Opinion

Baseball dad for two decades reflects on the end of this chapter for his son

Sam Davis played the American pastime from age 4 to 23, and his father grieves that it’s time to let go.
In July 2026, Sam Davis finished his baseball career pitching for the Shallotte, North Carolina, Shallywags. He began playing organized baseball at 4 for a T-Ball team, the Tigers. At 23, he hung up his glove and cleats after playing in middle school, high school and college. (Courtesy)
In July 2026, Sam Davis finished his baseball career pitching for the Shallotte, North Carolina, Shallywags. He began playing organized baseball at 4 for a T-Ball team, the Tigers. At 23, he hung up his glove and cleats after playing in middle school, high school and college. (Courtesy)
By Mark Davis – For The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1 hour ago

I remember those early Saturdays.

I’d get up a few minutes after 6 a.m., get the coffee going. A half-hour or so later, I’d wake the boy.

He’d put on his jersey and pants, the socks, reach for his cap. He’d eat breakfast while reading the sports page. By 7 a.m., we were in the car, almost always heading north where the baseball tournaments took place.

He’d doze. I’d drive, NPR just a murmur. The city made way for the suburbs, the ‘burbs for the rolling land of North Georgia.

We’d arrive at some big baseball complex, all the dads and moms, their sleepy little athletes suddenly coming wide awake.

Mark Davis is an Atlanta resident and longtime baseball dad. (Courtesy)
Mark Davis is an Atlanta resident and longtime baseball dad. (Courtesy)
Sam Davis played for the Tigers at 4 years old in 2007. (Courtesy)
Sam Davis played for the Tigers at 4 years old in 2007. (Courtesy)

Then, while the kids did batting practice, a parent or two headed out for coffee, orders for others in hand. And, thus, another weekend unfolded.

If you’re a baseball parent, you know.

Now, our tenure as baseball parents is coming to an end. Sam is winding up his career in organized baseball.

It began when he was 4, a little boy more interested in picking dandelions than picking off runners. Now he is 23.

Sam Davis has been a Tiger, Red, Diamondback, Marlin, Mako, Brave, Cardinal, Oriole, Blue Claw, Wolf, Red Devil, Monarch, Jaguar, Tiger (2.0), Jacket, Diablo, Buck, Bacon, Buffalo, Jaguar (2.0) and Shallywag.

On July 10, he took the mound as the visiting collegiate wood bat baseball team, the Shallotte (North Carolina) Shallywags, played the Cape Fear Ghost Crabs in Wilmington, North Carolina. This was his final game, and he played for the team for six weeks.

My baby boy says he’s ready for the next games life has to offer — full-time work, improving at golf, settling in as a bona fide, taxpaying citizen. And his parents?

Jim Bouton, you’re up.

“You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball,” famously wrote the former New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves pitcher, “and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

It has gripped us, too.

I cannot help but grieve a bit now that it’s letting go.

Mark Davis, a former news reporter and present-day tomato farmer, cannot drive by a high school baseball game without slowing down to look. He is originally from North Carolina and has lived in Atlanta for 26 years.

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