Jeremiah Jackson thought he was just there to watch and have a good time, so his mouth was full of sunflower seeds and he didn’t know where his glove was. He was 12, a new student at St. Luke’s Episcopal School in Mobile, Alabama, and the junior varsity season had yet to begin.

But when Paul Williamson slid into home plate in the first inning of the first game of the season, then hobbled to the dugout with the help of a trainer, the eyes of the coaching staff began searching the bench. They settled on that 12-year-old.

“I went, ‘J.J., you’re in the game at shortstop,’” said Tim Becker, Jackson’s coach for his seventh and eighth grade seasons at St. Luke’s. “He got his glove, sprinted out to shortstop, and Paul Williamson never saw shortstop again.”

And not just because Williamson’s broken ankle kept him off the field for the remainder of the 2013 season.

For the next six years, Jackson never vacated that position on the varsity squad at St. Luke’s. He deceived opposing coaches with his swift plays at shortstop into thinking he was an upperclassman, and he built a career that included two state championships, in 2013 and 2014, even as a middle schooler playing a premier position.

Playing older competition didn’t rattle Jackson. He had done it throughout Little League. But on Feb. 18, 2013, Jackson spat out his sunflower seeds, found his glove and raced to shortstop. His time had come.

“I was nervous,” Jackson said, looking back on a pivotal moment in a baseball career that has brought him to the heights of the majors with the Orioles. “A lot more nervous than I had ever been in baseball.”

Those nerves almost forced a mistake. Minutes after he stepped on the field, a soft line drive sailed Jackson’s way. He should’ve stepped in and caught it at eye level. He hesitated instead, and his lunging effort almost resulted in the ball squeaking out of his glove.

With that play behind him, Jackson settled in.

Meanwhile, Williamson was on his way to the hospital, where he’d receive a full-leg cast. He still thinks about that early-spring day sometimes, especially when a reporter unexpectedly reaches out.

Williamson, a freshman at the time, would never return to the position with which he opened the year. He remembers thinking on his way to the hospital how his absence might impact a squad with state championship aspirations.

“It’s like, shoot, we lost our starting shortstop game one. What’s going to happen?” said Williamson, who’s now a dental student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “And J.J. just steps in, steadies the ship, and I think the kid still hit .300 that year. Still played probably better, if not just as good, as I would’ve played.”

Williamson was Wally Pipped.

He laughs at that thought now. Heck, he feels pride at the distinction. For one game, Jeremiah Jackson was Paul Williamson’s backup. For one game.

“Everyone knew he was just flat-out talented, even at that young age,” Williamson said. “It was awesome to watch him get that started.”

‘Gosh, this kid is just good’

There were few better people to learn shortstop from than Becker, their coach at St. Luke’s. The New York Yankees selected Becker in the sixth round of the 1986 draft out of South Alabama. Although Becker didn’t break through to the majors, he was a base-stealing threat who played a slick shortstop.

Coaching became Becker’s calling after his playing days, and in the winter at St. Luke’s, as Becker coached Williamson and Jackson through drills, there was a smoothness about the younger boy’s play that was hard to fathom.

Becker would walk through the correct form for a particular play. Then Williamson — no slouch at the position — would try to replicate it. And then Jackson would go, and he wouldn’t try to replicate it. He’d replicate it.

“I would try to do it, and then J.J. would catch it the first time,” Williamson said. “I’d be like, ‘Gosh, this kid is just good.’”

Going into that season, Jackson could’ve been the starting shortstop right away. But Becker was cognizant not to overshadow the older players. Jackson had years to go. Some others were finally getting the opportunity to start for their high school squad.

But the injury to Williamson forced his hand. St. Luke’s was a young school; 2013 was its first graduating class. The team was short in the middle infield. Enter Jackson.

“It’s just one of those things where Jeremiah didn’t do anything to make anybody mad,” Becker said. Instead, the older players rallied around their 12-year-old shortstop. “They loved Jeremiah. But they also saw, ‘Hey, listen, he’s really good.’”

In Jackson’s first game, for instance, he and Dalton Becker, Tim Becker’s son, combined to turn multiple double plays between second and shortstop. And Jackson hit an RBI double, helping the Wildcats win a game he didn’t expect to play any part in.

“At such a young age, to not only go out and perform well, but in big moments, he had that calmness to him to where nothing bothered him,” Williamson said. “Nothing seemed too big on his shoulders.”

As Williamson watched Jackson perform at shortstop for the rest of the season, acceptance set in. He knew he wouldn’t be going back to that position.

Cast off his leg and running again, Williamson approached Becker for a conversation about his future.

“After that year, it was, ‘Hey, tip my cap, this is the kid’s spot. It makes more sense for me to move somewhere than for him to move somewhere,’” Williamson said. “Coming back, it wasn’t even a question. I wasn’t like, ‘Hey, Coach, I want to give J.J. a run at shortstop.’ It was, ‘Where do you need me next? Where should I go practice now?’”

Even at that time in 2014, Becker said, talk of a standout shortstop spread quickly. Before games, as the coach chatted with umpires and opponents, the conversation inevitably landed on Jackson.

“They’d go, ‘Oh, your shortstop is really special,’” Becker said.

To those who weren’t aware, the next words needed repeating.

“I would go, ‘Yeah, he’s an eighth grader,’” Becker said. “But he didn’t play like an eighth grader. They would go, ‘Gosh, he plays like a junior or senior already.’”

A source of pride

This is all easier to talk about for Williamson, in a sense, because it worked out well for all parties involved. Yes, it required a lengthy recovery from a broken ankle. But, by the time 2014 rolled around and Williamson asked Becker where he should play, the answer was center field.

“And I was first-team all-state, so it worked out for me in the long run,” Williamson said.

St. Luke’s won a state title again that season, and by the time Williamson was a senior, he moved back to the infield as the second baseman. Alongside Jackson in the middle infield, “I felt like we were the dynamic duo that was meant to be from the beginning.”

Williamson went on to play at Division III Birmingham-Southern College, and even as he watched teammates garner interest from major league teams in the draft, he thought of Jackson tearing through competition at St. Luke’s and how his college teammates, too, would be shocked by the talent of a high schooler.

In 2018, the Los Angeles Angels chose Jackson in the second round. His time with the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas allowed him to stay close to home in Madison, Alabama, in 2022 and 2023. Whenever the Trash Pandas played on the road in Birmingham, Williamson would gather his friends for a night at Regions Field.

Then he’d point out the infielder on the visiting team and tell them the story of a long-ago day at St. Luke’s, when a slide into home plate changed everything and set Jackson on the road to the Orioles.

“I’d tell all my friends, ‘This guy, once he makes it, he’s a five-tool player. He’s got all of it. And, oh, by the way, he used to be my backup,’” Williamson said. “It’s very much a prideful thing to be able to say I got to practice with this kid when he was growing up.”

Wally Pipp, it turns out, isn’t a bad person to be.