Greg Walker

Greg Lee Walker was born in the south-central Georgia town of Douglas on October 6, 1959. He was the youngest of three children. His father Billy was a feed salesman and then a vocational agriculture teacher. During his free time he was a well-known local softball player. Greg credits inheriting his work ethic from his father who told him, “You go to work every day no matter how you feel and you give it your best shot and take the results.”1 Greg was a multi-sport athlete at Coffee High School where he won the Trojan Award given to the best athlete at the high school. In baseball he started off as a catcher, but switched over to first base after separating his shoulder while playing quarterback for the football team. He was described by his principal as “a serious student,” adding “You would never notice him in a group of people because he was always listening.”2

After graduating from Coffee High, he was selected as the 511th pick in the 20th round of the June 1977 amateur draft by the Philadelphia Phillies, where he was scheduled to report to their Class-A short-season club in Auburn, New York. He played in 33 games for the Auburn Phillies that season, with 114 plate appearances, batting a .255 batting average, with two home runs and eight RBIs. He continued to play in the Phillies farm system for three seasons, all in Class-A ball – including 1978 Spartanburg of the Western Carolina League, and in 1979 Peninsula of the Carolina League. It was during the 1979 season that Walker attracted the attention of White Sox special assignment scout, and future general manager of the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls, Jerry Krause. Specifically, what impressed Krause was Walker’s swing. “You look for swings. Walker has a short swing for a big man. Guys with short strokes leave less room for error.”3

Walker stood 6-foot-3 and is listed at 205 pounds. He batted left-handed but threw right-handed. When Walker was left unprotected by the Phillies after the 1979 season, Jerry Krause put in a call to White Sox general manager Roland Hemond. “He can hit.” Krause told him. “He’s 20, the same age as a college junior. If he’d been in college, he’d have been a high draft choice.”4 So the White Sox claimed him. From there Walker began to steadily move up the White Sox farm system. advancing from Single-A Appleton to Double-A Gens Falls, to Triple-A Edmonton.

In September of 1982, after 560 total games in the minor leagues, Walker was called up to the White Sox due to both Tom Paciorek and Mike Squires suffering injuries. Joining the club on September 15, he collected his first base hit in his first time up, on September 18th a pinch-hit single to right field off the Oakland Athletics’ Brian Kingman. He finished the season playing in 11 games and getting seven hits in 19 plate appearances, hitting for a .412 batting average. Walker’s major-league career was just getting started.

1983 was quite the eventful year on the south side of Chicago. Comiskey Park hosted the 50th All-Star Game, won by the American League 13-3 with Fred Lynn of the California Angels getting the game MVP award. That year the White Sox did something no Chicago baseball team had done since 1959. They made the postseason. Walker said, “We knew we had a good team coming off of the year before, I was just happy to be in the big leagues. We knew we had great pitching but we didn’t get off to a great start. We made the comeback and the starting pitching was just phenomenal in the second half.”5 “Winning Ugly” was what they called their style of baseball on the south side of Chicago that summer, and win they did. The Sox won the American League West title by 20 games over the Royals with a record of 99-63, a regular-season record they would match again in 2005. In his first full season, Greg Walker played in 118 games and had a batting average of .270 with 10 home runs and 55 RBIs. In the field he had a .985 fielding percentage at first base.

The White Sox played the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series, winning the first game 2-1, but the Orioles took control after that, winning the series three games to one. Greg Walker played in two games, getting one hit in three at-bats, a leadoff single in the bottom of the seventh of Game Four.

Walker continued producing in his quiet way as his career continued. In 1984, he hit .294 for the season .308 after the All-Star break, and .381 in the month of September earning him the American League Player of the Month Award. “I’m not really worried about what numbers I have or am going to have. At this point, I just want to put consistent years together.”6

In 1985, Walker hit .258 with 24 home runs and 92 RBIs while he appeared in 163 games – the 163rd game being a tie game that was called due to rain in the seventh inning on July 31 against the Red Sox. This tied him for the team record for most games played in a season. Looked at as a solid team leader and a consistent player. The 1986 season he only played in 78 games due to wrist injuries, but batted .277 with 13 home runs and 51 RBIs. Then came July of 1988. The summer of 1988 in Chicago was one of the hottest on record up to that time, with 47 days of 90-plus degrees and seven days in the triple digits.7 July 30 was hot and muggy as the White Sox prepared for their game at Comiskey Park against the California Angels. Walker was fielding grounders at first base when he suddenly went down on one knee. As Walker tells it, “It felt like something stabbed me in my hip. I knew it was bad. The first thing it thought of was, I’m having a heart attack and I’m dead.”8

Walker collapsed and went into convulsions. Right there on the infield Herm Schneider, the White Sox trainer – with the assistance of the Angels trainer – used a pair of tape-cutting scissors to pull Walker’s tongue from his throat. “It was a life threatening situation,” Schneider said. “He was struggling to stay alive. He turned blue.”9 He was rushed to a nearby suburban hospital. The next day in the hospital with his six-months-pregnant wife Carman in the room, he suffered another seizure.

During his hospitalization Walker went through a battery of tests, and it was determined that the seizures were caused by cerebral vasculitis, inflamed blood vessels of the walls in the brain, a condition that is serious but treatable with medication. On August 15, Walker had an allergic reaction to Dilantin, the medication he was prescribed for his seizures. He had to be placed on drugs that kept him heavily sedated. “For the next two months I just walked around in a daze.10

Once home from the hospital, teammate Bobby Thigpen lived with Walker and his family and helped him adjust to life and preparing to play baseball again with the medication, along with being an occasional babysitter for their daughters. The White Sox looked for Walker’s leadership both on and off the field again in the 1989 season.

