When Jerome Williams was selected out of Waipahu High in the first round of the 1999 Major League Draft by San Francisco, the remarkable thing about him was a 94 mph fastball.

Eighteen seasons in professional baseball later, we’ve come to understand that even more amazing is the man and the journey that keeps him pitching in professional baseball.

The St. Louis Cardinals became his eighth MLB team when they summoned the 34-year old from the minors Monday, marking the latest in a series of comebacks.

When Williams ascended to the majors in 2003, pitching in a National League Divisional Series at age 21, some saw in him the potential of another Dwight Gooden. “Baby Doc,” teammate Marquis Grissom went so far as to nickname him at the time.

While that stardom never materialized, what emerged has been remarkable in its own right, the resilience and an uncanny ability to reshape a career that has seen him pitch 1,016 innings in 225 big league appearances.

“I’m always going to fight going forward. I’m not gonna take any steps back,” Williams told Fox Sports Midwest Tuesday. “That’s my motto: always go forward. Keep on going, keep on fighting. I’ve been doing that my whole career.”

Along the way he’s pitched from Mayaguez to Memphis and Taiwan to Texas. He’s stepped atop mounds in Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico and in more than 20 minor league cities resurrecting, time and again, a career that even he should have had reason to believe was over at several junctures.

There were, for example, the three years away from the big leagues in his late 20s after pitching for the Nationals in 2007, when he knocked around in independent leagues and overseas.

Not many comebacks are launched via the 7-Eleven Lions in Tainan City, Taiwan. Nobody calls the Magallanes Navigators of Venezuela, Lancaster (Pa.) Barnstormers or Long Beach (Calif.) Armada pipelines to the big leagues.

But with resolve, at times deep introspection and a willingness to continue to develop his craft and adapt, Williams has made stops there that work for him.

He added a cutter, dropped weight and eventually caught the eye of the Angels in 2011, beginning a three-year stay in Anaheim, Calif.

So, maybe, we shouldn’t have been too surprised that, despite Philadelphia parting ways after last season and time out for a ruptured Achilles tendon to heal, Williams has found his way back, again.

He signed a minor league contract with the Cardinals in June intended to give them pitching depth in their farm system. And, lo and behold, after a 5-3 record at Memphis, he was called to shore up the St. Louis pitching staff in long relief or as a spot starter.

Along with the satisfaction of returning to the majors, there is, reportedly, a $2 million clause in his contract.

In the lexicon of baseball, Williams was described as a “journeyman pitcher” when he was added to the Cardinals’ roster this week.

In his case, though, the description hardly seems to do justice to the man or the breadth of the travels that have brought him to this point.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.