This biography is also available from the SABR Bio Project. Special thanks to Dr. Dave Watkins for agreeing to my request for an interview and to talk baseball.
Early life
Dave Roger Watkins was born in Owensboro, Kentucky on March 15, 1944 to Millard and Kate Watkins, one of three children. On the day he was born, his father landed in Sicily serving in the U.S. Army Air Force in a B-24 bomber squadron. He was a part of the ground crew team that maintained and loaded the bombers for their missions. The first time Millard saw his son in person, Dave was 16 months old.
Millard and Kate were united after Millard’s discharge from the Army and Millard went to work for Sears and Roebuck managing the auto accessories department for just over 12 years. Afterwards, he went to work for Green River Steel as the warehouse supervisor and then mill foreman until he retired.
Kate remained a very active housewife taking care of the young family’s three children.
Sports started at an early age for Dave, starting with his family’s back yard “playground”, as he called it. Its grass was beaten down by basketball games played in the deeper part of the yard. There was a pitcher’s mound and a real home plate the regulation distance from the mound in another part of the yard. There was a whiffle-ball area with a well-worn pitching area and a constantly replaced dirt fill on both sides the plate from hitters digging in.
“One of my favorite childhood memories is of one very athletic neighbor, Lucille Russell”, Dave recounts to me, “She played baseball in an official women’s industrial league for the Chicago factory where she worked, which now reminds me of the movie ‘A League of Their Own’. She played second base and could field ground balls expertly with good range and agility, throw with strength accurately and off balance, and turn double plays. She worked with my friend Roy and me to ‘turn-‘em-over’ and we showed real promise at a young age. She emphasized developing ‘soft’ hands fielding when catching a thrown or struck baseball. She also taught all of us a thing or two about hitting”.
Dave played Little League and Babe Ruth baseball. In 1958, he was part of the Babe Ruth All-Star team that made it to the Babe Ruth Baseball World Series played in Vancouver, British Columbia. While the team came in last, Dave recalls it as a great experience just to have made it there.
High School and American Legion
Dave attended Owensboro High School and was one of the first Owensboro High School players to be drafted and play professionally. He was also named to the All-Kentucky Prep baseball team and was the school’s MVP in football in 1962. He played baseball for Owensboro High School under manager Jack Hicks for 3 years.
“We rarely had practice sessions”, Dave told me, “Jack [Hicks] scheduled a 50-game high school season, almost daily, and even more with the American Legion team (Owensboro Velvet Bombers). He felt we would learn more by playing actual games and having brief practice sessions concentrating on special training only.”
Dave described his high school career as “basically nondescript”. He added “I played 3rd base, rather poorly, but showed promise hitting. In fact my batting average was higher than my fielding average! So I had to find a position in order to play regularly. I always wanted to be a catcher like my heroes Yogi Berra and Roy Campanella. About half way into my sophomore year, Jack [Hicks] let me try catching. I took to it with all I had and never looked back. A former Louisville Colonels (AAA team) catcher, turned scout for the twins, Ray Holton, liked what he saw and worked with me in our back yard teaching me the proper catcher’s stance that enabled better mobility with quicker response for wild pitches and throwing stealing runners out. Another ex-pro, Wally Lance, who managed the Owensboro Oilers [of the Kitty League], a Yankee affiliate minor league team, helped me learn to catch popped up foul balls inside the catcher’s range of responsibility. He was a master at hitting balls straight up! I wore him out one Saturday morning at one of the Moreland Park’s baseball diamonds. After a while, he sat down on the home plate, sweating, and said, ‘Boy, you don’t need any more practice’. He expressed pride in his teaching and my learning after witnessing the ease with which I caught foul pop flys, difficult or easy. I’m very grateful for his sweat-equity he gave me all those years back”.
It was from the American Legion Velvet Bombers that Dave was signed to a contract with the Detroit Tigers by their scout, Max Macon, in June, 1962 as an outfielder.
Minor Leagues
Dave spent five years playing minor league baseball. His first professional season was in 1963 with Jamestown in the New York Penn League (A-ball affiliate of the Detroit Tigers) and his only professional season with the organization that drafted him.
