NEW YORK — There were 1,498 players picked in the 2004 amateur draft. The 1,496th was a high school slugger from Longview, Texas, named Chris Davis.

The New York Yankees used their 50th-round choice that summer on Davis, just in case he changed his mind about attending the University of Texas.

“The Yankees actually sent a contract to my house,” Davis said Friday in the Baltimore Orioles’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium. “I was happy to be drafted, but at that point I wasn’t even close to being ready to think about pro ball. And the fact that it was the third-to-last pick wasn’t very enticing anyway.”

Davis, 27, has been the breakout star of the American League this season, leaving a three-game series in the Bronx with a .320 average, 33 homers and 85 runs batted in. He has no regrets about turning down the Yankees, he said, even though he never did play for the Longhorns.

After one semester at Texas, Davis enrolled at a junior college, and he signed with the Rangers two years later as a fifth-round pick. The draft lasts only 40 rounds now, and Davis said he doubted the Yankees would have stuck with him if he had struggled.

“It’s probably a good thing I didn’t sign, because I think I started my professional career 1 for 32,” Davis said. “So I might have been home quicker than I wanted to be.”

Soon enough, Davis figured things out. In his first full professional season, he hit 36 homers. The next year he hit 40, including 17 for the Rangers. He also struck out prodigiously, and his reputation began to harden around the game: big power but lots of strikeouts.

“Power’s always been my forte,” Davis said. “I don’t think there was ever a question of whether I had power. It was, was I going to be able to make contact consistently and give myself a chance to let that play?”

The Rangers reached the World Series in 2010 but left Davis off their roster. He had continued to thrash Class AAA pitching that season, but Mitch Moreland had supplanted him as the organization’s major league first baseman.

The next summer, Texas traded Davis to the Orioles in a deal for reliever Koji Uehara. By then Davis had nothing more to prove at Class AAA, with a .337 average and an on base plus slugging percentage of 1.006. The Orioles, who were on their way to their fourth last-place finish in a row, had nothing to lose by letting him play.

“He fit the profile of what you look for in a corner guy in the American League East,” manager Buck Showalter said. “One thing that we can offer that a lot of clubs can’t offer is opportunity. We were just fortunate to catch Chris at a time when he had a lot of things behind him that guys need to go through.”

Davis homered for his first hit as an Oriole and batted .276 down the stretch in 2011. Last season, he hit .270 with 33 homers. This season has been otherworldly, earning him one of baseball’s best nicknames: Crush Davis.

“I’ve never seen a hitter have three months like he’s had,” said Jim Presley, the Orioles’ hitting coach. “Never seen anybody do it.”

Presley mentioned Davis’ minor league success and said his batting average should not be surprising. He said Davis had learned to swing at better pitches but that his biggest adjustment had been mental; with his spot in the lineup secure, he can afford to more patient at the plate.

Davis, who went 0-for-2 with a strikeout and a run Friday, still strikes out a lot — more than once per game, on average — but the Orioles do not mind.

“His contact-to-damage ratio is unbelievable,” Presley said. “He’s going to strike out 150 times a year. You try to get it to the 130s or 120s, that’s the goal. But you kind of live with it when you put up the numbers he’s put up.”

Those numbers average to 60 home runs over 162 games if Davis maintains this pace. Only two American Leaguers have ever hit 60 home runs in a season: Babe Ruth with 60 in 1927 and Roger Maris with 61 in 1961.

Davis, the would-be Yankee, conceivably could chase those Yankee ghosts late this season.

“Sixty home runs is a lot of home runs,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something that you shoot for. I think once we get closer to the end of the year, if I’m within reasonable distance, then maybe start giving it some thought.

“Right now, I mean, that’s twice what I’ve got now. I’d have to have another half like I had the first half. That’s going to be tough — especially down the stretch, too, when you’re starting to run on fumes and we’re playing more meaningful games. We’ll see, I guess.”

Showalter said he has sometimes caught himself marveling at Davis’ achievements, the way a fan would. But he added that Davis has seemed grounded through his charmed season.

“I’ve been really impressed, for a guy that hasn’t been overly experienced at it, in how he’s handled his success,” Showalter said. “He asked me the other day about it, getting asked the same questions. I said, ‘When you’ve got to worry is when they quit asking.’

“He said, ‘Good point.’”