PORTLAND, Texas — The Portland Municipal Fields, previously known as the Gregory-Portland Youth Baseball Association's Pony League fields, are where Walker Janek started playing baseball at 7-years-old. Now he has a chance to be selected in the 2024 MLB Draft.
"Growing up that young it's obviously so far out of reach you can't really do much about it." Janek, Sam Houston State catcher, said. "Having that goal through my whole life I feel like it's really helped me get to where I am you know."
6-foot Janek enters the draft ranked No. 24 on Major League Baseball's prospect list.
"To look back on it, it's kind of crazy. Just me and my mom were looking at it earlier," Janek said. "It was a picture of me. I think it was Mustang. It was 13 years ago. It's crazy to think about that's when I started baseball."
He recently finished his junior year at Sam Houston State University where he hit 17 home runs, brought in 58 RBI and stole 13 bases, but it's his defense that also stands out.
"Me and my coach have a scouting report before every game, and he tells me which guys are fast," Janek said. "I try to remember them in the back of my head, so that's the only thing I look out for really. Just waiting to throw people out the whole game."
Last spring, Janek threw out 16 of 31 attempted base stealers. Stats that his high school coaches saw back in 2021.
"Not a lot of people would test him," Ronnie Jonse, Gregory-Portland baseball head coach, said. "The ones that did they found out real soon that the running game was going to be pretty limited that day."
A skillset that was a game changer in being named the Buster Posey National Collegiate Catcher of the Year. Janek is the first Sam Houston State player to be a finalist for the award and the second from Conference USA to receive the honor.
"It didn't really hit me until after I won it," Janek said. "Just to look back at all of the people that have won it in the past. That's crazy to think about like that I was the best catcher of the year."
"That was the icing on the cake," Lucretia Janek, Walker's mother, said. "I mean that's when you really can tell at that point. You think it as a parent yeah my kid is good, but when the whole nation recognizes him for that yeah."
He'll wait with family and friends to find out which team will call his name. A profession where young ballplayers dream of playing the game.
"It's like work, so it's a different mindset to me," Janek said. "I think it's going to be pretty awesome just to make that my job, Major League Baseball."
Janek will find out where his new home is starting Sunday, July 14 in the MLB Draft starting at 6 p.m. Day one of the draft features the round 1, the competitive balance round and round 2.
A few other Gregory-Portland alumni that have been drafted are Luke Taggart (G-P Class of 2016) and Darren Dreyer (G-P Class of 1989).
