From a backyard batting cage to the show, Logan Davidson is living his baseball dream
Logan Davidson’s baseball career began on a 50-acre farm in Charlotte.
It started with Wiffle ball and playing catch in the yard. But being miles away from the closest baseball field, the Davidson family had to get creative.
“We didn’t have many people to do things for us,” said Davidson, a native of Charlotte said. “We pretty much did everything ourselves.”
So, the family made a homemade batting cage. It was full-size, spanning 50-60 feet. Davidson’s dad, Mark, had a friend who lent the net. Some people helped with the poles. Then, the family grounded it in concrete. Beyond the mats, the rest was a grass, which required Davidson, his cousins and his friends to cut every other day. The young groundkeepers also made sure to sand the batters’ boxes.
Then Davidson’s regimen began. He would hit a bucket of balls on each side of the plate. In a small cut-down pasture next to the cage, Davidson would also field ground balls. His father, who played in the outfield for the Astros and Twins from 1986-1991, never forced him to go out there, but sometimes his mom would ask if he hit the cages.
“It was just our own little thing that we enjoyed doing every day,” Davidson said. “It was kind of like our thing. It was me.”
As a student-athlete at Charlotte’s Providence High School, Davidson’s baseball career flourished. As a senior in 2015-16, he batted .456 with eight home runs and a pitching record of 10-0 and 1.28 ERA. Coupled with a 4.48 GPA in the classroom, Davidson was chosen as Gatorade’s North Carolina Player of the Year before becoming the starting shortstop at Clemson.
Now 27 years old, Davidson’s baseball career has taken him way beyond the family farm; after being drafted 29th overall by the Athletics in 2019, Davidson made his MLB debut in late May as a pinch-runner against the Phillies. In the same series and during his first start, he went 2-3 with a run and two RBIs in a 5-4 win.
His professional career comes after three years at Clemson, where Davidson graduated in 2019. The switch-hitter left with a career batting average of .290 over three seasons.
But when Monte Lee, the former Clemson head coach, saw Davidson for the first time, Lee thought he’d be a late bloomer. The coach watched Davidson the summer before his senior season. He was tall and skinny, but the fundamentals were there. He had a good swing and was solid defensively, but weak.
“He wasn’t a guy on the recruiting scene that everybody and their brother was on,” Lee said.
.JPG "USCClem_004 (2).JPG")
Still, Lee thought he was one of the kids a coach could help mold.
He quickly found out that Davidson not only had ability, but he also had self-motivation. He wasn’t a big talker, and he was often serious. He went to Clemson’s batting cages early, and he always took extra ground balls, even at his own expense.
Davidson never suffered any injuries, but from the games he played during fall ball, the regular season and summer league, he experienced a lot of pain in his feet.
Sometimes, the pain became so bad that he started placing a towel in the dirt and fielding ground balls on his knees. Clemson’s medical staff ordered special soles for Davidson to relieve some of the pain, but he refused to take time off.
“He was an absolute old school grinder of a player,” Lee said. “And he was a great leader in that regard for our program because he was quiet. Logan’s a super quiet kid, but he led by example. And his teammates kind of fed off that.”
After he was drafted, Davidson faced many setbacks working his way up to the majors. He discovered professional baseball — and the minor leagues, especially — aren’t as a fun as college. The competition is tougher. It’s more of a chore to get through the day-to-day things.
“I think my perspective on baseball has definitely changed a little bit from the college days till now,” Davidson said. “It’s more of a job.”
He would turn to his wife, Maddie, as a sounding board, and his dad for wisdom. It helped him through the hard times when he was labeled after a tough season. Eventually, he received the call he had been waiting for in Texas, where his team, the Triple A Las Vegas Aviators, were about to play the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.
Fifteen minutes before, the team’s manager pulled four players, including Davidson, and told them the news.
“It was hard to believe, especially after all these years of playing,” Davidson said. “There were a lot of times where I almost expected to get called up and didn’t.”
Then came the pinch-running call. He went in for teammate Nick Kurtz, but he was thrown out at home. Davidson still thinks he was safe.
He made up for it the next day when he earned his first start against the Phillies. His first hit was a double off the wall. It helped the A’s to their first win in almost two weeks.
“That was pretty massive, just to contribute and be a part at that level,” said Davidson, now a utility infielder/outfielder. “Pretty neat experience.”
Since his debut, Davidson has gone back-and-forth between the Athletics and Aviators. He’s still chasing a full-time roster spot. But even though Davidson’s perspective on the game has changed, the dreams that were built in his batting cage still fuel him.
This story was originally published July 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
