Walker Buehler, Lexington’s World Series hero, back home with plan to aid first responders

As the night deepened on Oct. 30, Walker Buehler was summoned from the Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen with his team needing three New York Yankees outs to claim the 2024 World Series championship.

It was to be the Lexington native’s first appearance as a relief pitcher since 2018.

In the stands at Yankee Stadium, the pitcher’s mom, Karen Walker, was in a losing battle with her nerves. Sitting next to Walker, a Lexington attorney, was Louisville’s Julie Smith. Her son, ex-Kentucky Country Day and Louisville Cardinals star Will Smith, is the Dodgers’ catcher.

“We just kind of held hands,” Walker said. “(Julie Smith) said, ‘Tell me what you need.’”

It turned out, Buehler knew just what to do to calm his mother.

The former Henry Clay High School star worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning and the Dodgers defeated the Yankees 7-6 to claim their eighth World Series championship.

After Buehler struck out New York’s Alex Verdugo for the game’s final out, the pitcher from Lexington came down off the mound and jumped into the embrace of Smith, the catcher from Louisville.

That made for a singular moment in the sports history of the commonwealth.

“We’ve known each other since we were, probably, 15,” Buehler said of Will Smith. The way the World Series ended “is about as good as it gets for Central Kentucky.”

Buehler was back in his home state Monday to serve as host of the fifth annual Walker Buehler Celebrity Charity Golf Outing at Keene Trace Golf Club in Jessamine County.

Proceeds from the event were to go to the Buehler Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization set up by the MLB pitcher and his family to enhance the well-being of Kentucky first responders.

This year’s plan, Buehler said, is to take the money raised at Monday’s golf outing and use it to buy Normatec recovery devices as well as massage guns for the use of local policemen, firemen, etc. …

“I think it is kind of undervalued the physical toll of what they do takes on them,” Buehler said. “Sometimes, you have to treat them like athletes and give them the stuff we use.”

In the run-up to his 2024 World Series heroics, Buehler came to have extensive knowledge of physical rehabilitation devices.

The pitcher’s 2022 season was shortened and his 2023 campaign wiped out when he had to undergo the second Tommy John surgery of his career to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing (right) elbow.

Suffice to say, a list of MLB pitchers who have fully returned to their prior form after undergoing a second Tommy John surgery would be brief.

“Just one Tommy John is hard enough,” said Marty Lamb, the Nicholasville-based scout who covers Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee for the Dodgers (and who first put Buehler on L.A.’s radar). “Then to try to come back from a second one, obviously, physically, it’s challenging. But the mental side, having to go through another year of rehab and the grind that that takes to try to get through that, may be even harder.

“As we saw in the last game of the World Series, Walker’s competitiveness is just unbelievable. I think that competitiveness is what fueled him to get back.”

What made Buehler’s postseason success for the Dodgers so compelling was that, during the 2024 regular season, he was nothing close to the All-Star hurler he had twice been prior to the second Tommy John surgery.

This past season, Buehler went 1-6 with a 5.38 ERA.

Midway through the season, the Dodgers let Buehler leave the team to train at Cressey Sports Performance near Palm Beach, Florida. “I went to Florida for 3-and-a-half weeks. My wife, my kid and I moved across the country,” Buehler said. “After that, some stuff started clicking.”

While the Dodgers were playing in St. Louis in August, Buehler said he threw a bullpen session with fellow L.A. pitcher Jack Flaherty.

“By the end, it kind of felt more like myself — and that’s all you really want,” Buehler said.

As had been true throughout much of his Dodgers career, the stress of playoffs baseball brought out the best in Buehler. He closed the 2024 postseason with 13 straight scoreless innings.

The Dodgers won his Game 3 start against the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series. L.A. won Buehler’s Game 3 start against the Yankees in the World Series.

Two nights after defeating the Yanks as a starter, Buehler was called back to the Yankee Stadium mound and closed out the World Series.

Whether Buehler, 30, will be part of the Dodgers’ repeat bid in 2025 is unclear. For the first time in his career, he is an unrestricted free agent.

The Dodgers did not extend Buehler a one-year qualifying offer. That means any team can sign him without Los Angeles receiving draft pick compensation.

“That’s kind of one of those ‘above my pay grade’ deals,” Buehler said of the qualifying offer decision. “I’m a free agent and we’ll see what happens.”

In Lexington’s Willow Glen subdivision, Buehler’s playoffs success last month stirred nostalgia for the little boy who neighbors used to see throwing a baseball in the street with his maternal grandfather, Dave Walker.

“I was a single mom,” Karen Walker said. “When Walker (Buehler) showed an interest in baseball, my dad had to figure it out.”

Dave Walker ordered an instructional video from Tom House, the former major league relief pitcher who became a pitching development guru.

“Dad watched that video in the VCR player,” Karen Walker said. “And then he took Walker to Ecton Park and they would just throw and throw. That’s how all this started, just a grandpa and a little boy up at Ecton Park.”

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