JIM DAVIS // ‘HE ALWAYS GOT THE PLAYS THAT MATTERED’
Sports photography is as competitive as it gets. Pause to take a sip of water and you could miss the decisive moment.
Jim Davis of the Boston Globe deserves the Boston Press Photographer Lifetime Achievement Award because he rarely missed anything.
Ever.
“Jim was the gold standard. I could always relax when he was at the big game,” says Bill Greene, Globe director of photography. “He always got the plays that mattered and even got all three outs once on a Red Sox triple play – extraordinary. In addition, he was a student of the local teams, knowing all the subplots surrounding each. A true professional in every way.”
Davis was beloved by the competition, even though they had to endure the boss sticking the Globe in their faces when Davis had a better shot.
“When you rolled in and saw Jimmy was there you had to put your big boy pants on because you knew you were going to be working hard,” said former Herald chief photographer Jim Mahoney. “He always had that one pic that told the story of the game. Hats off to Jim. We were all lucky to see his pictures.”
Herald Photographer Matt Stone covered hundreds of games with Davis. “Whenever you beat him- and it was such a rarity-it was very exciting.”
Davis went from mixing chemicals as a darkroom tech at the Lawrence Eagle Tribune in 1979, to decades of award-winning work at the Herald and then the Globe.
He documented the greatest era in Boston sports history with the most amazing images.
“Davis was the best”, said the late Globe photographer Frank O’Brien who helped transform sports feature photography in the late 60’s.
The self-taught Davis says he probably followed O’Brien around when he first started.
He remembers his first Red Sox Spring Training in Winter Haven in the mid Eighties. He was shooting Sox head shots with longtime Red Sox photographer Jerry Buckley when the Splendid Splinter surprised him.
“All of a sudden, I see Ted Williams walking through the door. He had gone to his locker, got undressed, put on his Red Sox hat, and jersey. That’s all he had on. He was naked from the waist down sitting on the stool. I thought that’d be a pretty funny picture.”
But he decided to shoot only from the waist up. “I didn’t want my first spring training to be my last,” he says.
Davis always learned to roll with the punches.
In 1990 an amped up Roger Clemens shoved Davis in the dugout runway before the Rocket’s playoff start against the Oakland A’s. Clemens lasted less than two innings before being ejected for arguing with the home plate umpire Terry Cooney. Davis went the distance.
In 2007, he had his camera shoved in his face by Patriots coach Bill Belichick in a postgame scrum. The Hoodie was trying to reach Jets coach Eric Mangini, the former Patriots assistant, after a playoff win. It was newsworthy because there was tension between the two.
The incident was captured on national television and widely reported.
For Davis, it as just another day at the office. “We all get shoved,” he says. “That was way overblown. I literally did not know what had happened. I swear to God, I had no idea.” Belichick called him the next morning at 8:30 AM and apologized.
“I said, hey, I appreciate the call. Apology accepted. No harm, no foul. You were doing your job. I was doing my job.”
When Davis retired last August after 30 years at the Globe, Coach Belichick sent over an autographed football and jersey.
“That was nice. We’re in their workplace. We’re guests in their workplace.”
The photo gods have been kind to Davis.
On a day off at a Red Sox game with his wife Carol and their sons, John and Christopher, a double rainbow arched across Fenway. Davis, sans camera, grabbed Carol’s point- and-shoot and got the shot. Her name definitely belongs on this award too for all her sacrifices.
But Davis’ career was not about luck. His trademark was always his consistency.
Although he routinely captured great images- Benintendi making that leaping catch in front of the Green Monster in the 2018 World Series for example – he might be prouder of Game 3. He survived 18 innings of the Dodgers-Red Sox World Series game without a bathroom break. That’s seven hours and 20 minutes trapped in a photo pit, a human camel with a camera.
He crossed the finish line last August without ever losing his fastball.
Now, sitting on the shores of a beautiful New Hampshire lake he says he doesn’t miss the games, just the camaraderie of his peers. He even sounds a little bit like Lou Gehrig, talking about being the luckiest guy.
“I didn’t do anything for a living,” he says laughing. “I just watched other people do things.”
By Stan Grossfeld, Globe Staff