Neil Walker
Robby Incmikoski: Hey, I talked to Glen Perkins yesterday—the Minnesota kid who pitched at Target Field and played twelve years in the big leagues, made three All-Star teams. Your story is very, very similar. Born and bred in Pittsburgh, you played for Pittsburgh. Now you’re one of the few guys—and Glen Perkins is one of them too—who played at Target Field and was a broadcaster at Target Field. You played at PNC Park and are a broadcaster at PNC Park. How special is that place, and how would you put it into words—how great a ballpark that is?
Neil Walker: Well, you know, I always had an interesting perspective on PNC Park because I think the first day I went there was maybe the second game that was ever played there, back in 2001, I believe. I was in high school.
Robby Incmikoski: One, yeah.
Neil Walker: And so I got kinda, it’s almost like living by the beach and getting used to an environment like that and kind of taking advantage and taking it for granted to some capacity, so, but anytime anybody would ask me, “What’s your favorite ballpark?” PNC Park was always number one. And in the back of my head, I’m like, “Well, am I being biased just because I’m from here and I’ve been there so long?” And then you look at lists in publications of best ballparks and sceneries and all that, and PNC Park was unanimously always in the top three.
And so, it was always my favorite from a standpoint of just the beauty of downtown, the three rivers converging right behind you in right field at PNC Park. The layout in the outfield opening to downtown Pittsburgh, which is so unique—you don't see that in many ballparks. From a player perspective—and now, you gotta remember, even as a road player, I never stayed downtown, but hearing what guys would talk about, was always, “Well, we always loved the fact at PNC Park, in Pittsburgh, that you stayed downtown and you didn't have to get on and off a bus if you didn’t want to, for the two or three or four games you were coming to town.” You could walk to the ballpark, and when you walked to the ballpark, you were walking over the Clemente Bridge to get there. And that was incredibly unique, and it was safe. Or it’s safe. And you have that freedom—because as ballplayers, you get so accustomed to, “All right, when’s the bus time? We’ve got a twenty-minute ride to the ballpark. After the game, when’s the bus?” And when you have that freedom, it seems so menial and so simple, but it’s really not. Like over the course of a six-month baseball season, if you’re able to have something like that, where it’s like, “Let’s take a nice walk home. It’s sixty degrees outside after a game, or it’s beautiful out.” You get to see the skyline. You get to walk over a bridge to go to work. I always thought that was what was so unique about PNC Park.
And then when you talk about the inside of it, it really is timeless. I mean, you’re talking about a ballpark that’s twenty-plus years old, but when you walk through it—you walk through the clubhouses—maybe not so much on the visiting side, we can leave that out, but [inaudible] side and the dugouts, everything was and is done spot-on. And when that place gets packed, man is it fun, and it’s bumping, and the vibe is just so fantastic in that ballpark and down to the North Shore of Pittsburgh.
Robby Incmikoski: What do you remember about that first time you were at PNC Park? You were fifteen years old at that time—I looked it up. So in April of ’01, you would have been fifteen, about to turn sixteen.
Neil Walker: Yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: What memories do you have? Do you remember what you first thought when you stepped in there?
Neil Walker: I remember being fifteen and playing baseball and having aspirations at that time of just going and playing at the next level. Fifteen years old—I was probably a sophomore in high school—was more concerned about how I’m playing on the varsity team, but still had a love and passion for Pirates baseball. And when that ballpark opened, I remember how excited I was, along with friends, to just go down and see the layout, especially in comparison to Three Rivers Stadium, which I thought was a cool venue. You step in there, and I remember being behind home plate on the first level there, behind the seats, and looking out and going, “Oh my gosh, this is incredible.” At that time, maybe I had been to Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia—there were only a handful of ballparks at that point in my life that I had been to. And so I didn’t have much of a basis, but the basis that I did have, my first reaction was, “Wow, this is something special. We have something special here in Pittsburgh, and I hope it’s appreciated.”
