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From a young age, Larry Walker knew what he wanted to do with his life. He dreamed of being a professional athlete. He was going to be an NHL goaltender.
It’s not a surprising dream for him to have. After all, he did grow up in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, so it was only natural that he’d don skates and gravitate to the ice. Baseball? It wasn’t even on the young Walker’s radar. He didn’t play any serious baseball until his late teens.
Imagine the chances of this fellow making it in Major League Baseball. Never mind that, what about him becoming the second Canadian to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY? Any MLB betting sites that were to offer odds on such a prop wager couldn’t possibly expect someone to take them up on such an opportunity.
And yet, it happened. On September 8, Walker was inducted into the baseball shrine as part of the Hall of Fame’s class of 2021.
Hockey His First Love
Instead of swatting fastballs into the seats beyond the outfield fence, Walker’s childhood dreamscape involved parrying slapshots away from his net.
“Being Canadian, you’re born into this world with a stick in your hand and skates on your feet,” Walker told the Denver Post. “So that’s how I was as a kid. You played hockey, and that’s all that really mattered.”
He came to the precipice of the pinnacle of the Canadian hockey dream for a teenager. At the age of 16, Walker was invited to try out for the Regina Pats of the junior Western Hockey League, one step away from the pro ranks. However, two years in a row, he didn’t survive the final cutdown.
“When I was cut for the second year in a row I had the opportunity to go to Swift Current,” Walker recalled. “I drove into the town and I stopped at the rink and I looked around, and I don’t know why, but I said, ‘You know what? This isn’t for me.’ And I decided I wasn’t going to pursue hockey.
“We turned around and drove back home to Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and that’s when it ended. And that’s when baseball kind of came knocking on my door. I didn’t knock on its door.”
A Late Blooming Hall of Famer
Walker’s father Larry Sr. was a semi-pro ballplayer. His brothers Barry, Carey and Gary all played fast-pitch softball. Walker didn’t even play baseball during his high-school years. His school – Maple Ridge Senior Secondary – didn’t have a team.
His limited baseball resume was fashioned in his late teens in a senior amateur league in Vancouver, about on par with the Senior Babe Ruth Leagues in the USA.
“Back home, all I saw was fastballs and what were supposed to be curveballs that really didn’t do anything but spin,” Walker told the CBC.
Playing for the Coquitlam Reds in 1984, Walker earned a spot on the Canadian team that played in the World Youth Championship. Later that year, he signed a contract with the Montreal Expos.
He was talented, a natural athlete but raw and with plenty to learn.
“I’d never seen a forkball, never seen a slider,” Walker said. “I didn’t know they existed. I had never really seen a good curveball. The pitchers were just so much more advanced because they had played high-school ball and college ball.”
“In Canada, as a kid, we’d play 10, maybe 15 baseball games a year.”
Walker proved to be a quick learner. He made his MLB debut with the Expos on August 11, 1989.
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