“If we lose this game, I’ll walk back to Pittsburgh.”
On June 8th, 1989, Pirates radio commentator Jim Rooker felt confident in his team after they jumped to a 10-0 first inning lead against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Pirates were led by a young Barry Bonds, who was responsible for four of the first inning runs. He walked to lead off the game and scored on an RBI single before hitting a three-run homer during his second at-bat of the inning.
Rooker made his infamous statement as the Phillies came up to bat in the bottom of the 1st, where they responded with two runs behind a homer from Von Hayes.
The scoring stayed quiet until the bottom of the third inning. Defensive infielder Steve Jeltz got on base with a walk before Hayes launched his second home run of the day. The Pirates still led 10-4.
However, Jeltz would bring them closer in the bottom of the 4th. Having hit just two home runs through six seasons and the beginning of his seventh year, he naturally drove a curveball out and over the right center field wall. With a runner on first base, Jeltz made it a 10-6 game.
The Pirates found another run in the 5th to make it 11-6, but Jeltz played the hero again in the bottom of the 6th. With two batters on base, the switch-hitting Jeltz batted from the right side of the plate and drove a high fastball all the way past the left field wall.
Jeltz’s third and fourth career home runs made it an 11-9 game.
In the same inning, John Kruk lined a double into left field and was driven home by Ricky Jordan. All of a sudden, it became a one-run game.
The Pirates were blanked in the 7th and 8th innings before pitcher Jeff Robinson threw a bases loaded wild pitch to give the Phillies their eleventh run. Catcher Darren Daulton drove in two runs with a single, and Curt Ford did the same with a triple down the left field line. After eight innings, the Phillies secured a 15-11 lead.
Four batters later, the Pirates finished their ten-run choke. Rooker was greeted by legendary Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas in the press lounge, who called out, “It looks like you stuck your foot in your mouth on this one, huh?”
So, would Rooker walk back to Pittsburgh as promised? People were calling his radio station demanding that he keep his word and walk the walk.
“I’ll do it under one condition,” Rooker said. “We do it for charity.”
Two months later, Rooker and the Pirates held a press conference to announce “Rook’s Unintentional Walk,” a 300-plus mile trek mapped out from Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia to Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.
Rooker, joined by his friend Carl Dozzi, trained with two to three-mile walks. While the prep may have helped, it didn’t prepare them for what was essentially walking a marathon every day for two weeks.
“We would get up and start out at 8 in the morning, and it would be an 8-to-5 job doing this all day long,” Rooker said. “We had a podiatrist from Philly who went with us the first three days and showed us how to soak our feet and put Vaseline on them. We got three different shoe sizes because your feet swell so much from the blisters. It got to be torture.”
Somehow, they managed to have fun along the way. As they were in Amish territory around Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a horse and buggy approached the two men. A man stuck his head out of the buggy and said, “Boo Pirates!”
“I looked at Carl and said, ‘They don’t have radios or TVs. How does he even know who we are?’”
People along the trek made donations, served them meals, and even just walked along with them for a couple miles. They even stumbled across a golf course and played nine holes just to do something.
The goal, though, was still to raise money for a cause. Along the route back home, they stopped by the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, for which they raised nearly $100,000.
On October 17th, 1989, 12 days after leaving Philadelphia, Rooker and Dozzi crossed the finish line as they walked into Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Rooker was met there by a crowd of family, fans and supporters. The man had kept his word.
“I’d never do it again, but it was quite an experience,” Rooker said.
