The Right Place at the Right Time

Recently, well three weeks ago, the White Sox came to Baltimore for a three game series.  Greg Walker is the White Sox hitting coach.  He has a single Orioles card, this Crown card, which he earned by appearing in 14 games for the 1990 Birds.   He doesn't sign TTM and I've never seen this signed card available anywhere.  There are plenty of his signed White Sox cards out there, but I wanted his Orioles card signed.  A White Sox 'grapher that I meant on SportsCollectors.net had been working on getting this signed for me in Chicago for a few months, but hasn't had any luck yet.


Luckily, I had an extra copy of Greg's Crown card and brought it to Camden Yards prior to the Friday game.  Most, but certainly not all, coaches are pretty good signers if you can get within shouting distance of them, especially if they are with the visiting team.  I went down near the White Sox dugout and kept my eyes open for Greg.  I tried to find a recent picture of him online, but I couldn't find anything that gave me a definite idea of what he looked like.  So once a coach came out of the tunnel that kind of looked like the picture on the card, I held my card up and shouted out to him, hoping that I guessed right.  It was Greg!  And he came right over and signed my card. The other people trying to get autographs didn't know who he was, so no else else bothered him, but I got my guy. 

Greg had a 9 season Major League career from 1982-90, and played all but his last 14 games for the White Sox.  He split time at first base and DH and led the American League with 163 games played in 1985.  He has been the White Sox hitting coach since 2003 and was a member of their 2005 World Series Championship team.