Neil Walker was only a few seconds into the Zoom call before he started fighting back tears.
On Tuesday, he announced that he was retiring after 12 years in the majors. On Wednesday, it was time to say goodbye, and thank those who helped him along the way.
“I got to live out my dream,” he said, smiling.
Once the call with reporters got going, Walker was back in his regular form. Courteous, throwing out a couple jokes. Like someone who was at peace with his decision.
He saw the end of the road coming. His mindset was he was going to stay in baseball shape through March, just in case a team came calling. They didn’t.
He saw some writing on the wall the year before when the National League used the designated hitter. After being a starter for so many years, he had begun transitioning himself into more of a utility player the previous seasons. With the DH, that infield versatility wasn’t enough. The Phillies asked him to play the outfield, and Walker was honest and said he didn’t feel comfortable out there. They designated him for assignment shortly after.
It could have been a bitter end for Walker and the sport. Instead, he was back at PNC Park during the home opener earlier this month, stuffing his 4-year-old daughter full of cotton candy.
There, he had flashbacks to going to games in 2003 and 2004, thinking, “wow, this is really cool.”
“I thought when it did end that I would have a hard time watching baseball,” Walker said. “But, no. I love it.”
His story is well known in the Pittsburgh area. A Pine-Richland kid who was taken in the first-round of the amateur draft in 2004, he would end up being the first player of the Pirates’ future core to enter the organization. That core would go on to snap a streak of 20 consecutive losing seasons and rattle off three consecutive playoff berths. It was a stretch that breathed life into the organization.
“Personally, I take great pride in just being part of that whole process, seeing it go from a 100-loss year to a 100-win year basically over the course of 3-4 years,” Walker said.
The highlight of that stretch, of course, was the 2013 Wild Card game.
“That's something that strikes home to me, because the wild card night was a culmination, in my opinion, of 20 years of frustration brought into one stadium,” he said. “And not just the stadium, but the people on the streets and on the bridges, all of that. Forget any individual accolade I may have had. Silver slugger to whatever. That moment, for me, was so prideful. I won't forget one second of that entire game and that entire night.”
But it didn’t last as long as he had hoped in Pittsburgh. Walker was one of several players who did not return after the 98-win 2015 season. The Pirates traded him to the Mets for pitcher Jon Niese, feeling they had infield depth and needed another pitcher.
Walked had earned the nickname “The Pittsburgh Kid” while with the Pirates. He would have liked to stay and keep it.
“I think as someone who was drafted by this organization and came up through this organization, in my mind, it would have been amazing to play my entire career for Pittsburgh,” Walker said. “But, just kind of where baseball is and the economics and business end of it, it’s naive to think that. For 99% of most players, it’s just not the reality. That was a harsh reality for me, in general.”
There should be a second chapter to his tenure with the Pirates, though. He and the organization have already been in talks for finding him a role.
“I wanted to stay involved with this organization because I love the people I was able to work with in all aspects, from coaching to front office to ownership to workers at the field,” Walker said. “Something I felt [that] was very important to me was being part of this organization. Extending and passing along my wealth of knowledge within the baseball game.”
He also could jump into the broadcast booth. There aren’t any formal plans for that right now, and it probably won’t happen for at least a couple months. After nearly 20 years on the grind, he is looking forward to summer without baseball obligations. One where he can go on a vacation with his family.
“I find it natural to talk baseball and to interact with younger players, and to sit there and watch the game and analyze,” Walker said. “It's something that's very intriguing to me. It's something that I'm going to ask a lot of questions about, to Bob Walk and to Greg Brown and to Robby [Incmikoski] and all these guys that have done it for a long time."
Walker has also with people in the North Hills to start a program called No Offseason Exposure, which is aimed to help get exposure for scholastic players in the area. He’s also back in Pine-Richland, where he and his wife are going to raise their family.
He may have hung the cleats up, but it doesn’t look like Walker is slowing down just yet.
“Going into the fall and winter of this next year I will probably have several things on my plate,” he said with a smirk. “Looking forward to them all."
