WALKING ON AIR
Rockies & Expos great enters Hall in the year of eligibility
Larry Walker sent out a tweet earlier on Tuesday saying he did not expect to get elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his final year on the ballot.
He was shocked when the call came from BBWAA secretarytreasurer Jack O’Connell that he had made it.
“I was speechless,’’ Walker said after making the 75 percent grade by six votes, garnering 76.6 percent of the vote.
Walker played 17 seasons for the Expos, Rockies and Cardinals, a seven-time Gold Glove Award winner in right field and a fivetime All-Star who won three batting titles.
A native of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, he becomes the second Canadian elected to the Hall of Fame. Ferguson Jenkins, a native of Chatham, Ontario, was elected in 1991.
A hockey player, Walker came to baseball late. He said if he had stuck with hockey he would be missing a few more teeth “and all this wouldn’t have happened. It was a decision I made at 16 and baseball kind of found me. I’m a hockey player, baseball was something I had to learn along the way.’’
Most amazing is how far Walker had to travel in terms of voting percentage. He received 10.2 percent of the BBWAA vote in his fourth year on the ballot in 2014. He is the first player elected by the BBWAA who received less than 12 percent of the vote in any election during his candidacy since Bob Lemon, who was elected in 1976 after he received 11.9 percent of the vote in his first year eligible in 1964.
“The tweet was just me kind of being open,’’ Walker said. “I calculated in my head that I would be about 73.3.
“Then the call game,’’ Walker said. “I think I uttered the words, ‘Oh s---’ when that number popped up and before I answered the phone.
“This year I had a chance, the other years I didn’t watch it like last year,’’ he said of the voting tabulations. “I spent three weeks watching the tracker. Even though last year I had a blast following along and honestly if this year had come up a little short I’d probably be saying the same thing, just how incredible it was that that many people thought I was good enough to come this close.
“This year I didn’t come that close. I made the last hurdle.’’
He becomes the first Rockie to make it to Cooperstown.
“It’s a franchise just like every other one,’’ he said of playing in the rarefied air of Colorado. “You can go to other ballparks that affected their goods and bad. I did really, really well there and I am grateful because it helped getting me to where I am at right now.’’
As for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who remain waiting on the sideline, Walker said, “What Barry and Roger have done in the game is pretty incredible. I don’t think I know enough about everything they have done or haven’t done as far as when you talk about the steroid stuff. It’s something I don’t delve into. That’s why you guys are voting on it. It’s up to you guys to decide that.’’