1st Time: The Collector's All-Time Rockies Team
2nd Time: Diamond Jester's Build-A-Lineup
3rd Time: Not Another Baseball Card Blog's Expos Frankenset
If that wasn't enough Mr. Walker... my buddy and I were just having a conversation about future Hall of Famers and of course I was advocating for him. Simply put, he had one helluva career and I don't believe players should be penalized for playing in specific ballparks.
Okay enough of that. Let's check out my favorite Larry Walker cards from the collection:
1990 Leaf #325
I picked up this card back in September of 2018 for $17.49 on 4 Sharp Corners... and boy am I glad that I did... when I did. Since then, this card has skyrocketed in value.
1998 Score Artist Proof #PP117
This is the first of three very shiny 90's parallels...
1999 Topps Finest Refractor #205
1995 Select Certified Mirror Gold #89
The 1995 Mirror Golds are gorgeous... and very affordable. Speaking of affordable cards, this card is just your everyday Topps base card:
1993 Topps #95
But isn't it awesome?
2005 Donruss Champions Impressions Materials #67
I have a few memorabilia cards of Walker featuring him with the Rockies, but this is the lone Montreal Expos memorabilia card I have sitting in the collection. And this is the only autograph of Walker I own:
1990 Score #631
Anyone else notice that this guy doesn't have a lot of certified, pack pulled autographs?
Moving along, here is one of my rarest Larry Walker cards:
1996 Leaf Studio Silver Press Proof #78
There's nothing too fancy about this card, but it is one of the Silver Press Proofs. Donruss only produced 100 of each of these parallels, which back in the day was like pulling a needle from a haystack.
And I'll go ahead and wrap things up with probably my most valuable card of Walker:
1990 O-Pee-Chee #757
This card looks like just another ordinary, overproduced Junk Wax Era rookie card, but there are much less copies of Larry Walker O-Pee-Chee rookie cards floating around compared to its Topps counterpart.
In fact, according to PSA's Population Report... there are 424 PSA 10 graded copies of the Topps rookie. The O-Pee-Chee? Only 19. I found this little gem back in November of 2018 on 4 Sharp Corners for $26.39. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess I won't find one for that price ever again.
Okay peeps, it's your turn to chime in...
Larry Walker. Cooperstown worthy? Yay or nay?
Even though we may or may not agree on this topic, I'm always looking forward to reading everyone's feedback. In fact there have been more than a few times in my lifetime when people actually persuaded me to change my opinion on certain matters.
Well that's it for today. Happy Saturday and sayonara!
21 comments:
I think he has a good shot of getting in, so it's a qualified 'yes.'
It seems like Walker is going to be the next player the advanced numbers analysts / nerds are advocate hard for - maybe partially as a blowback for an inferior candidate being inducted in Harold Baines.
A qualified 'yes.'
Walker was a damn good player, but I think he got hurt too often and missed chunks of games.
He put up big numbers in an era where the numbers were inflated and had his elite years, playing half his games in a ball park where his numbers were inflated.
Yea! I already have a PC for him. I had no idea of any of his cards being that costly. I guarantee there are some Gem Mint rookies sitting in all of those Monster boxes in my garage back home.
Those 90's parallels are awesome. Great picture, color, and "shine".
Nice stuff!
I’ve never seen that 1993 Topps. Very cool.
I’d say yes, worthy. I had never heard of him until he was a Rockie, but I enjoyed following him once I saw the numbers he was putting up with Gallaraga, Bichette, and Castilla.
Yes, easy call.
Walk This Way. Nice stuff!
I just reviewed Walker's complete stats, and didn't realize he won SEVEN gold gloves on top of the offensive accolades. That's impressive. However, I still think he may just be on the outside looking in. It's a tough call.
Walker is on the fence for me. But, the more tweets I see from @theaceofspaeder the more I become convinced that he belongs.
The 90 Leaf card is the cornerstone of my Walker RC collection, but the 93 Topps is by far the best.
Absolutely yes. Vote Walker. He had better numbers at Coors than all the current Hall of Famers had at Coors, collectively.
after the first 9 commenters...
yay - 5
nay - 1
on the fence - 1
no vote - 2
laurens - my buddy and i were talking about how the hall is starting to let everyone in these days and how we both are part of the small hall crowd. but if baines is in, walker should be too.
johnnys trading spot - if you wanna make a quick buck, send them in to be graded and flip them on ebay, before the market gets saturated
base card hero - i know. love the 90's shine!
the lost collector - i think i originally saw the 93t card on dime box's blog or whoever collects bat rack cards
mike - that's what i'm talking about
sport card collectors - thanks
gregory - seven gold gloves = more reason he deserves to be in
p-town tom - i'm never on twitter, but i'll have to check out this guy's tweets
adam kaningher - i'm hoping someone at baseball digest writes a detailed article on larry walker at some point. it'd be nice to see someone break down his statistics and compare them to other hof candidates
If Baines and Edgar can get in, so should Walker and Dale Murphy.
It's reached a point now where many of the players hitting eligibility are guys whose careers were primarily played when I wasn't watching baseball. I had to go look at Larry Walkers career stats because my first thought when his name appeared in the reports on the ballot was to shrug.
But when I looked I found that his numbers are very impressive and I'd vote for him for sure.
Yes, it's a crime that he is not in already.
He is absolutely deserving of a spot in the hall and I also think he will definitely get in. Either he gets in on his last shot on the ballot (and with the backlog of stars that have cluttered the ballot up for most of his time cleared up I think he has an excellent shot at getting a big bump in support) or by the Veteran's committee sometime in the future.
I'm a bit biased since he is a Canadian like me and I really remember his rookie season well since I saw a lot of games at Olympic Stadium that year. 1990 was a pretty exciting year for the team even though they didn't win anything, they had three really exciting rookies in Walker, Marquis Grissom and Delino Deshields (I got Grissom and Deshields' autographs at games that year, Walker was the only one I missed). And for his entire tenure in Montreal he was probably only second to Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter as the most popular player in Canada. Great memories, great player, he deserves gettin in!
I've actually written two posts about Walker (this is the other one) and I'm definitely on board with Booger getting in. I didn't know he had so few certified autographed cards or that his RCs sell for so much in high grade. I picked up a PSA 9 copy of his Leaf RC a few years ago for under $10 just cause I thought it was a cool card (and I already had the Thomas and Sosa Rcs) Walker was nowhere near 75% of the vote at the time, more like 15%.
I don’t know his career all that well, but seems like he might be on the fence. Love your collection you have!
I've always been torn about Walker. He's got the stats, but the fact he only played about 80% of the games over the course of his career bothers me. I wouldn't get upset if he gets elected, but he's not the slam dunk that some people feel he is. He's been a yes on the mock ballots I've done in the past, so for this post I'll put him in as well.
My only reservation about Walker is that he hit only .278 career on the road, which isn't especially impressive. I'm on the fence about him.
I can look this up. And I might. But why do they call him Booger? Walker's career was largely played at a time when I wasn't collecting baseball cards or even watching the game with the same interest. But looking at his stats... I don't think he's worthy. I think I'm sitting on an island about this.
Great cards! Good instincts to snap up those rookies when you did - I think he's got a real good chance of making it in this year.
He gets dinged for playing in hitter friendly Coors field, but he wasn't just good at home, he was really really good. He hit .383 at Coors field!
This post seems to give a fair hearing for his candidacy.
https://www.cooperstowncred.com/larry-walkers-hall-of-fame-case-and-the-coors-field-conundrum/
I would definitely vote for him this year, even with a ballot that still has more than 10 worthy candidates on it.
here's the final toll on booger after 10 more people commented...
yay - 12
nay - 2
on the fence - 3
no vote - 2
todd uncommon - the jury is still out for me when it comes to dale murphy. although when baines got in, it opened the door for a lot of hall of very good guys
commishbob - you and i must have watched baseball at different times. i watched most of my baseball during the 90's when walker excelled... and the 80's.
the snorting bull - i agree
sean - oh i remember the grissom, walker, and deshields years. that's awesome that you secured their autographs back in the day.
chris - i wish topps would sign him to an autograph contract, so that montreal and colorado fans could have more opportunities to add his signature to their collection. you were smart to grab that leaf rookie back then. it's blown up over the last year or so
sumomenkoman - thanks buddy. a lot of it has to do with my expos fanfare
matt - wow. didn't realize he was injured that much. thanks for the input
gtt - .278 is still significantly higher than the national league average batting average (home & away combined) for hitters during the years he played. but yeah... .278 isn't .300
peter k steinberg - lol. no idea. but it is referenced on several sites
brian - thanks for sharing that link. great stuff. might help sway some that are on the fence.
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