PITTSBURGH – After a “Zoolander”-style montage turned him into an overnight Internet sensation, Taylor Davis did FaceTime interviews with ESPN and WGN and even got an email from a producer who “wants to try to turn me into a TV personality in the offseason.”
Davis had “no idea” Triple-A Iowa was about to release a video that would change his life last week, putting together clips of the catcher staring into the camera while Frankie Valli sings “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Deadspin highlighted it with this headline: “Iowa Cubs Player Is Exceptionally Talented At Being A Weirdo On Camera.”
“Kris Negron did it last year with us,” Davis explained to the pack of reporters who cornered him inside PNC Park’s visiting clubhouse once the Cubs added an extra catcher to their roster before Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. “He did it like once or twice. And then the first game of the year in Iowa, I did it. The guys loved it. The bullpen loved it.
“A week into the season, some of the fans were asking (about it). How do you guys even notice this? Sure enough, it just became a thing. And then the video came out, and it just went viral.
“As of like three days ago, it was 5 million people reached on Facebook. It’s crazy.”
How Davis got here at the age of 27 is an even crazier story as a non-drafted free agent out of Morehead State University who signed a minor-league deal with the Cubs in the summer of 2011 and gradually rose through the farm system, hitting .297 with six homers and 62 RBI in 102 games with Iowa this year.
“This is the dream,” Davis said. “Hopefully, it shows some people: Just never give up. Just look at my career in the past and see what has happened to me. I didn’t really play early in my career. For this to happen at this point shows people that if you have a uniform, you have a chance.”
MLB
Will you keep doing The Stare in The Show?
“I don’t know,” Davis said. “That’s kind of my thing now, so I don’t think I really have a choice.”
Don’t expect Davis to be on the next season of “Dancing with the Stars,” but David Ross has shown what a backup catcher with people skills and a good sense of humor can do with the Cubs brand.
“It’s been hectic,” Davis said. “I’ve been trying to fit in everybody’s interviews and podcasts and radio stations. Just random, all these people, all these high school kids that want stuff, I’m trying to accommodate.
“It’s cool, I want to help them, but then this obviously happening kind of slowed that down. It’s been wild.”