And of course, fast-forward: when I’m eighteen years old and still wanting to go play in college at the very least, and then my skills kind of taking me to the next level, being, and then possibly being in a spot in the draft of 2004, where I could be drafted by the Pirates, and subsequently being drafted by the Pirates—it was something that you can’t describe. At least in my brain, I couldn’t ever conceptualize a place, starting with Three Rivers Stadium, that I wanted to play at one day, and then at PNC Park, wanting to just be on the field and be a spectator—and then fast-forward to being drafted, and then five years later in 2009, having my debut was just incredible. That’s probably the only way that I can describe it.
Robby Incmikoski: If I remember correctly, I remember doing a story when I was with the Twins on you and Plouffe, Trevor Plouffe. Was it a draft showcase that you guys had? Was that at PNC Park where you guys had it?
Neil Walker: Yeah—so that was—
Robby Incmikoski: Was that the first time you hit there, Neil? Was at that draft showcase?
Neil Walker: Yes.
Robby Incmikoski: You played high school or did you play any Little League games there?
Neil Walker: No, by the time, they were still doing high school WPIAL championship baseball games there, up until—
Robby Incmikoski: Did you play in that?
Neil Walker: No. We did win my senior year, but we played at the Washington Wild Things Field. So that would have been 2004. I think 2002 or 2003 was the last year they did the WPIAL championship games at PNC Park.
Robby Incmikoski: So your first—
Neil Walker: I did play there in a summer showcase, American Legion All-Star showcase in the summer probably of 2002. So that was probably the first time, 2002 or 2003, that I played there, but never in an actual game setting.
So fast-forward to late May, early June—right before the draft of 2004.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Neil Walker: They invite myself and Trevor Plouffe. They thought we were kind of in that same middle-of-the-first-round. The Pirates picked number eleven that year. They had us both down for a showcase. They bring in two or three pitchers from Duquesne to actually pitch live to us.
Robby Incmikoski: Oh God.
Neil Walker: We took batting practice. We took ground balls. I was catcher. [Inaudible] throwing balls second base, all that normal stuff, showcase stuff. Then we both get in and we’re facing college pitchers. I don’t even think that’s legal anymore, to showcase guys in that manner outside of the actual showcase setting with guys your age.
Robby Incmikoski: Right, yeah.
Neil Walker: So we were facing twenty-, twenty-one-, maybe twenty-three-year-old kids from Duquesne that were pitching to us. And I don’t remember exactly how we did, but it was very unique because it was like the East Coast scouts were on my side of the batting cage, and then the West Coast scouts—because Trevor was from California—were on the other side of the batting cage. And we were kind of looking at each other, talking, like “This is really neat, but it’s really bizarre,” because there were two of us and a couple pitchers, and we were taking batting practice, and then we were taking live action, and we had no idea what anybody was thinking. But we knew the East Coast guys wanted me, and the West Coast guys wanted Trevor.
Robby Incmikoski: Well, they split the difference on Plouffe. He got picked by the Twins side, nine picks after you. That’s kind of interesting.
Neil Walker: Yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: All right, before we move on to DC, I just want to cover things about PNC Park. You’re a switch-hitter, so you have kind of a unique perspective of that ballpark. When you’re batting lefty, are you thinking, “Man, that Clemente Wall is twenty-one feet high?” And when you’re batting righty, “Might have a bit of a short porch in straightaway left, but then I’ve got that notch in center where it’s hard to put the ball in the bullpen or extra base hit. It’s hard to put one over there.” Throughout your playing career with the Pirates, and as a visitor, how did you view that as a switch-hitter?
Neil Walker: Number one, hitting left-handed in PNC Park is an extreme advantage unless you’re a major, major right-handed power hitter. We even saw guys—side note—guys like Andrew McCutchen, who, when he got to the big leagues, he was a pull hitter, and he kept hitting all these balls to the left-center-field notch. As a right-handed hitter myself, when I was younger, when I had a lot more bats right-handed, that was kind of where my specialty was.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Neil Walker: Left-center, and I was doing the same thing. I was flying out to left-center field, left field, four hundred feet away for outs, you’re like, “Man, I can’t be doing this. I need to either hit more line drives and ground balls or hit balls to right-center field.”
