Saw in this morning’s paper that Willie Davis passed away yesterday. Even though I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area a Giants fan, I always liked Willie Davis. Like my idol, Willie Mays, Davis played Centerfield and batted third in the Dodgers lineup. He was svelte and fleet as a gazelle but, unlike Mays, Davis did not generally hit for power.  I remember going to a Giants Dodgers game in 1970 and the memory of Davis’s performance that day is seared into my memory. He was 4-5 with 2 singles, a triple and a home run.  Maybe that is the day I became a Willie Davis fan.  He went on to hit .305 that year and the next year was selected to the NL All Star team, one of two all-star selctions in his career. Still there was something sad about Davis’s career as he never quite fulfilled the promise of his early years and, despite a solid career,  he is probably most rememberd by longtime Dodger fans for his fielding miscues in the 1966 World Series. Davis ended his career in Japan where he became a convert to Buddhism.  Maybe in Buddhism Davis found the tranquillity he was never able to find as a ballplayer. For someone who hangs on to his Willie Davis memory there is serenity in that thought.