A Walk on the Winning Side : Pirate Pitcher Isn’t Overpowering, but He’ll Do Whatever It Takes

Sometimes, as he toes the pitching rubber and focuses on signals being flashed to him from behind the plate, Bob Walk’s facial expression causes teammates to brace.

“You can see the wheels turning,” said Mike LaValliere, catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. “A little smoke might even come out of his ears. When he gets like that, he might try absolutely anything.”

The scouting line on right-hander Walk is that he throws four pitches--fastball, slider, curveball and changeup.

Now multiply those basic four by, say, a hundred, and toss in a couple of extra pitches he is likely to invent.

“He comes at you from different angles and he’ll change speeds with everything he throws,” Dodger catcher Mike Scioscia said. “We’re talking about a guy who will throw everything but the kitchen sink.”

Gary Sheffield might disagree.

When Walk pitched in San Diego recently, he threw a couple of pitches to the Padre slugger that probably looked as big as the kitchen sink.

Having failed with a conventional attack--Sheffield had homered in an earlier at-bat against him--Walk took an experimental route.

In Sheffield’s next plate appearance, Walk threw him, well, sort of a changeup. The pitch’s trajectory was similar to that of a high-arc offering in slow-pitch softball.

Walk’s first such pitch bounced in front of the plate. Then he tried it again, this time floating it in head-high. Sheffield hacked it foul.

Then, returning to more orthodox pitches, Walk got Sheffield to fly out.

Walk won the battle. And the Pirates won the game.

So what else is new? Walk is the only National League pitcher with a winning record and at least 10 decisions in each of the last six seasons.

OK, so Walk makes for good trivia. But don’t refer to his contributions as trivial. To the Eastern Division-leading Pirates, the former Hart High and College of the Canyons standout is an unsung hero.

“Throughout baseball, he probably hasn’t been recognized as much as he should be for being as good as he’s been,” Pirate Manager Jim Leyland said. “But in Pittsburgh, he’s totally appreciated, at least by me and the people on this club.”

Walk, 35, has been typically valuable in this, his 14th major league season. Bouncing between the starting rotation and the bullpen, he is 9-6 with a 3.33 earned-run average.

When knuckleballer Tim Wakefield moved into the Pirates’ starting rotation in early August, Walk became part of the club’s relief corps. He was in the bullpen for two weeks, long enough to pick up three victories and a save in six appearances.

Then, on Aug. 19, left-hander Zane Smith was forced onto the disabled list for the second time by tendinitis in his pitching shoulder. Again, Walk was asked to join the rotation.

In his first four starts after that, Walk was 3-0, running his overall winning streak to six. He since has lost twice, although the Pirates, seeking their third consecutive division title, haven’t missed a beat.

Yet, as a blue-collar pitcher toiling in a blue-collar town, Walk goes largely unrecognized.

“I’m not a star,” he said. “Where there’s a hole, I plug it. There’s a role for that kind of player in the big leagues.”

In Walk’s particular case, it is a rather lucrative role.

Last New Year’s Eve, Walk signed a two-year contract for $1.4 million per season with another possible $900,000 per season in incentives. Not bad for a self-described “utility pitcher.”

Leyland helped persuade Pirate management that Walk was worth the investment, but it was Larry Doughty, the general manager, who put his neck on the line.

Douglas Danforth, chairman and chief executive officer of the Pirates, reportedly wasn’t happy that the Pirates were paying so much for a battle-scarred veteran with a history of leg problems.

“Bob Walk is worth a lot more to this organization than Larry Doughty,” Doughty said when the contract was signed.

Danforth apparently agreed. A few months later, Doughty was fired. And it was suggested in at least one national baseball publication that Walk’s contract was the reason.

The report was not entirely true.

“There were a lot of other conflicts between Larry and the ownership,” Walk said. “I was just one of them.”

But the implication remained. Walk admits Doughty’s departure put some extra pressure on him.

“It was like I had to prove myself all over again,” Walk said. “Fortunately, at this stage of my career, those kinds of things don’t bother me too much. All I care about right now is if the Pirates come in first place this year.”

If he cared any less, Walk might be with another club. During the months he was a free agent, he heard offers from other teams. But he said he was staying in Pittsburgh all along, “unless someone offered me a contract where it would have been foolish for me not to go.”

