In performing research for my book The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, every reference source I came across said that both outfielder Brock Davis and outfielder Tommy Davis wore Cub uniform #29 that year.
That happens sometimes, if one player wears the number early in the season and then gets traded away or sent to the minor leagues, and then another player is given that number by the equipment manager.
In the case of the Davises, however, that was not possible. The Cubs brought up youngster Brock Davis from the minor leagues on September 1, and then acquired veteran Tommy Davis on September 16. During Tommy Davis’s entire 15 days with the Cubs in 1970, he and Brock Davis were on the team together. Therefore, they couldn’t have worn the same uniform number.
Checking what their numbers were in 1971 wouldn’t help. Brock Davis remained with the Cubs wearing #29 that year, but Tommy Davis spent the whole year with the Oakland A’s.
Tommy Davis returned to the Cubs in 1972 wearing #24, but he hadn’t worn that number in 1970, since another outfielder, Cleo James, sported it, and James was with the Cubs from opening day 1970 until their season-closing series against the New York Mets in the Big Apple.
A website called Bleed Cubbie Blue does a fine job of sleuthing concerning Cub trivia. The website will frequently print a photo from a years-ago Cubs game and track down the date, and often the exact inning and play, from which the photo originates.
Bleed Cubbie Blue is edited by Al Yellon, so I emailed him with the Davis-Davis-#29 conundrum. He turned it over to Mike Bojanowski, who has assisted Yellon with a number of sleuthing exercises.
Bojanowski solved the 54-year-old question in one day when he found an eBay listing for a Mets scorecard from the September 28-October 1Research solved a 50-year mystery concerning the uniform number that outfielder Tommy Davis wore for the Chicago Cubs in 1970., 1970, Cubs-Mets series at Shea Stadium. The scorecard clearly shows that Brock Davis did indeed wear #29 for the Cubs, but Tommy Davis wore #35.
All the other internet sources are wrong. Apparently, someone assumed that the Davis wearing #29 was Tommy, and the error had been perpetuated for over a half century.
A tip of the Cub cap to Al Yellon, Mike Bojanowski, and Bleed Cubbie Blue for hitting the right number.
After Tommy was acquired to mainly be a pinch-hitter in the September 1970 stretch drive, Cub manager Leo Durocher, who had been a Los Angeles coach when Tommy won two batting titles with the Dodgers in 1962 and 1963, almost immediately inserted him into the starting lineup for the last two weeks of the season, sitting down veteran rightfielder Johnny Callison.
Tommy batted a credible .262 for the Cubs during his two-week sojurn, but after the season the Cubs inexplicably gave him his unconditional release. Playing for Oakland in 1971, he batted .324 — better than any of the Cubs’ other outfielders that year, including Hall of Famer Billy Williams. Letting Tommy go and getting nothing in return, the Cubs had made another bad deal.
They got him back in 1972, but after only 15 games wearing #24 they traded Tommy to Baltimore, where during the subsequent three seasons he batted .306, .289, and .283 — averages that would have looked good in a Cubs uniform whether it was #24, #29, or #35.
The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, published by The History Press of Charleston, SC, is available at https://tinyurl.com/1970ChicagoCubs.
