Joe Davis stepped into his home office Friday night, having just delivered a potential career-defining call mere hours earlier. He sat down, looked up and pinched himself. There it was: a framed canvas of Kirk Gibson in the on-deck circle, moments before his iconic walk-off home run as a pinch hitter in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. The home plate umpire can be seen taking his lineup card out to make the change with a wall of fans in the backdrop. History followed.
While Davis was renovating his old house five years ago, he asked longtime Dodgers historian Mark Langill for something special. Langill offered the picture of Gibson in the on-deck circle as an undeveloped slide. That Davis got the opportunity to honor the memory of his predecessor, the late play-by-play legend Vin Scully, who voiced Gibson’s subsequently hobbled home-run trot, was almost too good to be true.
But true, it was, 36 years later.
“The shot represents everything I love about my job, which is just that you never know when that moment is going to happen,” Davis told The Athletic. “Any moment could be the moment.”
Freddie Freeman, on a bum right ankle in the bottom of the 10th, smashed one over the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium — just as Gibson did with an injured hamstring. And Davis, in Scully’s words, said, “She is gone!” followed by words to be remembered: “Gibby, meet Freddie!”
A WALK-OFF GRAND SLAM FROM FREDDIE FREEMAN!
DODGERS TAKE GAME 1 IN THE 10TH OVER THE YANKEES.
🎥 @MLBpic.twitter.com/C0Opl6gjze
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) October 26, 2024
“I’d always thought that it would be neat to someday be able to pay homage to Vin somehow,” Davis said.
“I wasn’t thinking about Vin or thinking about Vin’s call, but I think the fact that I’ve seen that ball hit a million times — we all have … that’s just the first thing that popped into my head. We’ve seen and heard that call a million times and it was like, ‘Well, yeah, that’s exactly what this is.’”
As Davis received universal praise for his ability to meet the moment, he woke up the morning after thinking about how it could’ve been better. He listened to it again, and again, and again, critiquing the most minute of details.
His wife had to remind him: Everyone loved it. Davis responded, “You know how I’m wired.”
“I don’t know if I maybe should have saved the ‘Gibby, meet Freddie line,’ until after he rounded the bases and after the layout,” Davis said. “I don’t know if it was maybe a little too much right after the, ‘She is gone,’ and I should have just laid out and let the crowd go from there. … So I’ve definitely gone back and picked it apart, probably more than is healthy.”
Still, Davis did what most narrators of the game do well. He honored its history. In this case, the parallel was uncanny down to the minute. Gibson hit his two-run homer at 8:37 p.m. PT. Freeman, who swung at the first pitch of his at-bat, hit his grand slam at 8:37 p.m.
“I’m not embellishing saying I grew up dreaming of calling the World Series,” Davis said. “Not just to have a chance to call it, but then for it to be Dodgers-Yankees and then to have the game be like it was … that’s the dream. A World Series game like that.”
(Top photo of Freddie Freeman rounding the bases after his iconic homer: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
