After 10 years on the ballot, needing to get 75 percent of the vote or have his name eliminated from consideration, Maple Ridge, BC’s Larry Walker is heading to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
A recipient of a late wave of support similar to that of his former Montreal Expos teammate Tim Raines, Walker saw his vote totals rise very slowly, finishing with 76.6% of the vote. It has been an unbelievable rise for Walker; in 2014 this moment seemed like a long shot, as he received just 10.2% support.
Walker’s ascent up the voting leaderboard is one of the more polarizing discussions in recent Hall of Fame voting history, with his sustained excellence clouded by the environment he produced in and a lack of true top-end moments to build his case.
The Case For
Five All-Star game appearances, three batting titles, an MVP award, and a collection of counting stats that put him shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the game’s icons at his position.
Whether you believe he deserves to be in the Hall or not, there is nobody casting doubt that Walker possessed all the skills needed to build an ideal great baseball player.
Here is a sampling of his standing in the all-time counting stats:
2,160 hits (200th all time)
1,311 RBI (105th)
471 doubles (89th)
383 home runs (68th)
.313 career batting average (79th)
.400 on base percentage (55th)
.565 slugging percentage (12th)
.965 on base plus slugging (15th)
72.7 WAR (56th among position players)
He was the 40th player to record 2,000 hits, 400 doubles, 300 home runs, 1,000 runs scored, and 1,000 RBI.
He’s the only player to have exceeded a .310 batting average, 380 home runs, 1,300 RBI, .965 OPS and 471 doubles, and 230 stolen bases in career, with Stan Musial, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig being the only players to hit the same batting milestones without adding the stolen bases.
He is one of only 20 players to win three batting titles including the truly incredible 1999 season where he finished with a .379 average, a mark no player has achieved in the 20 years since. He posted an OPS above 1.000 seven times, and never finished with an adjusted OPS+ below league average in any year since his 20 game stint as a 20-year-old rookie. Among all players with at least 8,000 at bats, Walker’s 140 wRC+ is 34th all time.
Walker’s career crown jewel season was his 1997 MVP campaign, when he hit 49 home runs while slashing .366/.425/.720.
His 72.7 WAR (per Baseball Reference) is 10th all-time among right fielders and all nine ahead of him are hall of famers, as are three of the four on the list after him.
While none of the counting stats on their own may jump out as singularly responsible for making him a sure-fire inductee, combining his elite hitting with regular gold glove consideration and 230 steals sets the template for the prototypical five-tool corner outfielder.
All of these accolades land him on lists where the only company he keeps is with legends already enshrined in baseball’s hall.
The Case Against
Ten of Walker’s 17 seasons took place in the hitter-friendly confines of Colorado’s Coors Field, a notoriously number-juicing environment that was especially generous to batters in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
Walker had 814 of his hits in Coors Field, and posted a .381/.462/.710 slash line in the building along with 154 of his home runs. His road OPS is .865, which is still quite good — better than the all around career rates of several Hall of Fame hitters — but there are voters that cannot quite get around the 300 point drop in numbers when taken out of Colorado.
Additionally, Walker was not a paragon of health throughout his career. He only played more than 140 games in a season four times, and injuries cost him 375 games between 1996 to 2004. Eight of the nine right fielders ahead of him in WAR played at least 2,400 games, while Walker appeared in just 1,988.
He also only led his team to the postseason three times in 17 years, with two of those coming in his final two seasons as a part of the St. Louis Cardinals. There are no October moments of greatness to draw upon for rosy memories, just a consistent level of being very, very good.
His Legacy
Walker’s worthiness for baseball’s highest honour may be up for debate, but his place in Canadian baseball, certainly isn’t.
He was the first Canadian to win an MVP award, and a nine-time winner of the Tip O’Neill award for Canada’s best baseball player. After his career he continued to pay it forward for his country, serving as the hitting coach for the national team for three World Baseball Classics, and the Pan Am Games twice.
He opened the door for Canadian baseball talent and ushered in a wave of stars from Canada that followed him into the league. Justin Morneau and Joey Votto followed in his footsteps as MVP award winners, and in the decade and a half following Walker’s retirement players from Canada made their way to the league in unprecedented numbers.
Ferguson Jenkins was the first Canadian to make the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Walker’s outsized presence in the game has ensured that he won’t be the last.
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports” data-reactid=”55″>More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Canucks announced Tuesday that defenceman Alex Edler will sign a one-day contract in order to officially retire as a member of the NHL team.
The signing will be part of a celebration of Edler’s career held Oct. 11 when the Canucks host the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Canucks selected Edler, from Ostersund, Sweden, in the third round (91st overall) of the 2004 NHL draft.
He played in 925 career games for the Canucks between the 2006-07 and 2020-21 seasons, ranking fourth in franchise history and first among defencemen.
The 38-year-old leads all Vancouver defencemen with 99 goals, 310 assists and 177 power-play points with the team.
Edler also appeared in 82 career post-season contests with Vancouver and was an integral part of the Canucks’ run to the 2011 Stanley Cup final, putting up 11 points (2-9-11) across 25 games.
“I am humbled and honoured to officially end my career and retire as a member of the Vancouver Canucks,” Edler said in a release. “I consider myself lucky to have started my career with such an outstanding organization, in this amazing city, with the best fans in the NHL. Finishing my NHL career where it all began is something very special for myself and my family.”
Edler played two seasons for Los Angeles in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He did not play in the NHL last season.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The sixth-ranked Canadian women will face World Cup champion Spain in an international friendly next month.
Third-ranked Spain will host Canada on Oct. 25 at Estadio Francisco de la Hera in Almendralejo.
The game will be the first for the Canadian women since the Paris Olympics, where they lost to Germany in a quarterfinal penalty shootout after coach Bev Priestman was sent home and later suspended for a year by FIFA over her part in Canada’s drone-spying scandal.
In announcing the Spain friendly, Canada Soccer said more information on the interim women’s coaching staff for the October window will come later. Assistant coach Andy Spence took charge of the team in Priestman’s absence at the Olympics.
Spain finished fourth in Paris, beaten 1-0 by Germany in the bronze-medal match.
Canada is winless in three previous meetings (0-2-1) with Spain, most recently losing 1-0 at the Arnold Clark Cup in England in February 2022.
The teams played to a scoreless draw in May 2019 in Logroñés, Spain in a warm-up for the 2019 World Cup. Spain won 1-0 in March 2019 at the Algarve Cup in São João da Venda, Portugal.
Spain is a powerhouse in the women’s game these days.
It won the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2022 and was runner-up in 2018. And it ousted Canada 2-1 in the round of 16 of the current U-20 tournament earlier this month in Colombia before falling 1-0 to Japan after extra time in the quarterfinal.
Spain won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2018 and 2022 and has finished on the podium on three other occasions.
FC Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati (2023) and Alexia Putellas (2021 and ’22) have combined to win the last three Women’s Ballon d’Or awards.
And Barcelona has won three of the last four UEFA Women’s Champions League titles.
“We continue to strive to diversify our opponent pool while maintaining a high level of competition.” Daniel Michelucci, Canada Soccer’s director of national team operations, said in a statement. “We anticipate a thrilling encounter, showcasing two of the world’s top-ranked teams.”
—
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
