Jared Walker’s family heartbreak
The Tuatara first baseman has a special way to remember lost loved ones, writes David Long.
Every time Auckland Tuatara’s Jared Walker goes to field at first base, he writes in the dirt the initials of those close to him who have died. Sadly, it’s a long list, and from the start of this trans-Tasman season he’s included Tuatara team-mate Ryan Costello, who died away before the season began.
Walker has been standout player for the Tuatara, with a batting average of .342, seven home runs and an OPS of 1.081.
If you don’t know much about baseball, just take it as a given that these stats are outstanding.
But there’s more to the 23-year-old than numbers, there’s the story of his Dad, who died in an accident when he was a toddler, his brother, who died of a drug overdose, his Mum, who passed away not long after, as well as the death of his grandmother, a coach, Steve Tessereau, who’d been a big influence on him, and now Costello.
Walker has his own special tribute to them that he makes every single time he goes to field.
‘‘There hasn’t been an inning where I haven’t wrote their initials since 2017.
‘‘I’ve now added Ryan to that list. So going in order, it’s my Mum, my granny, my brother, my Dad, a coach I lost three years ago and now Ryan.
‘‘I know that sounds like so many people, but it’s something that once I started doing it, I decided I wasn’t going to stop.
‘‘It just brings my mind back to perspective, of who I am.’’
Walker grew up in Powder Springs, Georgia, not far away from Atlanta. He says he was the only one of his friends who graduated from school on time and managed to stay away from the gangs, although he admits he has been shot at.
He had baseball in his life and was picked up by the LA Dodgers in the fifth round of the 2014 draft at the age of 18.
However, while he started working his way up the minor league teams, he carried with him the pain of so much loss.
‘‘Being 23 now, I’ve matured through that situation, I’ve honestly grown to understand why I’m in this situation now,’’ Walker said.
‘‘But when I was 18, 19, 20, losing my Mum and my brother, I didn’t talk to nobody about it.
‘‘Nobody that didn’t know me, didn’t know what I went through. It was just me doing things for me and fighting the demons inside I was struggling with.
‘‘But through the years, I hung around my granny more, and saw how strong she was, because she’s been through so much more than I could imagine.
‘‘That started helping me open up to people. Not to go up to people and start telling the story, but when someone’s speaking to me, to listen more and if I know I can help somebody, I’ll do it.
‘‘Everybody is struggling with one thing,’’ he added. ‘‘Someone might think one is bigger than the other, but we all have struggles and I’ll never be the person to say I’ve struggled harder than you, because it’s a life we’re living, and we’re all fighting something every day.
‘‘But it’s taken years to get to this,’’ he added.
Walker’s brother Clint Gilbert was 10 years older than him. On December 30, 2013, he overdosed on drugs, and Jared found him in his room. His mother Tammy Gilbert was in poor health at that time and after Clint’s death she deteriorated further, passing away exactly 10 months after Clint’s death.
Walker admits it was hard for him to stay on the straight and narrow after that.
‘‘Finding him in the bed at night was very traumatising at the time. It was unbelievable for a few months,’’ he said.
‘‘I cried going to some baseball games during my senior year, because of the memories in my mind and thinking about how my life is.
‘‘All of those things were coming to me and it was pulling down on me.
‘‘I was a small-town kid, my Mum raised us as a single parent, my granny helped out a lot, but the house, the neighbourhood I grew up in wasn’t privileged.
‘‘I fought for a lot and seeing that I could get drafted still, it made me fight even harder after losing my brother, because I had this opportunity to get out and make something better.
‘‘But once my brother passed away, my Mum’s life turned upside down, it was a complete drop-kick, because it was unexpected.
‘‘She wasn’t in the best of health before and for the whole of my first season she was in hospital and really struggled.
‘‘Her kidneys failed and she got more sick. A whole of bunch of fluids stared adding to her body and at that point life support was an option, but she didn’t want it anymore.
‘‘Being 18 at the time, I didn’t believe she was going to pass away, I just believed she was sick.
‘‘I was blindsided, I was thinking she was going to get better and I was fighting a lot during those years, with so many different things.
‘‘I have another brother [Nicholas] who’s 14 months older than me, that’s still alive. He dropped out of college to help my Mum with all of that.
‘‘When I got drafted, he was the only one who could take my Mum to the hospital.
‘‘He then went down a road where it was hard for him to get back on track. But the fact that he’s now better and back on track, makes me feel better.
‘‘He’s my best friend, we still fight like brothers, love hard like brothers, but we talk to each other every day, and we can say we’ve been through all of this, but look where we are.
‘‘We still have opportunities and that’s one of the eyeopening things that if someone reads this, they can understand that life is going to suck sometimes, that’s normal, but there’s other things out there that we can do and get if we grab them.’’
Just before Walker came to New Zealand to play for the Tuatara, his grandmother Nellie Wood passed away.
Leaving so soon after that, he hasn’t been able to properly come to terms with it, and says that probably won’t happen until he returns home.
‘‘At 23, I’m a man in society and the world, but I still like to have that kid Jared in me, I’d love to go to my granny and ask her for gas money, something stupid like that.
‘‘But I can’t do that, I can’t call her and that was heartbreaking. It’s still weird, so going home is going to be a big adjustment.’’
Walker believes he can one day make it to the Major Leagues and the way he’s played for the Tuatara should mean the Dodgers give him a good opportunity to show what he’s got in US spring training next month.
He says though that he doesn’t feel he’s only playing for his family, but also for himself, which is what they would have wanted.
‘‘When I was 19 and 20 after losing my brother and mum, I used to tell people that all the time, which is still true,’’ he said.
‘‘But while you play for your family, you play for yourself as well and for what’s fun for you.
‘‘You’ve got to understand that your family wouldn’t want you playing this just for them, they’d want you to do something that makes you happy.
‘‘When I was 18 to 20, that’s when I put that pressure on me and that’s when I was struggling the most.
‘‘I understood that I could be a really good player, I could be something. But now I know I could be more than just a good player, on and off the field.
‘‘So now when I’m on the field, I give it my all.
‘‘But each time I write initials in the dirt in every inning when I’m on defence.
‘‘That’s something that if I struck out at my last at-bat, or 0 for 3 that day, but know I’m going to get another at bat, it loosens my mind.
‘‘That it’s all much bigger than this, learn from what happened, I’ve still got you guys, keep shining down, I won’t let you down.’’
Costello died a week out from the start of the current ABL season. He passed away at the age of 23 in his sleep at the team’s base at Massey University.
But the word from inside the team was that there was one player who was a rock, giving team-mates the support they needed. The player was Walker.
‘‘Being a godly person, I felt God sent me here for something much bigger than baseball and with me being in the situation I’ve been through in life, put me in a position to talk to people like Lucas [Jacobsen], J-Mo [Josh Morgan] and [Hever] Bueno that found a body, walking into a morning that you’d never think you’d walk into.
‘‘But I’ve been in the same situation, finding my brother, so I was able to, not heal them, but be a friend and someone who could speak bluntly and tell them this was tough, it sucks, it’s terrible and you’ll never forget this.
‘‘But you can see where I am now from years of going through this and how you are able to carry on.’’