So we really saw Andrew McCutchen be the first person, from a right-hand standpoint, to kind of turn that field around—was able to use center, right-center field successfully. Otherwise, there’s not many guys that come to mind. But I remember Ryan Doumit—about my second year, when I got kind of solidified in the big leagues—telling me, “Hey,”—and he was a switch-hitter as well. He’s like, “Hey, you need to use that wall in right field.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “I don’t know how you want to do it, but I’m telling you that you are going to benefit if you hit more balls to right field. Just try to pull the ball left-handed more if you can. But right-handed, don’t really worry about it—just have good at-bats, because you’re not going to get as many at-bats as a switch-hitter.”
So I started watching what Ryan was doing. And basically, he was moving up on the plate and back in the box and just really trying to hit everything out in front. And I bought into that, and it basically helped me win a Silver Slugger, because I was doing everything I could to not hit balls to left-center—at least from the left-handed batter’s side. And I started to notice balls that were going over right fielders’ heads, left-handed were either hitting that wall and bouncing around for doubles and triples, or they were just sneaking over the fence in right field. And it’s 320 feet right down the right-field line with a 20-foot wall, so you’re still talking you gotta hit the ball 340-ish feet, and then a little bit more. But that was some of the best advice I got at hitting at PNC Park as a left-handed hitter, was basically, use that right-field wall.
And then when I was kinda on my way out, I remember having the exact same conversation with Josh Bell: “Like look, man, you’re getting three-quarters of your at-bats left-handed; you’re getting half your bats in this ballpark.” It was like, do everything you can to hit that ball from the right-center gap to the right-field wall. And I remember him coming back after a couple years and telling me the same thing: “Like, hey, man, thanks for giving me that advice,” because the amount of balls that I hit that were outs in many ballparks that turned into doubles and triples, or balls that just snuck over in right-center field where the fence goes down. He’s like, “I probably bought myself an extra ten to fifteen home runs in my career.”
Robby Incmikoski: Wow, that’s pretty interesting. Let me ask you this: Just in general, how hard is it to be a switch-hitter in the big leagues? Because you have to stay sharp both sides—you have to take enough swings on both sides, right?
Neil Walker: Yeah, it really is a catch-22. Because I remember being sixteen, seventeen years old, and like I said, wanting to go play at the next level. I was a catcher. I knew the Holy Grail, if you weren’t a left-handed pitcher that threw real hard was to be a catcher and to be able to hit. Then you throw switch-hitting in the mix, it was like, “This is a no-brainer. I have to continue to try to do this.” And then when you get into pro ball, you see the stuff guys have, and the breaking stuff especially, you realize, wow, it’s much easier to handle breaking stuff coming into you—curveballs and sliders—than it is going away from you. And so I knew that it was something that I could do. I was a lot better right-handed hitter—I was a natural right-handed hitter coming up, and I was a lot better right-handed hitter up until the middle part of my big-league career.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Neil Walker: [Inaudible.] But you’re right: on a day-to-day basis, it was like your were two people—you were a righty and you were a lefty, and you’re in the batting cage, and you’re like, “Well, I don’t want to tax myself physically or mentally taking so many swings, but I have to keep this up.” And that’s why when you see guys like Jorge Posada, Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, these guys that have long, long careers—Bernie Williams—these guys that have long, long careers that are successful for both sides of the plate, I always look at them, and I’m like, “Man, I don’t know how they did it.” Because like I said, I got to the point in my career where my left-hand side really took off, and my right-handed side just kind of continued to have more trouble staying consistent with it. And it’s a very difficult thing, and you’re seeing less and less of it these days.
The guys that you’re typically seeing are more contact-oriented guys in today’s baseball, because the velocities are so high, it’s so difficult to stay in rhythm, and as a switch-hitter, like I said, you’re dealing with two different sides every single day, and sometimes, there was very few times where both sides felt good. It was either one side felt good and one side didn’t, or both sides didn’t feel good. So the guys that you’re seeing now are usually guys that can run, hit the ball on the ground, and get of out of the box pretty well. You’re not seeing as many of the Bernie Williams type or the Jose Ramirez types that are, you know, hit from a, a lot of slugging, a lot of doubles, a lot of home runs. And I would assume that you’re gonna continue to see as pitching just continues to get better and better.
