Former Major League Baseball star Tommy Davis died on April 3, "and the coast-centric national news reports of course focused on his time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where Davis did win two batting championships and played in two World Series," said baseball expert William S. Bike, author of the book The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow.
Bike, in an article on Medium.com, "The Strange Chicago Sojourn of Tommy Davis," moves beyond Los Angeles to cover Davis's time with the New York Mets, Chicago White Sox, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, and Baltimore Orioles. He looks at the oddity of star player Davis inexplicably being traded or let go not once, but many times during the last ten years of his career.
See the article at https://billbike.medium.com/the-strange-chicago-sojourn-of-tommy-davis-934a250d3f01
An expert on the 1970 Chicago Cubs, Bike particularly focuses on Davis's time with that team, and how it unfortunately "negatively impacted the rest of his life," Bike wrote. He also addresses how dealing away Davis after that season probably cost the Cubs postseason play the next year, as well as one and possibly two 20-game winning starting pitchers.
Bike's book on the 1970 Cubs, The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow offers a fast-paced look at the season month by month, Bike moves beyond wins, losses, and statistics to relive Ernie Banks's 500th home run; the addition of "the basket" to the Wrigley Field outfield walls; good trades and bad trades, including moves related to Davis; how manager Leo Durocher's radio show caused clubhouse chaos; death threats against third baseman Ron Santo; outfielders Billy Williams's and Jim Hickman's best season; the great Cubs pitching rotation; and statistical and computer analyses of how the Eastern Division Cubs would have done playing in the Western Division— and in the playoffs and World Series.
The book shows how the baseball, pennant races, and Wrigley Field of 1970 differed from the modern era. It analyzes "what might have been" if different scenarios had played out, and reveals what happened to each of the players. For Chicago Cubs fans of that era or any era, the book is a must-read.
The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, published by The History Press of Charleston, SC, is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other book purchase websites, in bookstores, and at https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467149082 ISBN: 97814671-4908-2, paperback, 160 pp., $21.99.
For more about The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, log on to www.1970chicagocubs.com.
Buy William S. Bike's latest book, The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, at www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/97814671490827.