“I played very well in Jamestown and was recognized to have good developing skills that improved the more I played against other similar talent. I was not disappointed to have been traded (along with Jim Bunning and Gus Triandos), just surprised. I figured if I had some value to the Phillies, I should try to take advantage of it.”
“San Diego in 1967 was my most disappointing season in baseball. I did nothing that even remotely showcased what I could do. I suppose that not playing in a starting role for the first time ever was a hard pill to swallow and I did not deal with it well at all. I was sent back to Reading (AA) to finish the year. It was that experience that made me decide to go back to full time catching from playing outfield. In 1968, I played the whole year catching in Reading and did well enough to go to the Phillies’ Major League spring camp the following year and made the team”.
Major Leagues
Dave’s Major League debut came against the 1969 Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field.
“The hair was standing up on my neck while standing on the first base line during the introductions and National Anthem. It was standing up and quivering with my first time a bat, especially at Wrigley with its history and its iconic vine-covered outfield fences. That was doubled when I was hitting against a very good slider pitcher. I had not seen one like that at all. At least I lofted a big fly ball into right field by going the correct direction with an outside low slider that was probably just off the plate. I was relieved not to have struck out”.
“My favorite memory from my debut was seeing Ernie Banks emerging from the club house and mount the steps of the dugout. He lifted his hat and in a fog horn voice, yelled, “Let’s Play Two!” I think he actually meant it”.
Dave recorded his first Major League hit against future All-Star Steve Carlton then with the St. Louis Cardinals.
“You know, I was not exactly shaking but more excited by such a challenge and I did understand the challenge facing the lefty Carlton! I hit what I think was a mistake on his part. He had two strikes on me and I guessed that he had a pitch to waste so he came up high in the strike zone but not close in on my hands. So I reached out and hit a ball into almost center field just left of second base. When I got to first base, Joe Torre asked me if that was my first Major League hit. I said, ‘Yes sir’. He told me, ‘Hope you hit a lot more’. I’ve admired him since that moment”.
Dave hit his first Major League home run off Cal Koonce of the New York Mets.
“I hit a hanging slider that was meant to be lower and farther outside. Instead it just hung there. I was strutting around the bases and had tears boiling up, but I suppressed them. I got to the dugout and the skipper, Bob Skinner, asked, ‘How does that feel?’ I told him that it felt exactly like I imagined it would since I was 10 years old. He slapped me on the back and told me it was struck with authority. That hit was almost eclipsed by the ball I struck in the 11th inning, of the same game, to drive in the eventual winning run. I hit a ball that was one foot short of sailing over the centerfield fence. It was a stand-up triple. Incidentally, I played third base that game, the only time I played there in my whole professional career”.
Post-baseball
Dave’s baseball career ended after one professional season with the Phillies. After that season, he decided to go back to school and pursue a medical degree.That decision led to a very successful career in medicine.
“No one in my family had any formal education beyond high school except my maternal grandmother who attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and became an accomplished soprano and pianist. My parents and I had many conversations about being educated and for us scholarships would be very helpful. For me it was either baseball or football with baseball being number one. So when I signed with the Tigers, my dad, mother, and I worked out a way to avoid a big chunk being taken from a single bonus and broke it up into smaller chunks with stipulations. So I got a smaller bonus with advancement bonuses with each move upward, a guaranteed salary for 5 seasons, and money marked for 8 semesters of college with stipulations that it be used for educational costs only. Luckily all the contract came true and the total was larger than the original bonus offer. It eventually meant that I started medical school with no college loans dangling along. So the reason I left baseball was due to my poor hitting performance in major league games and the fact that I arrived later to the big leagues than I thought was in my favor. I also had no real assurances that I could stay at that level even the next year”.
“Happily, I was a good student in college and did well on graduate exams and on the MCATS and was accepted to the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1972. I graduated from there in 1976 and entered into the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency affiliated with U of L. I finished the residency in 1980 and stayed there as a clinician, an attending physician in the hospital, a consultant, and eventually specializing in the rehab of spinal cord injured people”.
“I became the medical director of the Frazier Rehabilitation Hospital in 1995 and continued spinal cord injury care and teaching in the Rehabilitation Residency program. I fully retired from medicine in 2011 after 39 years in the medical profession. I am very lucky to have had two pinnacle careers one in baseball and the other in medicine”.
Dr. Watkins is currently retired and lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife.