He is the only one who appeared in the iconic baseball movie Bull Durham.
Davis was 29 in 1987 and had just finished his third season in the majors having played in eight games for the Pittsburgh Pirates that year. The Williamston native had moved to Garner by then and saw an ad for extras for a baseball movie that was going to be filmed in nearby Durham. A manager he had played for in the minors who was one of the film’s advisers urged Davis to try out because the filmmakers wanted some real ballplayers. Davis was cast as one of the Bulls’ players. Though he has no lines, he appears in some of the movie’s most-famous scenes. Davis is a bystander in the conversation on the pitching mound when Kevin Costner and other players discuss bridal gifts and voodoo hexes. He’s also briefly naked in the shower with his back turned toward the camera when the Bulls’ manager tosses an armful of bats into the shower room and accuses the players of lollygagging. Wearing number 15, Davis strikes out in another scene and the PA announcer says, “Too bad, Butch.”
“It’s a lot of standing around and just waiting,” is how he described move making to a newspaper reporter 30 years later. “You do a shoot, and you have to retake and retake and retake until they get it right. That’s what I did. I didn’t go every day, but I was out there enough.”[I]
Waiting around could also sum up Davis’ major-league career.
He told an interviewer in 2014 that he always remembered being outside while growing up in Williamston in Martin County and playing baseball. “I guess it sort of found me. It really did,” he said.[II]
As a freshman at Williamston High School, Davis didn’t make the baseball team. He made it the following year and also played high-school basketball and on Williamston’s American Legion baseball teams.
He lettered in baseball for three years at East Carolina University in Greenville. During his last year at the school in 1980, Davis led the team in batting average (.362), home runs (12) and RBI (27). He graduated as the school’s all-time leader in home runs with 26 and total bases with 250. Davis was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.
Despite those numbers, Davis was surprised when the Kansas City Royals drafted him in the 12th round of the 1980 amateur draft. He was surprised again three years later while playing for the Royals’ Triple A team in Omaha. His manager called him at home to tell he had to be in Kansas City that night. “I really didn’t have time to even think about it,” Davis said in 2014, “because it happened so quickly. You’re in the minor leagues one minute and the next minute you’re in the major leagues.”[III]
When he entered the big-league clubhouse, Davis knew it was all true. This wasn’t Omaha. “You always hear all those stories about how great the major leagues are,” he said, “First class this, and it’s true. You name it, it’s there for you, and you just walk in and say ‘Man, OK, this is what it’s like.’”[IV]
Unfortunately, Davis never had much time to savor it. He appeared in 74 games for the Royals over the next two seasons and then in just 26 big-league games during the next eight years, as he shuttled around the minors for four different teams.
Davis always kept it in perspective. “The simple fact is, there’s so many kids that play this game, have that dream and never make it,” he said. “I was one of the ones that had the dream and was very fortunate to make it.”[V]
It’s a message Davis has preached during his coaching career, which started after he retired as a player in 1994. He’s been a long-time hitting coach in the Baltimore Orioles’ minor leagues and also managed Orioles’ farm teams. Davis was also the first-base coach for the Minnesota Twins for six seasons. “I can tell the kids what it takes to get there,” Davis said. “I tell them ‘You’ve got to be determined. You’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile. Don’t think that it’s going to be handed to you.'”[VI]
Davis and his wife, Cassandra, also from Williamston, married in 1984 and have two children. They made their home in Garner.
References
[I] Hall, David. “30 years later, Tides Hitting Coach Butch Davis Recalls ZHis Role in ‘Bull Durham.’” Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), June 13, 2018.
[II] “Interview Part 1: Butch Davis, Home Crowd.” The Greatest 21 Days, September 8, 2014. http://www.greatest21days.com/2014/09/interview-part-1-butch-davis-home-crowd.html.
[III] Ibid.
[IV] Ibid.
[V] “Interview Part 2: Butch Davis, Simple Fact.” The Greatest 21 Days, September 9, 2014. http://www.greatest21days.com/2014/09/interview-part-2-butch-davis-simple-fact.html.
[VI] “Interview Part 4: Butch Davis, Two Things.” The Greatest 21 Days, September 11, 2014. http://www.greatest21days.com/2014/09/interview-part-4-butch-davis-two-things.html.