Ice-guy Larry's a stone-cold legend

When Larry Walker traded in his hockey stick for a baseball glove, he never imagined it would lead to a Hall of Fame career.

Growing up in suburban Vancouver, Canada, Walker was just 17 when he signed as an amateur free agent with the Montreal Expos (now Washington Nationals) in 1984－five years before Canadians became eligible for the MLB draft.

He gravitated to baseball after being cut from a junior hockey team. As a goalie who idolized NHL Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, Walker wore Roy's No 33 throughout his 17 years as a slugging outfielder for the Expos and Colorado Rockies.

"I think I would probably be missing a few more teeth," Walker, 53, said in a media conference call when asked how his life would be different had he stuck to hockey.

"And I don't know if the success would have been there in hockey as it turned out in baseball, so there's probably a better chance that this kind of conversation would never be happening, honestly."

Walker, voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with Derek Jeter and Ted Simmons in January, was informed on Friday that the induction ceremony has been postponed until July 25, 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Walker's long journey to becoming just the second Canadian to be inducted into Cooperstown started with his first training camp with the Expos in 1985.

"I had no idea when I signed that contract and drove down to Florida to go to spring training of what I was getting into," he said.

"I never really knew the rules of the game or much about it. You know, I was a hockey player. When you grow up in Canada that's what's in your blood and your veins, so baseball was something I had to learn along the way.

"Once I figured it all out and learned how to play and became more successful, then the road became a little bit clearer of what the possibilities were if I was able to be successful."

A career .313 hitter, Walker won three batting titles, five Gold Gloves, made five All-Star appearances and was named the National League MVP in 1997. He received 76.6 percent of the vote by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America in his 10th and final year on the Hall of Fame ballot, surpassing the 75 percent required for induction by just six votes.

Former Chicago Cubs pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, who in 1991 became the first Hall of Famer from Canada, tweeted a congratulatory message moments after the announcement.

"As the first Canadian Hall of Famer ever inducted, I couldn't be prouder and happier to welcome my friend and fellow Canadian Larry Walker to the Hall!" Jenkins said.

Walker hit an eye-popping .366 with a league-leading 49 homers, 46 doubles and a career-high 130 RBI during his MVP season.

This summer will be the first without a Hall of Fame induction ceremony since 1960.

A record crowd of over 70,000 had been expected at the small town in upstate New York to honor Walker, Simmons and Jeter, the former New York Yankees captain who came within one vote of unanimous election.

Jeter, the driving force behind five World Series titles for the Yankees, was on 396 of 397 ballots in voting announced on Jan 21. The only player with a higher percentage was former New York teammate Mariano Rivera, who became the first unanimous pick in 2019.

"In heeding the advice of government officials as well as federal, state and local medical and scientific experts, we chose to act with extraordinary caution in making the decision to postpone the inductions," Hall of Fame chairperson Jane Forbes Clark said in announcing the new date.

"It was a very difficult decision, but with so many unknowns facing the world, the board felt strongly that this was the right thing to do."