Springfield, MO – Blustery winds whip the flags atop Hammons Field on a chilly spring evening unpleasant enough to force most of the sparse crowd to huddle behind blankets.
It’s the bottom of the first inning and events are proceeding as planned for Tulsa Drillers’ starting pitcher Bobby Miller. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ first-round selection in the 2020 MLB draft and Baseball America’s No. 38 ranked prospect has retired the first two Springfield Cardinals’ batters.
A more ominous sign for Jordan Walker, the Cardinals’ 19-year-old third baseman now stepping into the batter’s box, is the radar gun on the right-field wall flashed “02 mph” on several of Miller’s deliveries – which means the ball is traveling 102 mph, as the scoreboard is unable to display triple-digit velocity.
Walker’s expansive stance fills the box as he glares back at the mound. Miller’s first pitch wizzes outside for a ball and Walker jumps ahead in the count as the next one misses low.
Two weeks earlier, Miller toed the rubber at Dodger Stadium for the final spring exhibition against the Los Angeles Angels. The flame-throwing righthander caught Angels’ leadoff man – reigning American League MVP Shohei Ohtani – looking at a blistering fastball for a called third strike.
Walker remembers his approach for the at-bat – one that would make George Kissell proud.
He throws hard. I can’t turn on the fastball or I give up on every other pitch. His off-speed is good so I can’t sit on off-speed and expect to hit the fastball. Try to hit the fastball to the opposite side. If I start my swing earlier and maybe he throws a slider, I’m still able to pull it to the left side for a knock.
The next pitch roars to the plate, a fastball middle-in. Walker slaps the ball over the Cardinals’ dugout on the first-base side. Strike one.
Walker cuts on another rocket and misses. Strike two. The count is even and the Drillers’ ace is poised to put the youngster away to end the inning.
Miller cuts a slider that breaks over the outer half of the plate, then darts just outside the strike zone – an offering that should entice even professional hitters to flail helplessly.
Walker doesn’t flinch. Ball three, the count is full. Miller rifles a heater and Walker spoils it, fouling it off.
The seventh pitch of the at-bat misses inside and Walker trots to first base. The next two Cardinals’ batters – Moises Gomez and Malcom Nunez – single to bring Walker around to score an improbable two-out run.
Jordan Walker, of the Springfield Cardinals, during opening day at Hammons Field on Friday, April 8, 2022.
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Miller exits the game having thrown 31 pitches.
Walker has slashed an impressive .333/.458/.410 in the first 10 games of the 2022 season and produced highlights more remarkable than a base-on-balls in the first inning. But drawing a walk from an elite pitching prospect shows discipline and maturity beyond his years – and that’s the best description of who Jordan Walker is.
The second teenager to start on Opening Day in Springfield, Walker was listed as 6-feet-5-inches and 220 pounds when St. Louis selected him No. 21 overall in the 2020 MLB draft. He has since added 15-pounds of lean muscle, though his broad chest and lengthy build suggests there’s more to come.
One fully developed trait is Walker’s infectious grin. The marketing department at 700 Clark Avenue must be drooling at the prospect of plastering the young man’s face on billboards all over downtown St. Louis.
Accustomed to competing against older opponents, his organized baseball career began at an impossibly young age.
“My grandfather coached a team near his house and the cutoff was age three. I think I started when I was two years old,” Walker said. “I really looked up to my older brother as well and he played for my grandfather. Once I saw him on the field, I was just on the field. I think the love (of baseball) started there and never went away.”
Despite a childhood passion for playing Mario Kart, baseball was the fixture of his formative years. Walker says he played 10 or 11 baseball games each weekend, every summer – but to survive in his parent’s home, Jordan needed to excel academically too.
Walker’s mother, Katrina, graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in East Asian studies. She earned a Master’s degree from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis in 1995 and then another Master’s degree from Emory University in Atlanta. His father Derek graduated from MIT.
Katrina is co-chair of the English department at Decatur High School where Jordan earned a 3.98 G.P.A., membership in the National Honor Society and a scholarship to Duke University.
“If I wasn’t doing right in my teachers’ classes, which I tried not to do, my mom would know about it,” Walker said. “When it comes to schoolwork, I know (my parents) had a high expectation, but I also had high expectations for myself so sometimes I had to cut off social time to do schoolwork. You know, I don’t like – and it’s going to happen in life – but I really don’t like to fail.”
Jordan rarely failed on the diamond either.
He hit for a .519 average with 17 home runs in 2019, his junior year, and Decatur reached the Georgia Class AAAAA Final Four. Walker was off to another torrid start his senior year before the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended his high school career.
Decatur’s baseball coach painted the numbers of Walker and the other graduating players on the empty field for what should have been Senior Day, but the team was not allowed to gather. The scars from that experience remain fresh.
“We’ve gotten together (since) but it really is not the same to be honest. We haven’t really had that moment to get together, all of us, and remember what we lost,” Walker said of his high school teammates. “I felt like that was the best chance we had to win the state championship and for it to be cut off early, I’m not going to lie, it was really tough for us as a team.”
Jordan took advantage of the downtime to prepare for the 2020 MLB draft. The Cardinals dispatched him to their alternate site in Springfield that summer and he split time between Peoria and Palm Beach last season. Walker received treatment befitting his status as a premier prospect this spring – an invite to big league camp.
(Spring training) was amazing…but it was a learning experience for me. I was just happy to be there and learn from the guys,” Walker said. “It is crazy how locked in they are, how they approach the game. I saw Nolan Arenado working on (hitting balls) away, and in the game, he got a few knocks to the other side so it’s a little bit different what they do up there.”
Cardinals’ teammates and coaches provide plenty of mentorship, but Jordan still gets regular feedback from his father, who has the minor league TV package and a special viewing arrangement at home.
“My dad has the whole setup; I think he works from home and then he watches my games on this monitor that he has. He really does help me out, maybe after the game he’ll be like ‘you’re stepping out little bit’ or ‘you’re pulling off a little bit’,” Walker said.
He stays close with Decatur teammate Jaylen Paden too, now a sophomore pitcher and infielder at Georgia Southern University and they speak on game days to wish each other luck.
With some luck, Jordan hopes to model his game off Colorado Rockies’ star Kris Bryant – a tall guy, versatile defender, and professional hitter. Reminded that Bryant is a public enemy in St. Louis, Walker flashes a million-dollar smile and assures Cardinals’ fans they have nothing to fear.
“I don’t think it’s a boring place to play baseball…no I don’t agree with that comment at all. I’m having a lot of fun here.”
Andy Carroll is a freelance sports writer living in the Ozarks with his wife and four great kids. He loves St. Louis, toasted ravioli and minor league baseball. You can follow him on Twitter @carroll_sgf and Instagram @andycarroll505
