Words on Walker
Those who played baseball with Larry Walker, or watched him play, were often astonished by his skills:
“An amazing talent. People always toss around the term ‘five-tool player’ pretty liberally, which they shouldn’t. But I tell people that Larry was not only a five-tool player; he was elite in all five categories.” — Walt Weiss, former Rockies player and manager who was Walker’s teammate in Colorado from 1995-97
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Larry is a Hall of Famer. I’ve played with a lot of Hall of Famers — Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Gary Carter, Mike Piazza — and as far as all-around, every part of the game, Larry is the best I played with.”
— Tim Wallach, Walker’s teammate
with the Montreal Expos
“Larry Walker was a special player that could do it all. Talk about having an instinct for the game. Larry Walker was that player — and a lot of fun.”
— Hall of Famer pitcher Pedro Martinez, who played with Walker in Montreal in 1994
“People talk about five-tool players, but Larry Walker had a sixth tool: his baseball sense and anticipation. He won the MVP award in 1997, but if he weren’t playing at the same time as Barry Bonds, he may have won three or four MVP awards. He was the best at deking runners, hands-down.” — Eric Young, Walker’s Rockies
teammate from 1995-97
“I remember him as an Expo. I always felt pretty comfortable against lefties, because I felt as though I could throw a breaking ball down and away from them and I could locate my fastball on their hands. They had a lot of good players in Montreal, but I thought Larry was the toughest hitter of them all, even though he was left-handed.” — Current Rockies manager Bud Black, who, as a pitcher for San Francisco,
faced Walker from 1992-94
“I think the most extraordinary stat, for me, is always going to be his 1997 season, the year he won the MVP. He hit 29 of his 49 home runs on the road and his home OPS (1.169) was ridiculous, but his road OPS (1.176) was even higher. That was pre-humidor at Coors Field, so he kind of had to bust down the door to win the MVP. But considering what he did on the road, a writer would have been embarrassed not to vote for him.”
— Manny Randhawa, author
of “The Blake Street Bombers”