PIPER DAVIS

Piper Davis is best known today as a baseball teacher and manager, with his star pupil being one Willie Mays. Unfortunately, due to his association with Mays, his own considerable skills as a player are often forgotten.

He got his start in the Industrial Leagues, a brand of baseball popular before the second world war. Davis was born in Piper Alabama, the town from which he drew his nickname. He eventually settled in Birmingham, where he played for the American Cast Iron Pipe Company's team. In the days of the Great Depression many talented ballplayers opted for a steady job given with a nod and a wink towards their athletic skills over the more risky path in the minor leagues, or in Davis' case, the Negro Leagues. Eventually Piper's talents caught the attention of the Negro Leagues and he was signed to play second base for the Birmingham Black Barons. His arrival coincided with an upsurge in the fortunes of the Barons. During the 1940s they often met Josh Gibson and the Homestead Grays in the Negro League World Series.

Davis, a shortstop, was no small part of the puzzle. He went to the East-West (All Star) Game repeatedly in the 1940s. He was no doubt one of the top players in black baseball. By the time that the color barrier was coming down in "Organized" baseball, Piper was pushing 30. A legend like Satchel Paige could be signed at any age, but major league teams were less willing to give a chance to a player who might only play for a few years before retiring. The tale of Piper's involvement with the Boston Red Sox has recently been told in The Buffalo Head Society, the long and short of it being that Piper never made the bigs. He joined a class of Negro Leaguers that due to their birthdates fell into a Twilight Zone where they could play in the minors but weren't given serious consideration by the parent teams.

Willie Mays played his first three years of competitive baseball under Piper while the later was the manager of the Birmingham Black Barons. In fact, Davis took heat from some of the vets on the team when he put the high schooler into the lineup. But Davis saw something special and brought Willie along. The rest is history.

After he retired as a player and a manager, his baseball skills were still put to use. He served as a scout for several Major League organizations.

He died of a heart attack in 1997, at the age of 79.