Then 30, Walker began experiencing problems with his throwing shoulder caused by his old high-school football injury. He hit .210 in 77 games and 263 plate appearances. He ended up having surgery after the season. Walker started off the 1990 season, but played sparingly. After the White Sox attempted, but were unable to trade him, he was released at the end of April. He was picked up by the Baltimore Orioles who immediately sent him to Triple-A Rochester, where he played in 22 games before being called back up to Baltimore. He played with the Orioles for 14 games before they released him on July 3.

His playing career done, Walker went home to Douglas, Georgia with his wife and three daughters. He stayed busy getting involved in different businesses as well as outdoor activities he enjoyed like golf and fishing, but other people had thoughts about his future. “Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf tried to inspire his comeback by mentioning Charlie Lau, Walker’s old hitting coach for the Sox. “Each year I would come up for a charity golf tournament or whatever, and Jerry would ask me, is this the year?” Walker recalled. “He thought I would love it.”11 2002 finally became the year, and Walker came on board as the hitting coach for the Triple-A team, the Charlotte Knights, where Walker was able to work with some of the White Sox top prospects. In 2003, when White Sox batters got off to a slow start hitting just .249 – and .232 with runners in scoring position – coach Gary Ward was fired, and Walker was brought up to Chicago to replace him.

In 2004, the White Sox hit 242 home runs, tied with the Yankees for the most home runs hit in the American League team that season, continuing with 200 home runs and 713 RBIs in the World Series Championship year of 2005. White Sox hitters gave Greg Walker much credit for their success at the plate. Paul Konerko said, “Walker will always be my guy… I trust him with every inch of my swing. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Catcher A.J. Pierzynski said, “I’ve known him for seven years. He taught me more than I ever knew about hitting.”12 Konerko also said about Walker, “He knows everybody has their own style and he doesn’t try to change you or try to mold you into his way. He tries to take what you do and go with it. He’s a different hitting coach for every guy on this team.”13 While the White Sox team hitting continued to be solid, over time turmoil began to take over the clubhouse. Due to disagreements with manager Ozzie Guillén, and general manager Kenny Williams, Walker let owner Jerry Reinsdorf know that 2011 would be his last season as hitting coach with the White Sox. He had no plans for his near future at that point, but then his home state Atlanta Braves called.

On October 21, 2011, the Braves hired Greg Walker to be their next hitting coach. His experience and his ability to communicate with the players were credited for his hire. He served as the hitting coach for the Braves for three seasons, working with both their young stars, as well as their established players. Freddie Freeman said of Walker, “The main focus is us. He’s always there for us. He’s always there in the cage. He’s always wanting to do something extra. He always has time for you. That’s what you want in a hitting coach.”14 Dan Uggla said, “I think our mentality as a team, which Greg helped us with, is being aggressive, but having controlled aggressiveness. If you are just aggressive and up there hacking at the first pitch, you‘re going out of your zone and putting yourself in a hole. But if you‘re aggressive on your pitch. it lets you see the ball better.”15 After the 2014 season, with the Braves struggling offensively, Walker stepped down as hitting coach.

In February of 2015, Greg Walker and Fred McGriff were hired as special assistants for the Braves. Walker’s focus was to work with the minor-league hitters.

As of 2024, Walker is still employed with the Braves, he and his wife Carman live in their home town of Douglas, Georgia. They have three daughters and multiple grandchildren. The youth baseball complex in Douglas was named for him.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Melissa Isaacson, “Not Picture Perfect,” https://chicagosports.com, October 3, 2005. /sports/baseball/whitesox/cs-051003soxwalker.1.194651.story?coll=cs-whitesoxheadlines

2 Jim Kaplan, “A Pair of Young Sox With Sock,” Sports Illustrated, March 21, 1983. https://vaultsi.com/vault/1983/03/21/a-pair-of-young-sox-with-sock

3 Kaplan.

4 Kaplan.

5 Paul Banks, “Remembering the 1983 White Sox With Greg Walker,” https://Thesportsbank.net, July 14, 2010. thesportsbank.net/mlb/remembering-the-1983-white-sox-with-greg-walker/

6 Mike Fish, “Walker Ready to Build on his Late Performance of ’84,” Kansas City Star, April 7, 1985.: 14.

7 Tom Skilling, “Ask Tom,” WGNTV.com, June 13,2017. https://www.wgntv.com>weather>weatherblog>ask-tom-why>chicago-hot-summer-of-1988

8 “A Long Road Back For Walker,” Chicago Tribune, May 23, 2003. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2003/05/23/a-long-road-back-for-walker/

9 Dave Van Dyck, “Walking Back From Zombie Land,” The Sporting News, March 6, 1989: 32.

10 Bruce Newman, “Just Happy To Be Here,” Sports Illustrated, April 17, 1989. https://vaultsi.com/vault/1989/04/17/just-happy-to-be-here-opening-day-was-special-for-white-sox-first-baseman-greg-walker-eight-months-ago-he-thought-he-hed-died

11 “Long Road Back For Walker.”

12 Daryl Van Schouwen, “Hitting Coach Greg Walker Leaves White Sox on His Terms,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 29, 2011. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/7933144-574/hitting-coach-greg-walker

13 Isaacson.

14 Jeff Schultz, “Braves Bats Come Alive-Is it All About Greg Walker?,” AJC.com, April 19, 2012. http://blogs.ajc.com/jeff-schultz-blog

15 Schultz.