Robby Incmikoski: How do you see PNC Park? What are the contrasts or comparisons, or however you want to describe it, seeing PNC as a park, then as a broadcaster?
Neil Walker: You know, when you are standing in the batter’s box at PNC Park, and you’re looking—not necessarily toward right-center field, but we kind of go back looking at left-center, left—it looks so incredibly far. And you fight with yourself at times as a hitter, and especially as a righty, of not being too defensive and being like, “I don’t even really want to hit the ball that direction, because if I hit it in the air, it’s 100 percent, 99 percent an out.”
But I’ll tell you, standing in that batter’s box—and especially one of the first couple times you do it as a home player (and I know road players have said this)—and you’re looking out and see the buildings and you see the top of the Clemente Bridge, it is gorgeous. And certain times of year, you know, in May—my favorite times of the year were May and the middle of September to the beginning of October, where the weather is just perfect, and you can kinda feel that crispness in the air. Those were the sights and sounds that I always remember more than anything else of being in PNC Park—it’s like walking to the batter’s box and fighting yourself not to just look around, especially at center field, be like, “Holy cow, this is not like any other ballpark on the planet.”
So that perspective was incredible. Now, on the broadcast side, the amount of times I’ve gone up into the broadcast area, the media area behind home plate up above the club level, as a player, were maybe two or three or four times—and it was usually in the offices during some kind of event or something in the ballpark. And I remember the first time going up there as a broadcaster, and having that as a job, and sitting in that TV booth up there, and going, “Holy cow. This is the most amazing view that you can get,” because you’re basically in the batter’s box. Now you’re just higher up. You can see the entire Clemente Bridge; you can see most of the buildings in downtown; you can see boats going down the river—it’s just so unique.
And I remember my dad—his favorite place to sit was—in the club level, there was one row right by the camera well that there were no seats behind you, no seats in front of you. And I remember sitting up there with him, even before I got into pro ball, and I thought that those were the best seats in the house. Now, doing broadcasting, I think the seats a little higher are the best seats in the house. But I was able actually, and this happened the last week, I was able to get the two seats that my dad always sat in in that club level, that were 18 and 19, which happened to be my two numbers as a Pittsburgh Pirate. I was number 19 as a rookie, and then eventually got number 18, ’cause I was a huge [inaudible]. They were able to take those seats, and I have them in the house right now. And I feel like that was, you know, the death of my father coming up in a week from now. And we had a little get-together this past weekend with family and close friends, and I was able to get those and kinda give those to my mom. Tell my mom, like, “I thought that was a really cool thing,” because you know, the amount of time, people would come to games and sit in the family section or whatever, you’re sitting under the awning—those are nice. But there are some seats that—and I always think about this when I go to ballparks, different ballparks—what seats would be the best seats to sit in? And the ones that my dad loved to sit in, and it was a lot of times through the players alumni, or the Pirates alumni, were those seats right down there.
And I felt the same way. I was like: Those are fantastic. There’s nobody in front of you, you’re overhanging, you’re probably closer to home plate than most of the seats below you, and there’s nobody behind you. And you can get in and out of the club level. And so that was kind of the perspective I had as a non-baseball player going to PNC Park, was like, “Where are the seats that I want to be in as a spectator?” And it was always those seats that were right behind home plate, a little bit up, so you can kind of see everything.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Neil Walker: You can also see downtown, but if you get good pictures, you gotta go to those seats, because I personally think those are the best.
Robby Incmikoski: Dude, I always tell people: go behind home plate, sit as high as you can.
Neil Walker: Yeah, yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: It’s the greatest view in baseball. So you have the actual physical seats that your dad sat in at your house now, right? That’s cool.
Neil Walker: The two seats, yeah, from the clubhouse level.
