It doesn’t seem possible that three years have passed since I watched Trouble With The Curve. I certainly enjoyed it more than The Perfect Storm and the Clint Eastwood production created its own perfect storm for me. I love baseball, appreciate and value the work done by baseball scouts, and I am a huge Clint Eastwood fan.

I have often wondered if there is a real life Gus Lobel out there who has worked forty or more years years as a scout and is still going strong well past the usual retirement age. There may well be more than one but I can confirm that there is at least one who is a facsimile of Lobel in his baseball acumen but with a much more gentle temperament.

Clint Eastwood as Gus Lobel.
(Photo credit – Keith Bernstein)

Jim Walton might just be the real life Gus Lobel. He was born on June 5, 1934 in Shattuck, Oklahoma which is still his home town. He had a very brief minor league baseball career having played in the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Senators and Cincinnati Reds farm systems from 1954 through 1960 playing as an infielder, outfielder and pitching. His minor league career was interrupted during that time with two years in the United States Military in 1956-57 and an additional two years in 1958-1959 when he attended college at Oklahoma State University.

In 1961 Walton’s baseball career took a turn as he joined the Houston Colt .45s’ organization as a minor league manager. In 1962 and 1963 he served as player/manager for the Moultrie Colt 22’s in the Georgia-Florida League.

Jim Walton is the real Gus Lobel
(Photo credit – David McDaniel)

Once again his baseball career took another turn in 1964 as he began scouting for the Houston Astros and continued in that role until 1971. Perhaps at that time he found his first baseball love – scouting.

He took still another detour in 1972 as he became the manager of the San Antonio Brewers of the Texas League. Following that for the next three year he served as a first base and third base coach for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Walton’s Brewer experience was his last in the coaching ranks. In 1976 he embarked on a scouting career as an area scout for Oklahoma and Texas with the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau and he is still a MLB scout looking forward to the 2016 baseball season.

Jim Walton is recognizable at baseball venues all over Texas and Oklahoma by his white Stetson hat and his white Cadillac. He is on his fifth Cadillac, four of which have over 300, 000 miles. He regularly drives 40,000 miles each year as part of his work as an area scout with the Scouting Bureau.

Jim Walton is easily recognized by his white Cadillac and matching Stetson cowboy hat.
(Photo credit – David McDaniel)

His work with the Scouting Bureau also includes serving as an instructor with the Scouting Development Program designed to help individuals who wish to become baseball scouts. Those attending the school have to be sponsored by a major league team.

Walton has worked very closely over the years with his friend and colleague Don Pries who formerly was the director of the Scouting Bureau and helped develop the Scouting Development Program. Each has his own presentation style. Walton is more animated and expressive, and might be seen climbing upon a dining room chair to demonstrate the mechanics of pitching and/or catching for all to see. It is not unusual to see him spending the next hour standing, squatting, standing, squatting – not with running shoes and sweat pants – but in cowboy boots and skintight blue jeans to demonstrate the proper catching techniques to look for in a prospect. It would also not be unusual for him to give a student a rolled up piece of paper through which to look to zero in on what the student should be observing. His questions are pointed when a student gives his assessment of a prospect: “Yes, but do you like him?”

Jim Walton – professional scout – does not speak directly to the place of analytics in the game as a scouting and player evaluation system. Indirectly he says: “There is no mathematical formula. You look for the tools of the player. Can he hit, hit with power, run, throw, catch the ball?”

He does take a radar gun with him on his scouting forays. He knows teams are ever interested in velocity and he does acknowledge the changes that have occurred in the ways in which players are evaluated: “The industry has come light speed forward with computers, ray guns and everything else. But unless you have a trained eye, you just can’t see what you need to see.” Now that sounds a lot like Gus Lobel who heard what he needed to see.

When asked how most scouts start Jim Walton had two answers. First, he indicates in his day he was handed a stopwatch and a notebook and told to “… go get a player.” Those looking to become MLB scouts today attend scouting school but regardless of their introduction to the world of scouting Walton believes that other factors are more important.

Walton indicated that most scouts come from a connection to the game a , perhaps a life long connection. Not only that, it is a passionate connection: “Since you were a kid, you had this affliction … and it grows,” Walton says. “You may have to sit in a low chair for awhile, but if you want to do it bad enough, it can happen. You have to pursue it until you make it happen. It’s non-definitive, there’s so much gray.”

“It’s a long, arduous road to stay in the game,” says Walton.

Equally important in finding success as a scout are the personal qualities of the individual which help him relate to the young players he is scouting and to those with whom he works. Jim Walton – a scout for over 50 years and still going – with his quiet demeanor exhibits those qualities. Larry Turner, baseball coach at Owasso High School, said, “One of the qualities I always liked about Jim is he always made you feel important. He didn’t try to big league you. He wants to talk and he’s always real complimentary of our kids. He’s just a good man.”

Behind the scenes Jim Walton was instrumental in the 2000 Baseball Olympic Gold Medal captured by the United States. Beginning in 1999 he was the advance scout for Team USA and participated in the team’s Gold medal win in the Sydney, Australia. Tommy Lasorda was the face of the Olympic team while Jim Walton was his silent partner preparing the advanced scouting for the game the very next morning.

At the 2009 Winter baseball meetings in Nashville, Tennessee Walton was awarded with the Scout of the Year award.

Walton continues to work tirelessly with prospective baseball players and accomplished players from all ages. He assisted in building an indoor practice facility in his hometown of Shattuck which attracts players from all over the country including both professionals and those wishing to play professional baseball. If you build it they will come and they do come to work out with Walton and obtain his extended knowledge of the mechanics of playing baseball and to improve their skills.

Jim Walton has turned 81 and has heard it said many times that for those who love baseball, the child within never grows up. On a cold day in Shattuck, he was asked if that’s still true of him.

“Oh yeah, I’d run out here and play baseball in this snow today if I could,” said Walton. “You have to have a passion for the game to do this.”

Gus Lobel couldn’t have said it better himself.