EXCHANGE: Man choses coaching, family over baseball stardom

With the bases loaded and his Valdosta Dodgers an out away from eking out a victory, the cleanup hitter launched a fly ball tagged for beyond the right field fence.

Walt, the centerfielder, read the ball off the bat, broke on a beeline for the fence, leapt and took away a grand slam.

[...] began a series of instances in which he tried but failed to get out of sports, only to put his fingerprints on the annals of dozens of professional, college and high school teams.

[...] he'd never had any coaching growing up, but he organized games for the 12 siblings on the family farm, where they used cow chips for bases.

[...] he'd never seen 90-mph fastballs until he returned from the Pacific and joined the Brooklyn Dodgers' farm system.

The Dodgers sent him a contract in December of his freshman year, telling him to report to spring training.

A college buddy told him about new Catholic school that had opened in Indianapolis, Scecina Memorial High School, so he took a job there.

[...] it was tough on us.

After he'd tried out with the Dodgers in Indy, he hitchhiked to the Cubs' and White Sox's spring training site in French Lick, Indiana.

Sox manager Jimmy Dykes, who'd been feuding with Cubs manager Jimmy Wilson, was being interviewed by reporters when Walt made his way through the scrum.

Perhaps most notable, however, was an honor he received about a year ago, when a handful of former Marian students established the Walter Fields Scholarship for incoming freshmen.

Only a smattering of those kids were really quality players, he said. but we built such a bond that those kids last year scrounged up $50,000 and created a scholarship in my name.