Robby Incmikoski: That is a really nice gesture on behalf of the Pirates, right?
Neil Walker: Really nice, yeah. I was incredibly grateful and thought it was a nice kind of honor to my dad.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Neil Walker: So I’m gonna try to do something fun with those.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, that’s really cool, man. Really cool. All right, last thing on PNC Park—then I want to talk about Washington, and you’re out of here. If people haven’t been to PNC Park yet, and they’re a fan of baseball, people that want to see, say that they’re a fan of an opposing team, right? They want to visit all thirty ballparks. We’re getting a lot of people that want to do that, and that’s kind of our target audience, to be honest, with you. The avid-to-diehard baseball fan. Somebody that hadn’t been to PNC Park, and they’re like, “Yeah, I wonder what that place is like.” What would you say to them. For a fan coming for the experience for the first time?
Neil Walker: Yeah, first, I mean, you’re gonna be blown away by the visual beauty of—not just the ballpark and the brick and mortar of it, but the beauty of walking into the ballpark behind that home-field rotunda, going up and just seeing the field, with the Clemente Wall, with everything—the buildings and Clemente Bridge, and all that behind it. There’s not one person that I’ve ever met that wasn’t like, “That was one of the most beautiful ballparks that I’ve ever been to when I walked in the first time.”
And second, you want to walk around the ballpark. You can get so close to the bullpen out there in left-center field; you can feel like you can kinda reach out and touch the guys in the bullpen and all that. The Clemente Wall, even below the Clemente Wall—that chain-link fence about halfway down.
Robby Incmikoski: Mm-hmm.
Neil Walker: I find myself as a broadcaster, when I have a half hour or an hour now, and I don’t want to just sit up in the booth, I find myself walking around the ballpark. And I always seem to find my way to that chain-link fence about halfway up the Clemente Wall, and watching batting practice and getting a nice perspective because you’re kind of low, and there’s no view impeding you from down there.
They’ve done a really nice job with right-center field, having that be a more social area than just kind of a flat space out there where people were kinda walking and going to, coming to and from, and then the rotunda down the left-field line—I remember especially, there was ’13, ’14, and ’15 years when we had standing room only—I remember people telling me that they thought that those seats were fantastic, because, you know, you’re on your feet for most of the game, you have a great perspective of the field, and you’re not confined to just sitting in your seat.
So there’s so many different avenues to the beauty and the mystique of PNC Park. And then you mix in, you know, especially those three years when we had such a good run, had such a nice run, what it looked like when it was completely full.
Robby Incmikoski: Mm-hmm.
Neil Walker: Because that’s probably the only one thing that people will say—I remember my wife, the first playoff game that she went to in ’13, was like, “This place isn’t really built for the masses. It’s much more intimate.” And you can certainly leave this out, obviously.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Neil Walker: But it’s much more intimate. It’s much more—built for, you know, 28 to 30,000, and you can stuff close to 40,000 in there.
Robby Incmikoski: Mm-hmm.
Neil Walker: But just how it’s set, because it’s—you got a bridge, you got a river, and then you got, you know some buildings down on the North Side. It’s not necessarily built for masses. That’s really the only negative thing that I’ve heard from people with PNC. If you’re adding any cons, that’s the only thing that I’ve heard.
Robby Incmikoski: Last thing—I can’t believe I forgot to ask this: 2013 Wild Card Game. You had an RBI double in that game, but the vibe—that’s all everybody talks about in Pittsburgh. How do you talk about that night, just that night alone, versus any other game played in the history of that ballpark? What was the vibe like that night, especially when Cueto dropped the ball? Where were you when Cueto dropped the ball—were you in the dugout?
