Larry Walker might be baseball’s most patient Hall of Famer. His wait to be inducted ends next week

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This article was published 02/09/2021 (1511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Larry Walker waited 10 years to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, so sitting around 13 months for his official ceremony doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

Walker, generally considered the best position player Canada has ever produced, was supposed to be inducted into Cooperstown last July. The pandemic delayed the festivities until Wednesday, when he will be enshrined alongside Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons.

Patience is a virtue that the easygoing native of Maple Ridge, B.C., does not lack. When his candidacy for the hall began in 2011, he received 20.3 per cent of the votes from eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Four years later, the support for Walker dipped to 10.2 per cent, light years away from the 75 per cent required for induction.

Eventually voters started to take notice and the momentum started to build. By 2017, Walker was back up above 20 per cent, two years later it was 54.6. In his final year of eligibility, Walker was named on 76.6 per cent of ballots, entering the hall by six votes.

The 22-per-cent uptick from 2019 to 2020 was the largest increase by any player in his last year of eligibility over the last 65 years. Walker also became the first electee in history who received less than 12 per cent in any year of his candidacy since Bob Lemon in 1964.

“I never really considered myself a Hall of Famer, so there was never any thought in my head that, yeah, this is going to happen,” Walker told reporters Thursday afternoon. “To be completely honest, I didn’t pay much attention the first few years; I knew my percentages would be between maybe five and 22. Then, the last few years, it grabbed my attention pretty good.”

It’s fitting that Walker came through as the underdog because that’s the role he had for most of the early stages of his career. As a teenager, he was more interested in pursuing a career in hockey than baseball. It was only after a failed tryout for the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League that the former goaltender decided to give up the sport.

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The way Walker describes it, baseball found him, not the other way around. He barely played through much of his early teenage years but, after the failed attempt at hockey, he made the Canadian junior baseball team and eventually signed a deal with the Montreal Expos, earning a whopping $1,500 as a signing bonus.

Walker’s baseball skills were extremely raw, but it didn’t take him long to figure things out. He broke into the league at 22 and ended up playing 17 seasons in the majors, hitting .313 with 383 home runs and a .965 OPS, while earning five all-star nominations and seven Gold Gloves. He’s one of two Canadians in the Hall of Fame, joining Chicago Cubs legend Ferguson Jenkins.

Pretty impressive stuff for a guy who estimates he played 10-15 baseball games a year throughout his youth before making a team in Vancouver that played 72.

“It’s obviously a big thrill to join Fergie and be one of two who have made it,” said Walker, the 1997 National League MVP. “Obviously there’s more coming from north of the border. There’s some really good talent … Joey Votto, with what he’s doing. It’s beyond a big thrill to have the maple leaf tattooed on my arm and (to be) going into the Hall of Fame.”

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca