Admitting his obvious bias, Larry Walker Sr. will happily chat about his son’s bid for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
It’s a topic that has been bantered around sports radio talk shows across the continent. Much ink has been spilled chronicling Larry Walker Jr.’s exploits in Major League Baseball. Even famed former NHL broadcaster Jim Robson, in Maple Ridge last weekend to help celebrate Ridge Meadows Minor Hockey’s 50th anniversary, wanted to weigh in on the topic.
Robson, known as ‘The Voice of the Canucks,’ vividly recalled playing against Larry Sr., who went on to play semi-pro baseball, during the heated Hammond vs. Haney baseball rivalries of the 1950s.
And Robson weighed in with the popular opinion, in Canada, that Larry Jr. belongs in Cooperstown.
The one-time Montreal Expo is the best Canadian to ever play in the field in MLB, Robson asserted.
Ferguson Jenkins is the only other Canadian in the “best Canadian” conversation, and the pitcher was inducted into the hall in 1991.
Walker Sr. said his son is a runaway favourite as the best Canadian positional player of all time. But before his career is done, Canadian first baseman Joey Votto, of the Cincinnati Reds, will be in the conversation.
Larry Sr. has been in touch with son after last Wednesday’s hall induction vote, when the younger Walker’s vote total jumped to 34 per cent of voters.
“He is very happy about that,” said Larry Sr., noting that of all the names on the Hall of Fame ballot this year, his son got the highest percentage increase.
That bodes well for him reaching 75 per cent of voters either next year or in 2020 – the last year he will be on the ballot.
“His downfall is that he played in Coors Field,” said Senior.
The Colorado Rockies’ ball park is at such a high elevation that the ball carries more easily in the thin air, and generally increases the number of home runs players there can hit.
“But it [Coors Field)]doesn’t help you defensively, throwing guys out or running the bases, and he was a five-tool player.”
In baseball parlance, that is the ultimate compliment – the position player who can hit for average, hit for power, play good defence, run the bases and throw well.
Walker was a right-fielder who could get to a one-hopper quickly and gun a runner out at first base – always a highlight reel play.
https://youtu.be/CuvcwuadboE
He won seven Gold Glove awards through his career, which began in 1989, with his first of six seasons with the Expos, and saw him finish up with two seasons with the Saint Louis Cardinals in 2005 at the age of 38.
“He’s rated very highly among all the players who ever played the game,” Larry Sr. said.
Baseball writers may be showing a bias toward simple statistics.
Larry Sr. notes that former Seattle Mariners slugger Edgar Martinez is considered a lock to get into Cooperstown next season, and he spent most of his baseball career in dugouts as a designated hitter.
Yes, Larry Jr.’s numbers at Coors Field were otherworldly.
In Colorado, Walker batted .381 and hit 154 of his career 383 home runs in 2,136 plate appearances.
For his career, he batted .313 with 1,311 RBI and 230 stolen bases in 6,907 at bats. He led the Majors with 47 homers in 1997.
“I can’t fault myself. I played for a major league team that happened to be in Denver,” Walker told TSN Montreal 690 recently. “If that’s a problem and if that’s going to be an issue for them, then get rid of the team and move it elsewhere if it’s going to be that big of an issue.
“No needles went in my [expletive] ... I played the game clean, but I played in the ballpark and it’s almost like Coors Field is my PED.”
He is one of just 19 players to ever put up a .300 batting average, .400 on base percentage and .500 slugging percentage with 5,000 at bats. Only six whose careers started after 1960 have done it. He won three batting titles.
He was the 40th player in history to reach each milestone of 2,000 hits, 400 doubles, 300 home runs, 1,000 runs scored, and 1,000 RBI.
Larry Jr. is also hurt in his Cooperstown bid because he missed a lot of games due to injury, said his dad. But that was because Larry Jr. brought a run-through-fences mentality and approach that saw him determined to make plays by diving around on AstroTurf, rather than playing a ball off the bounce.
But Larry Jr. never moved out of the field, and even in his last season, at the age of 38, played 83 of his 100 games in right field, and even played one in centre.
On Fangraphs, a baseball website that explores the statistical minutiae of the game, author Craig Edwards made the case on Feb. 1 that Walker Jr. deserves to get in based on his impressive WAR stats.
Wins Above Replacement is a newish sabermetric stat that attempts to summarize a player’s total contribution to his team success with one number. Put in words, it answers how much a team would be losing if that player was injured, and the team replaced him with a player from their bench or minor league system.
Edwards points out Walker Jr. is in the company of baseball royalty based on this stat.
“A lot of the arguments for Larry Walker’s inclusion in the Hall … are based on his very impressive 68.7 WAR,” writes Edwards. “That figure ranks 66th all-time among position players and 39th since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. His WAR is sixth in that time among right fielders, just behind Reggie Jackson and ahead of every other right fielder you can think of except for a handful of all-time greats in Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline and Frank Robinson.”
Larry Sr. will be back behind the plate umpiring games in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows this spring, just turning 80 as the kids are getting back out on the diamonds.
His son is a private person who lives in Florida and now owns a movie prop business. He would rather be golfing or sitting by a fire at a lake than just about anything. He has not been lobbying sports writers to try and get their votes, as some players have.
And although father and son would love to see him get in the hall of fame, just being considered, being in that conversation – “is he one of the best all-time?” – is a special honour.