Neil Walker: I was in the dugout, but I didn’t see it.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Neil Walker: And I just heard the ruckus. I was down below, looking at a previous at-bat in one of the camera video rooms, then came back, and they told me what happened. And then Russ hits the home run, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is really happening.” But the story I always tell from that game was, you know, about a half hour before the game, forty minutes, the catcher and the pitcher head out to warm up, but usually about twenty to thirty minutes before the game, guys just start to filter down into the dugout. You’re usually sitting in front of your locker, listening to music, getting your stuff on, cleats on, and all that. But I remember it was nearly quiet in the clubhouse about thirty minutes before the game, and you could hear this like reverberating in the clubhouse. And guys were kind like looking at each other like, “What the hell is that?” And we realized it was the people in the stadium—there were probably, there were 38, 39,000 people in that ballpark. There were probably 34 of them in the ballpark thirty 30 minutes before the game, which is not normal.
And so you’re sitting under tons and tons of concrete in that clubhouse, and I’ve never once, in the amount of games I ever played there, I never once heard that before, like a [makes sound]. And you start walking out, and you start going down. “Holy s***, that’s the stadium.”
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Neil Walker: “That’s the people in their seats already, moving around, already getting geared up.” And I remember walking out into the dugout and being like, “Oh my God.” All you saw was a sea of black, because McCutchen called for everyone on social media to wear black for that game if you were a Pirates fan.
Robby Incmikoski: I remember it, yep.
Neil Walker: So there were obviously some red shirts for the Cincinnati Reds, but you walked out and saw that sea of black. I get goosebumps right now. I always get goosebumps telling that story, but I’d never experienced that before. Moving on, I was with the Mets in the postseason, the Yankees in the postseason in 2018—
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Neil Walker: So of course, there were some red shirts and white shirts, white and red shirts, Cincinnati Reds. But you walked out, and all you saw was a sea of black. And I still get goose—I mean, I got goose bumps right now. I always get goose bumps telling that story. But I had never experienced that before. Moving on, I was with the Mets. We played in the postseason. I was with the Yankees in the postseason in 2018.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Neil Walker: So I had many memorable moments from the postseason, but none will top that 2013 Wild Card Game against the Cincinnati Reds.
Robby Incmikoski: What—explain this. And this isn’t for me or you. This is for the reading public out there that doesn’t have any idea know what this was like. What did that game represent outside of on the field? What representation did that game carry?
Neil Walker: It represented twenty-plus years of frustration and losing baseball. I think I felt that as a player and a fan; I don’t think the other players on that particular team kind of grasped what that meant to the city and to the fans, because we were creeping in on twenty-one straight losing seasons. And I always think about, I can never forget that number, that twenty, because I remember thinking to myself, “Twenty-one—Roberto Clemente up in heaven—there’s absolutely no way that he’s gonna let this streak get to twenty-one. There’s no way.” And of course, that didn’t happen. But I remember in the middle of September, we won a game, I think one nothing, in Texas, that Gerrit Cole pitched. Pedro Alvarez hit a double, and I think Yu Darvish pitched too.
Robby Incmikoski: That is all correct.
Neil Walker: Yeah, and that was to secure a non-losing season. And I remember making the last out and asking for the ball from I think Gaby Sanchez or Garrett Jones. I don’t remember who it was. And they were like, “What the hell do you want the ball for?” They were about to just like toss it in the dugout or toss it in the stands. I was like, “You guys have no idea what this game means to the city of Pittsburgh. Like, we are bringing people back to the seats; we’re bringing people back. You have no idea.” The mantra, the thought process of a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, a Pitt basketball fan, Pitt football fan, Penn State, all these other teams. We were the only kind of team that was, that we knew that if we got back to the postseason and got back to playing good baseball, that people would come out in hordes, and they did. And so I remember getting that ball in mid-September, getting it engraved, you know, signed. And I think I actually still have it—
Robby Incmikoski: Here? I want to get a picture of that, I’m gonna get a picture of that ball
Neil Walker: I do have it.
Robby Incmikoski: For the book.
Neil Walker: Hold on.
Robby Incmikoski: Let’s see it. I want to take a photo of that ball. I want a picture of that ball, by the way, for the book.
Neil Walker: So, September—
Robby Incmikoski: No shit.
Neil Walker: September 9, 2013. Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish, Mark Melancon, and then “82 wins.”
Robby Incmikoski: That’s the ball from the final out?
Neil Walker: No, this one’s not, because they took that ball for the—I think they put it in the Pirates Hall of Fame.
