Larry Walker

Larry Walker, the 1997 National League Most Valuable Player, is one of the most productive player of recent major league baseball history, batting .313and hitting 383 home runs with 1,311 RBIs in his 17 year career. Along with pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, Walker ranks as the greatest baseball player that Canada has produced. Born Larry Kenneth Robert Walker on December 1, 1966 in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, the young Larry shared the dram of most young Canadian males in wanting to grow up and be a hockey player. He was drafted by the Montreal Expos in 1984 and debuted with the team in 1989, playing with them through the strike-stopped 1994 season. After that season, he declared free agency and signed with the Colorado Rockies, who replaced Mile High Stadium (Denver is located at over 5,000 feet above sea level in the Rocky Mountains) with the new Coors Field, which Walker helped inaugurate. The left handed hitter's power stats jumped in Denver: in 1995, he hit 36 home runs after having going yard 23 and 22 times in 1992 and 1993, his last full seasons. In 1997, he joined former Boston Red Sox slugger Jim Rice as the only players to have over 400 total bases since the great Joe DiMaggio. He racked up 409 total bases while hitting .366 with 49 taters, 130 RBI, and 33 stolen bases. He also had 12 assists as a right fielder, wining him the third of his seven Gold Gloves as a fielder. The performance brought him the N.L. MVP award, making Walker the first Canadian player ever to win the highest accolade in baseball other than enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. Ironically, Walker lost the 1997 Lou Marsh Award for Canadian Athlete of the Year award to race-car driver Jacques Villeneuve, though he did cop that accolade in 1998, when won the first of his three batting titles by hitting .363. However, he appeared in only 130 games in 1978, with 454 official at bats, as he was was plagued by injuries, as he would be through the rest of his career. Walker never again had 500 at-bats in a season, but he set the Rockies batting record the following year with .379 mark that topped both leagues. The top average was sweetened by 37 home runs and 115 RBI in just 438 at-bats. He then spent most of the 2000 season on the disabled list before bouncing back, wining his third (and last) batting title with a .350 in 2001, which he followed with .338 the next year. His power stats for 2001 and 2002 were 38 homers and 123 RBI and 25 homers and 104 RBI, respectively. He had another off-year in 2003, in which he batted .284 with only 16 taters and 79 RBI, and an injured Walker played only 38 games for the Rockies in 2004 before being traded traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for three minor league players In August 2004. Walker saw his only World Series action in 2004 with the Cardinals, batting .357 with two homers for a team that was swept by the Boston Red Sox. He was also a member of the 2005 Cardinals team that won the division before losing the National League Championship series to the Houston Astros in six games. Walker announced his retirement from baseball a the conclusion of the 2005 N.L. Championship Series. As of 2006, Walker is an instructor on the St. Louis Cardinals spring training staff under manager Tony LaRussa.