DENVER — After the flash bulbs stopped flickering and the music was no longer blaring, Henry Davis and about a dozen members of his traveling party set out to have a quiet dinner together and soak in the moment after the MLB draft Sunday night in downtown Denver.
They eventually settled on a place called EDGE Restaurant & Bar, located in the lobby of their Four Seasons hotel. While waiting on food to arrive, the Pirates’ first overall pick made a quiet confession to his mother, Andi Schaefer, who was seated across the table.
“He said to me, ‘I have to get in a batting cage. I need to lift,’ ” Schaefer recalled Monday by phone. And she was in no way surprised.
The obsession with work is something that has always defined Davis, an All-American catcher the Pirates plucked out of Louisville. It has been a part of his makeup from a very young age, when Davis used to force his friends to work out at 5 a.m., to college when he took his commitment to another level, to the pros where Davis can’t wait to get going.
After learning more about Davis and the cloth from which he’s cut, it’s easy to see why general manager Ben Cherington said the Pirates bet on the person more than anything else. Davis carries himself like a seasoned veteran, one who’s borderline maniacal about chasing his dreams.
“This is not a kid you’re ever going to have to tell that he needs to amp up the effort,” Schaefer said. “Every once in a while you might have to say to him, ‘You need to take a breather.’
“I know he’s going to be sitting there at the All-Star Game thinking, ‘I could be playing somewhere else right now. I need to have a bat in my hand.’ ”
Davis flashed a sheepish smile when the idea of his insatiable work ethic and past exploits were brought up. Chatting one-on-one with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in Denver, Davis deflected all of the credit to his parents, who are divorced but cordial and very much a part of his life.
Chris Davis, who’s now retired, sold software and built several technology-based businesses with his brother. Andi worked on Wall Street and is now a real estate developer in Florida. Together, they helped to raise a son who will stop at nothing to chase even the tiniest bit of improvement.
“I’ve got great people around me,” Davis said. “I have great coaches, teammates and family. I’m a product of my surroundings. It’s a credit to them.”
———
Growing up in Bedford, N.Y., Davis did much of his work around the house. There was a batting tee in the garage for snowy days and a gigantic net out back for soft toss on nicer ones. No matter how busy he was, Chris always made time to help Henry and his younger brother, Morgan.
Behind the family’s house are what Chris described as “swampy wetlands.” It’s also an area that ate its fair share of baseballs when Henry would routinely crank them over the net.
“We lost so many,” Chris said. “Every day I’m like, ‘Dude, just hit it into the net.’ He kept hitting it over the net because he’s so strong. He’d launch one out in the woods and it would be like, ‘Oh, there’s another $5 gone.’ ”
That isn’t the only reimbursement Henry might have to make once he signs. Chris said Henry also snapped a Hit-a-Away when he was younger, the ball wrapping around a pole with such violent force that it snapped off entirely.
“He’s a strong kid,” Chris said. “Always has been. There’s an extraordinary amount of strength inside his body.”
———
When Henry was about 16, Chris remembered his son bringing up the idea of serious weight training, with Henry telling his dad that he wanted his weight set so he could literally outmuscle some of his peers.
The minute Chris agreed, Henry began searching online, found a used one that was affordable and arranged plans to pick it up.
“I wasn’t very good at the time, honestly,” Henry explained. “You kinda just try and do everything you can. You don’t know much about it when you’re a kid. Just trying to use everything at my disposal, and my parents were very supportive.”
———
In high school, Davis would routinely get up at 5 a.m., drive 30 minutes to the closest field and work out with one or two of his teammates, who were often dragged against their will.
Davis would then return home, shower, make breakfast and be at school by 7:15 a.m.
“The feeling that other people were getting better and I wasn’t has always bugged me,” Davis said.
Family vacations are often wrapped around Davis’ obsession with hitting and lifting. When Andi moved into a new house in South Florida, Davis ordered more weights, lifting bands and other training tools, knowing he’d be a lot and didn’t want to waste time searching for a gym.
“All this kid wants to do is have everything cleared off his plate so he can be the person you see,” Andi said.
———
The longest Davis has gone without working out or hitting was 10 days. That came during a family trip to Kenya in December 2019, which was always a wish of Chris’s mom and so he took the group on an exploration to various conservations and villages in Kenya.
Davis reluctantly agreed to give up baseball for the trip, but he still made sure to work out.