Robby Incmikoski: Okay.
Neil Walker: ’Cause I fought with them, and I fought Bones, and I was like, “I want this ball.” Then I was like, well, I wasn’t the pitcher, even though I made the last out, I fought with them on it, and then eventually I was like, “All right, why don’t we get a really cool ball engraved for this?” And this is kinda what they came up with. It has it all—Andrew, Cutch, Alvarez . . .
Robby Incmikoski: At some point, if we meet somewhere for lunch or breakfast for something, can I just, can you bring that?
Neil Walker: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can take it.
Robby Incmikoski: I just want to take pictures of it. that’s all. Just to use for the book. That’s all I want. Yeah, we’ll meet for breakfast or lunch or whatever. I’ll just bring my camera to take pictures of that ball.
Neil Walker: Yeah, yeah. That’s fine.
Robby Incmikoski: All right. Thank you. All right—Stephen Strasburg’s major league debut. You faced him; he got you twice. I’m not making a joke—because he got everybody twice except Cutch and I think one other guy. He had fourteen punchouts that night.
Neil Walker: Yeah.
Robby Incmikoski: What do you remember about that day, and what was it like?
Neil Walker: Well, now, having gone through it with Paul Skenes, it felt very similar. At that time, the Nationals were toiling a little bit. They were on the way up. They had Ryan Zimmerman. They had some of these really good players, but they hadn’t quite had a guy that pushed them over the top. And we keep kept hearing about this guy from San Diego State that’s in their organization, that was number one overall pick that threw a hundred. At that time, throwing a hundred, especially for a starter, was not very common.
And so I remember going into that series, knowing he was going to pitch and not knowing quite what the reception, not the reception but quite what the hoopla was going to be. And then all of a sudden, we started to hear, well, ESPN’s going to cover the game and the MLB Network’s going to be there, and all these people are gonna be there. We’re like, “Really? Can this guy be that good, that much of a transcendent player?” I’m sure he throws hard, but his breaking stuff, his off-speed stuff, can’t be that good. Well, we were wrong. We couldn’t have been more wrong. This guy, I remember standing in the box my first at-bat, and seeing the first-pitch fastball. I was like, “Oh, okay. Well, I’ve seen that a couple times from a reliever, but not from a starter. We’re gonna have to figure this thing out.” But more than that, driving to the ballpark and seeing the amount of people that were there. You know, it was two, three o’clock, getting ready to go in the game. And that’s a big ballpark. Probably seats close to 45, maybe 50,000 people.
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah.
Neil Walker: And being like, “Holy cow, this is a big deal for this organization.” And so, I could just remember from batting practice all the way through, people getting interviewed on both sides about this and that, and trying to treat it like a normal game, but not really being able to do that. It wasn’t a normal game. And then, of course, seeing how much Stephen Strasburg took the Washington Nationals organization to the next level with that group they had there. So, it was really cool to be part of that. It was really cool to see it. And there aren’t many guys that, you know, as I mentioned, guys like Paul Skenes He came up. I was in the ballpark as a spectator that day, and it was very, very similar to the feeling of that. Even with guys like Scherzer and Lincecum, some of these guys that were big-name guys coming up—there are very few who made an impact so quickly. And it was rightfully so that day for Stephen Strasburg—fourteen strikeouts, and making most of us look like Little Leaguers.
Robby Incmikoski: You, you are, so Cutch had a three-pitch at-bat in front of you. You had a groundout to shortstop in your second at-bat, so you had a five-pitch at-bat against him. So you saw pitches four, five, six, seven, and eight of his big-league career. Give us—from purely a baseball standpoint—you’re standing on deck as the game begins. So the game begins. It’s hype. There’s energy. There’s everything in that ballpark. How much can you pay attention—like the guy on deck is always watching—what’s the pitcher throwing, right? Whatever. Whatever goes through the mind of a big leaguer when he’s on the on-deck circle for the second at-bat of the game, but what the hell is that like? The place going nuts. Like, this guy only throws three pitches, and now you’re gonna step in the box and face the biggest prospect nobody has seen in a generation probably.