The Angels, looking to replace Kirk McCaskill, were among those reportedly interested. Walk has roots in Southern California. His off-season home is in Frazier Park and he owns a gun shop in Newhall, not far from the cabin where his great-grandfather claimed a homestead back in the 1880s.

But he finds himself entrenched in Pittsburgh, a city Walk claims unfairly suffers from its reputation as an old steel mill town.

“It’s not like that at all,” he says. “Really it’s beautiful, and a fantastic place to raise a family.”

Besides, echoing in Walk’s mind was the favorite phrase of pitcher Neal Heaton, a former teammate.

“He’d say, ‘How many boats can you ski behind?’ ” Walk said. “What it really comes down to is, where do you want to live? What type of organization do you want to play for? Do you want to play for a winner, or finish fourth every year for an extra $500,000?

“When you’re already making a couple of million dollars, what are you going to do with the extra money anyway? A lot of times, the more money you make, the more headaches you get.”

Walk credits Pittsburgh with picking him “up out of the gutter” in 1984, after the Atlanta Braves had released him. His loyalty to the Pirates runs so deep that he barely recalls a time when he pitched for another team.

“I look back on my years with the Braves and Phillies almost like I look back on playing at Canyons and Hart,” Walk said. “It all seems so long ago.”

At Hart, Walk fancied himself a shortstop or third baseman.

“But I played the outfield and second base--anywhere the coach would put me in,” he said. “I couldn’t hit well enough to nail down a position.”

As a pitcher, Walk was on the bottom rung of a three-man ladder. Hal Jeffrey and Jack Uhey both were considered better professional prospects, according to Mike Gillespie, Walk’s coach at Canyons in 1975 and ’76.

“Bob was a late developer, but you could see it coming,” said Gillespie, who is now the coach at USC. “He ended up being a dominant junior college pitcher.”

Gillespie said Walk was a “fierce competitor,” but was “friendly, low-key and down-to-earth” off the playing field.

He has a similar reputation around the National League.

During a game against the Dodgers in August, Walk made it through seven innings without a curveball, his best pitch.

“He didn’t have a whole lot of command with his changeup or slider, either,” LaValliere said. “But he went after people with what he had, moved the ball around and did a nice job changing speeds.”

“Typical,” Leyland said. “Around the seventh, the other team has two runs, sometimes three, and we’re right in the game.”

Last season, the Pirates won 15 of the 20 games Walk started. In nine seasons with Pittsburgh, he is 67-47.

Walk’s success seems to be a well-kept secret, but it doesn’t seems to bother him.

“The day I started being a success in the big leagues was the day I realized I wasn’t going to be a star and it was hurting me to try,” Walk said. “Just being in the big leagues is a big enough ego boost for me. There are some things I can point to and be proud of.”

He has pitched for division championship teams in 1980, ‘82, ’90 and last season. There was the All-Star game appearance he made in 1988 and the World Series game he won for the Phillies in ’80.

Players with lesser credentials often change hat sizes. Not Walk.

“He’s a guy a lot of our younger pitchers look up to,” LaValliere said. “Really, he’s a great example for everybody.”

Walk doesn’t only like pitching. He loves baseball.

“I have to watch him,” Leyland said. “He’s liable to slide into second during batting practice.”

In recent seasons, however, Walk has reined in his playfulness. Leg muscle pulls have taken their toll and the past two seasons he has spent 105 days on the disabled list.

“I’ve become a little fragile,” Walk acknowledged. “So I try not to crash into the wall shagging fly balls.”

That is tougher than it sounds.

“It is,” Walk said, “because I’m still basically out here to have fun, which is why I started playing in the first place.”

Since June, he has been performing with a tight groin muscle, but Walk considers playing hurt part of his job description.

“Your star guys, you don’t want them to hurt themselves more,” Walk said. “I’m a guy who’s replaceable, so they’re a little more willing to let me go out there.”

And he, in turn, is prepared to take the risk.

“When it comes right down to it, if I don’t, then they’ll find someone who will,” Walk said.

Call him a throwback. Call him a “true professional,” as Leyland does.

Just make sure you call him--and give him the ball.

“You don’t find many guys like him,” Leyland said. “He’s one of the five favorite players I ever managed.”

Asked to identify the four others, Leyland demurs.

“He wouldn’t tell me who they were, either,” Walk says with a chuckle. “We’ve had some strange people through here. I’m not sure I really want to know.”