Jerome O'Terrell Walton (born July 8, 1965) is an American former

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

center fielder A center fielder, abbreviated CF, is the outfielder in baseball who plays defense in center field – the baseball and softball fielding position between left field and right field. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the ...

who played for the

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is locate ...

California Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team ...

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division and were a charter member of ...

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The Braves were founded in ...

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...

, and

Tampa Bay Devil Rays The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since its inception, the team's home ve ...

, between 1989 and 1998. He batted and threw right-handed. Walton was born in

Newnan, Georgia Newnan is a city in Metro Atlanta and the county seat of Coweta County, Georgia, about southwest of Atlanta. Its population was 42,549 at the 2020 census, up from 33,039 in 2010. History Newnan was established as county seat of Coweta Co ...

Baseball career

He graduated from

Newnan High School Newnan High School (NHS) is a public high school in southwestern Coweta County, Georgia, United States. It is located south of Newnan's historic downtown district. NHS is the oldest of the three Coweta County School System high schools. Foun ...

in Newnan, and went on to attend Enterprise State Junior College. Walton was drafted in the second round (36th overall) of the 1986 Major League Baseball draft by the Chicago Cubs. Walton made his major league debut on April 4, as a Chicago Cub. He was named the 1989

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

Rookie of the Year (the first Cub to be so honored since

Ken Hubbs Kenneth Douglass Hubbs (December 23, 1941 – February 13, 1964) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs from to . Hubbs died at age 22 when the private plane he w ...

in ), playing in 116 games,

batting Batting may refer to: *Batting (baseball), the act of attempting to hit a ball thrown by the pitcher with a baseball bat, in order to score runs *Batting (cricket), the act of defending one's wicket with the cricket bat while attempting to score ru ...

.293 with 24

stolen base In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base to which they are not entitled and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe o ...

s and a 30-game

hitting streak In baseball, a hitting streak is the number of consecutive official games in which a player appears and gets at least one base hit. According to the Official Baseball Rules, such a streak is not necessarily ended when a player has at least 1 pla ...

. Walton received votes for the Most Valuable Player Award to go alongside his Rookie of the Year season, finishing 13th. In the 1989 National League Championship Series, he batted .364 with eight hits as the Cubs lost in five games. He played three further seasons with the Cubs for a combined 254 games, where he batted as high as .263 in 1990 and as low as .127 in 1992. He became a free agent after the year and signed with the California Angels for the 1993 season. However, he played just five games for the Angels, going 0-for-2 with a walk, a stolen base, and two runs before being released. He signed with the Cincinnati Reds for the 1994 season, and he batted .309 in 46 games. He then played in 102 games of the following year and batted .290. In the postseason, he made eleven combined plate appearances and walked once while not collecting a hit. He then moved to the Atlanta Braves for the 1996 season, where he played in 37 games while batting .340. One more postseason run came with the Baltimore Orioles in 1997, although he once again did not collect a hit in four total plate appearances. He closed his career out in 1998 by playing twelve total games with the expansion team Tampa Bay Devil Rays, where he had eleven hits before being cut in May. In a 10-year major league career, Walton compiled a .269 batting average with 25

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s, 132

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the b ...

and 58 stolen bases, mostly in a reserve role. While early in his Cub career, Walton's fans used a "Jerome-O-Meter" to track his batting average. The gimmick was a spin-off of the "Shawon-O-Meter," used during Walton's rookie season of 1989 to track the average of Cubs shortstop Shawon Dunston.

References

External links

1965 births Living people Major League Baseball center fielders Chicago Cubs players California Angels players Cincinnati Reds players Baltimore Orioles players Tampa Bay Devil Rays players Somerset Patriots players Baseball players from Georgia (U.S. state) African-American baseball players Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award winners People from Newnan, Georgia Sportspeople from the Atlanta metropolitan area Nashua Pride players Enterprise State Boll Weevils baseball players Wytheville Cubs players Peoria Chiefs players Iowa Cubs players Pittsfield Cubs players Vancouver Canadians players American expatriate baseball players in Canada Richmond Braves players Greenville Braves players Frederick Keys players Calgary Cannons players Piratas de Campeche players American expatriate baseball players in Mexico 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople {{US-baseball-outfielder-1960s-stub