Oct 22, 2016 6 min read

When Jim Gallagher sees good friend and former Pirates second baseman Neil Walker, he loves to remind the “Pittsburgh Kid” about the day the hometown team drafted the high school phenom from Pine-Richland High School.

After all, it might be the most clutch performance of Gallagher’s standout multisport tenure at Peters Township and easily one of the more memorable victories in the Indians’ rich baseball tradition.

Monday, June 7, 2004, nearly 2,000 people went to Falconi Field, as it was known then, for a PIAA Class AAA first-round game between WPIAL champion Pine-Richland and Peters Township. Earlier that day, the Pirates made Walker the No. 11 pick of the draft, which added considerable attention to the contest.

Walker did his part, but Gallagher stole the show.

While Walker belted one of the longest home runs hit in the history of the home field of the Washington Wild Things, Gallagher hit a game-tying home run in the seventh inning and came up with another clutch hit an inning later as Peters Township, which lost its last three regular-season games, walked away 8-6 winners.

“Neil is still a great friend of mine. We were just out together a couple weeks ago,” said Gallagher, who now lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and daughter and works for Kforce, an IT staffing company. “We were on the same travel team from the time we were 11 years old, and to get to go up against him and Pine-Richland on the day he was drafted is something I’ll always remember.”

Gallagher doesn’t like to gloat about the win, but he loves to remind Walker, who was on the mound late in the game, about his pitch selection.

“Neil was pitching when I drove in the go-ahead run, and I still joke with him that all he had to do was throw me another splitter. I would have swung at it and missed. I couldn’t hit it,” Gallagher said. “Instead, he threw me a fastball.”

Gallagher had a habit of grooving fastballs and just about everything thrown his way at Peters Township, Duke University and as a member of the Chicago White Sox organization.

“The thing about Jimmy is, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have so many great kids, he’s one of the top five most competitive kids I ever coached,” said longtime Peters Township baseball coach Joe Maize, who coached a pair of major leaguers in Brian Simmons and Chris Peters.

Considered by some to be one of the top WPIAL players of the last 15 years, Gallagher helped Peters Township reach the PIAA semifinals in 2003 and the championship game in 2004. And, after three strong seasons at Duke, he was selected by the White Sox in the seventh round of the 2007 draft.

Gallagher cruised through rookie ball, batting .332 with nine home runs and 44 RBI in 62 games, and he worked his way through the organization. Known for driving doubles and outstanding defense, Gallagher reached the White Sox triple-A affiliate – Charlotte Knights – in 2011. Gallagher could play any outfield position and he saw a lot of time at first base.

Gallagher played for the United States’ silver-medal winning team in the 2011 Pan-American Games and he took part in multiple spring trainings with the White Sox, but never got the call to the main club before injuries took a toll.

“I was right there,” Gallagher said. “My first five years in the minors, I batted .280 to .285. I averaged 30-plus doubles and double-digit home runs. I had a great spring training in 2011, and I felt I could’ve made the club coming out of it, but the timing and the opportunity was never there for me.”

Gallagher, 31, stayed in baseball until 2013, but he injured both wrists making a diving catch during spring training in 2012.

“I had a decision to make, do I shut it down and get healthy? But I figured this might be my last chance to make it, so I have to play,” he said. “I was never the same player again. I couldn’t drive the baseball anymore.”

So he returned to Duke and finished his degree.

Gallagher cherishes his seven years in the minors, but he relishes talking about time spent playing football and baseball for Peters Township. He loved how every game at the high school level meant something.

A dual-threat quarterback before the term was trendy, Gallagher still holds Peters Township’s single-season passing record of 2,005 yards, which he set as a senior in 2003. His 3,739 career passing yards are second to Tyler Porco (4,054) in team history. In 2003, Peters Township won eight games, including a WPIAL Class AAA playoff game, and he drew considerable college attention.

Stanford, Duke, Virginia, Maryland and Syracuse were all after Gallagher for football, but, at 6-1, he figured baseball was his best bet at the next level.

“If I was 6-3 or even a legit 6-2 as opposed to kind of pushing 6-1, I think football would have been my direction. I’m super competitive and I have a lot of passion, so football was the perfect sport for me,” Gallagher said. “But I didn’t have the opportunity to really go through the recruiting process for football.”

The Gallagher-led 2003 team remains the best in the past 20 years at Peters Township, and, in baseball, his group started what was an extended run of success there.

Gallagher’s talent and leadership were big reasons.

“We’re playing Indian Valley in the (2004) state playoffs and we’re down 5-0, and the other team is over in the dugout celebrating like they’ve won the game,” Maize said. “I go out to make a pitching change and bring Jimmy in. I’m ready to give them a speech but Jimmy gathers every player around him on the mound. He says, ‘Coach, I got this.’ and tells them, ‘They’re not going to score another run.’ I said, ‘Yeah, what he said.’ Then I walked back to the dugout and said we were about to win this game.”

And Peters Township did.

Mike Kovak is assistant night editor at the Observer-Reporter. His email address is mkovak@observer-reporter.com.