Neil Walker: I’d be lying if I said I remember exactly what I was thinking. But . . .
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, that’s fine.
Neil Walker: Cutch was hitting before me. Is that right?
Robby Incmikoski: Yeah. Cutch had a three-pitch at-bat in front of you.
Neil Walker: So, if I’m guessing, most likely what was going through my head was “S***, I wish there was another left-handed hitter hitting in before me so I could see what he’s throwing.” Because the first time facing somebody, especially a guy of that mantra, you want to see, is he trying to throw the fastball in? Is he kind of like living away? Is he trying to mix in his pitches. Is he trying to get ahead with a breaking ball to kinda slow you down and speed you up? If you didn’t have any basis for a guy, usually, when you step in the batter’s box the first time, it was very unassuming. You kinda were like, “Well, how do I approach this?” You wanted to see what the fastball looked like. You were hoping that you could see two or three pitches or two or three of his types of pitches. And I can’t remember. I think that first guy, I saw a fastball, and I put a fast one play. But the pitcher, the first time you face a guy, always has the upper hand. So my goal as a hitter was to try to see as many pitches as I could that first time through, to make your next at-bat and your next-at bat a little easier. But in that instance, you didn’t want to let him just groove a fastball for strike one, and then hit you with a hundred again, and foul it off or miss it—now you’re sitting in the hole and the two of you haven’t seen another pitch.
Robby Incmikoski: Um-hmm.
Neil Walker: I remember most likely being in the batter’s box and trying to get the timing right. But then thinking, “So, okay, will he throw a changeup the first time? Will he throw a curveball. Is he just going to try to throw fastballs by us the first time [inaudible] and then go to his other stuff. And I remember stepping in the box and being like, “This is a totally different environment than I’ve seen to this point in baseball” because the buzz was definitely a playoff atmosphere type of buzz. And it was good. It was good. Those moments are always teachable moments, always moments that help you as time goes along in big, stressful situations. But I can remember that being one of the first times that I’ve experienced that.
Robby Incmikoski: So this is my last question to you: Now that you’re separated from your playing career, and you now—a lot of players say, “I’ll look back on this when my career’s over, right?” Various moments. All kinds of things, right? “I’ll appreciate this later in life.” I don’t think you’re at the ““later in life” phase, ’cause you’re not, but now like your primary duties are being a dad and being a broadcaster, right? Now you have a chance to look back on your career. How cool a moment was that, to face a World Series MVP in one of the biggest hype—Bryce Harper, you got Strasburg. I’m just thinking of the last like thirty years. I can’t think of a guy. Skenes is another one, of course. But you can count on one hand how many guys have been that hyped up. You know what I’m saying? How cool is it to be the second guy to face him now that you look back on it?
Neil Walker: That’s definitely one—and I hadn’t really thought of it in that terms, but I would be that was probably a top 5-to-8 moment in my entire career, was being a part of that day. And of course, your debut, your first hit, your first home run, a grand slam, walk-off home run, playing playoff baseball in Pittsburgh and other places—those are all up there. But that’s definitely in the top 5 8-to-10 moments. You forget over time actual moments, because you get into a mode where you’re kind of like a robot, where you’re at the ballpark, you prepare yourself, you eat, you go take batting practice, you change, you go play the game, then you go home. But moments like that, that you think to yourself, moments that you think that people are going to keep ticket stubs. I always kind of think of those moments. And that Stephen Strasburg game, I’m sure there were many, many people that were in that stadium that kept that ticket stub and have it on their wall, in their office, or somewhere in their house.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.
Neil Walker: Just like, you know, I kept that baseball. And I kept my first home run baseball and have bats signed by guys that I admired when I was playing and coming up. All those moments are so special, and I probably do appreciate them more after it was all said and done.
Robby Incmikoski: Right.
Neil Walker: Like I said, you get into a mode as a player where you’re so locked in, you’re so much of a baseball zombie per se, that you don’t really appreciate it as much.
Robby Incmikoski: Yep.