Larry Walker

Larry Walker grew up in Canada wanting to be a hockey goalie and turned, almost by default, into one of the finest all-around baseball players of his generation. He could hit for average and power, run the bases like a thief, and throw out runners from right field with an arm that made third-base coaches think twice. He won a Most Valuable Player award and three batting titles, and he spent years fighting the perception that the thin air of Colorado had made him. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2020, in his 10th and final year on the ballot.

The Goalie Who Switched Sports

Walker was born on December 1, 1966, in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and like most Canadian boys he wanted the NHL, not the major leagues, dreaming of playing goal. He chased that dream until his late teens, when junior hockey teams kept cutting him, and only then did he turn seriously to baseball, a sport he barely knew. The Montreal Expos were the only organization interested, signing him in 1984 for a 1,500-dollar bonus, and he learned the game almost from scratch in the minor leagues. "I'd never seen a forkball, never seen a slider," he admitted of his early years, and yet the raw athlete caught up fast.

Stardom in Montreal

Walker became a star with the Expos, a powerful right fielder with speed and a rocket arm, and by the early 1990s he was one of the best young players in the National League. His finest Montreal season was the cruelest, 1994, when he was hitting .322 with power on a team that owned the best record in baseball before a players' strike wiped out the rest of the year and the franchise's best chance at a title. The strike ended the season and, in time, sent Walker into free agency, and the Expos let him walk. He left Montreal as a complete player on the verge of greatness, with his biggest seasons still ahead.

The MVP

Walker signed with the Colorado Rockies and reached his peak in 1997, a season for the ages. He hit .366 with 49 home runs, 130 runs batted in, 33 stolen bases, and 409 total bases, leading the league in several categories at once and winning the National League Most Valuable Player award, the first Canadian-born player to take it. The home and road splits answered the doubters before they could finish the question, because 29 of his 49 home runs came away from Colorado and he hit .346 on the road that year. He was, by any measure and in any ballpark, the best player in the league.

The Batting Champion

For three of the next four years Walker was the best pure hitter in the National League. He won the batting title in 1998 at .363, again in 1999 at .379, the highest average of his career, and a third time in 2001 at .350, a run of excellence few right-handed hitters have matched. He paired the average with power and patience, posting a .400 on-base percentage and a .565 slugging mark for his career, the profile of a hitter who did everything well. The bat was only part of him, but it was the part that filled the trophy case.

The Coors Question

The shadow over Walker's career was the ballpark where he played his prime. Coors Field, a mile above sea level, turned fly balls into home runs and inflated every Rockie's numbers, and his home statistics were gaudy enough to make some voters dismiss the whole record. The fuller picture is more generous, because his road numbers stayed strong, a .280 average and a .385 on-base percentage away from the thin air, and his defense and baserunning carried no altitude bonus at all. He won seven Gold Gloves for his arm and his range, stole 230 bases over his career, and graded out by the park-adjusted measures as a genuine star, not a product of the mountains.

The Complete Player

Walker was the rare slugger who helped his team in every phase of the game. He threw out runners with one of the best arms in the league, took extra bases with smart, aggressive baserunning, and played a right field that few could match, the whole package of a five-tool talent. He finished with a .313 average, 383 home runs, and 2,160 hits, and he closed his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, reaching the only World Series of his life in 2004 and hitting .357 in a sweep loss to Boston. The all-around brilliance was the truest thing about him, the part no ballpark could explain away.

Cooperstown in a Rockies Cap

The Hall of Fame nearly let him slip away. Walker languished on the ballot for years, bottoming out near 10 percent in 2014, before a late surge driven by the park-adjusted case carried him from 34 percent to 55 to 77 over his final three tries. He got in 2020, his last year of eligibility, with 76.6 percent, and he chose to wear a Colorado cap, the first player enshrined as a Rockie. He went in as one of the greatest Canadian players ever, following Ferguson Jenkins as the second of his countrymen in Cooperstown and the first position player among them. The goalie who could not make junior hockey had made the Hall of Fame instead.