“Wherever I am, I enjoy getting better,” Henry said. “It’s what I love to do.”
That theory was tested during the COVID-19 shutdown. Henry and Morgan were home, and Morgan — a 6-foot-5, right-handed pitcher — needed a mound off which to throw. So Henry and Morgan went online, ordered the materials and built a mound with Chris in the backyard.
“I was curious, if [Monday], he was going to figure out how to go hit somewhere,” Chris said with a laugh. “He does it all the time.”
———
Davis’ obsessive personality had a football flavor when he was younger. After deciding he wanted to throw a baseball 100 yards, Davis worked and worked until he could finally do it. That relentless effort has created what might be his most noticeable tool as a prospect — his strong arm.
In college, Davis became obsessed with something else. It was his freshman year, in a loss to Vanderbilt that denied Louisville a trip to the College World Series. Davis popped up to end the game, and it was a moment that haunted him the entire offseason.
Davis saved the video and replayed it for motivation. He promised his coach, Dan McDonnell, and his teammates an even greater sense of commitment.
“He said that was the moment that changed him,” McDonnell said. “He knew he belonged. He knew he was good enough to play, but he felt like he could do more. He wanted to do more.
“He said, ‘I can do more, and I don’t want to have any regrets when this is over.’ It was really fun because those next two years, it was like I was coaching a 10-year big leaguer, just from the standpoint of how professional and committed he was.”
———
At Louisville, Davis was revered for his work ethic and desire to learn. As a freshman, pitching coach Roger Williams called most of the pitches. But Davis learned and asked questions as a sophomore, assuming more of the responsibilities. By his junior year, the Cardinals basically had a pair of pitching coaches and plenty of open dialogue.
During practice, McDonnell would break up players into hitting groups and have them run between stations. It was routine for Davis to challenge his teammates to races, always pushing them to get better.
Hitting drills turned into competitions. At night, after he turned 21, Davis refused to drink — and still does not, fearful it might take him away from his eventual goal. He eats extremely healthy and even sleeps with a mask to ensure maximum rest.
“He’s not going to use this opportunity as a hammock,” McDonnell said. “He’s going to use it as a springboard. He’s champing at the bit to go.”
———
Soon enough, from the sound of it.
Andi said one of her good friends works in real estate, and the two have already started searching for places in the Bradenton area, expecting Henry to want to start his Pirates career as quickly as possible.
It was part her idea but also something Henry started planning months ago, when the family asked his agent to figure out who was serious and began apartment hunting in those areas. Andi’s sister-in-law works for Sotheby’s, and they’re meeting later this week to work on finalizing something that will work for the Pirates’ top catching prospect.
“We assume we’ll sign. We hope to sign,” Andi said. “And we can’t wait a month to find a place to live because that would involve not being able to work out on his schedule.”
Andi calls Henry “a planner.” She says she can see part of her wired, every-base-covered type of personality in her son, and it’s one of the things that has brought him this point, where he’s beyond eager to start his professional baseball career.
Speaking at media day Monday, Davis said he had not yet worked out, though he definitely wanted to.
“This time is for my family,” Davis said. “I knew I was going to have to do stuff. I made it a point to have breakfast with them. I know I’m going to be on the road a lot and working out a lot. They sacrificed so much for me. I can give them a couple days.”
———
Even Davis’ one and only visit to Pittsburgh was a business trip. He drove up from Louisville and arrived around 9 p.m. With the sun mostly set, he still remembers driving through the Fort Pitt Tunnels and seeing the city unfold before his eyes.
“It was beautiful,” he said.
The next morning, Davis went through drills at PNC Park and met with various members of the organization before driving back home to continue the pre-draft process. Once again, the work and the pursuit of his goal took precedence.
“I didn’t get to see much of the city,” Davis said. “I wish I got to see more of it … and hopefully I will soon.”
That should come whenever Davis signs, which seems like a foregone conclusion at this point. After all, he’s already charting out in his head how he wants the rest of this season to look, how he wants to start playing games again and how he can’t wait to work out with some degree of normalcy again.
Obsessed? Maybe. You could also call it driven or focused.
“I knew the second this was resolved and he knew where he was going, his next task was being created in his head. What’s he going to do? How’s he going to get there?” Andi said. “He’s all in and focused. That’s how he is all the time.”
