Walker blasts steroid use in baseball, Flutie lauds CFL as both head to Hall, By: Bill Beacon
May 10, 2007
Larry Walker says a power hitter can succeed in baseball without steroids.
"I'm living proof that I didn't take them because when I retired I put on 15 pounds - I didn't shrink," the former slugger from Maple Ridge, B.C., said with a laugh. The controversy over the use of steroids and other banned substances in baseball came up as Walker and former star quarterback Doug Flutie took part in separate conference calls Wednesday to discuss their impending induction into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
Flutie, named the best player in CFL history in a TSN poll last season, is the first non-Canadian named to the Hall for his stellar career, which included six outstanding player awards and three Grey Cups.
Flutie, Walker and a handful of other athletes and builders are to be inducted Oct. 25 at a dinner in Toronto.
Walker, the three-time NL batting champion and the first Canadian to win an MVP award in 1997, said an asterisk should be placed beside the names of any players caught using steroids.
But he stopped short of sticking one on Barry Bonds, the San Francisco slugger who is approaching Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark under a cloud of suspicion over alleged steroid use.
He only said it was sad to see Bonds chase the record "and only 30 or 40 per cent of people care, but there's that asterisk again.
"An old saying in baseball says 'If you're not cheating, you're not trying' - pitchers with pine tar and runners on second giving signs," he added. "But sticking a needle in you is stepping over the boundary of the sport and what you're supposed to do."
Walker certainly knew what to do on a baseball field.
In 17 major league seasons, starting in 1989 with the defunct Montreal Expos, he won seven gold gloves for his outfield play and was named to six all-star teams. He batted a career .313 with 2,160 hits, 383 home runs, 1,311 runs batted in, 230 stolen bases and a .400 on-base percentage.
In his last season in Montreal in 1994, he was on the team with baseball's best record only to see the season wiped out by "the stupid strike."
He moved onto the Colorado Rockies and finished his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom the 40-year-old now works as a batting instructor.
A regret is that he never won a World Series, although he was on a losing team once and reached a NL championship series in his final year.
But he was told he will get a World Series ring from the Cardinals, who won the championship one year after his retirement, because he worked for the team.
He expects to pick it up Thursday when he joins the club in San Diego for a three-week coaching stint.
"It was probably the most disappointing season of my career and I didn't even play,' he said of 2006. "I'm happy for the guys and I'm not going to pout about it. It just didn't work out."
Walker was a trailblazer for Canadian players, who were rare when he reached the majors but who now are playing key roles in both leagues.
He will likely help coach future Canadian Olympic and world championship teams. And he said being named to the Hall was as exciting as being named NL MVP.
"It's a great moment," he said. "I'm Canadian and I'll always be Canadian.
"I'm proud of what I'm done and hopefully I made a difference for some kids who may one day want to play baseball."
A recent rule change admitting non-Canadians who have contributed to Canadian sport allowed the native of Manchester, Md., to enter the Hall.
Few could deserve it more after his record-setting eight years in the CFL from 1990 to 1997 with British Columbia, Calgary and Toronto.
"I've always felt a very warm affection for the people of Canada and the CFL and I always felt that was reciprocated," he said.
"To be the first non-Canadian is extra special. It was a big, big part of my life in Canada. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Flutie was a star with Boston College, but struggled for playing time with Chicago and New England in the NFL, where his short stature and sprint-out style were considered drawbacks.
He flourished in the wide-open CFL and returned to the NFL with Buffalo in 1998, when the American game began to welcome mobile quarterbacks.
"The NFL adapted and that allowed me to go back," he said. "With all the blitzing, the stationary quarterback became a target."
He went on to play with San Diego and one last stint with New England before retiring in 2005. He now works as an analyst on ABC and ESPN television on college games.
Others named to the Hall of Fame this week were Cassie Campbell, the Hall's first woman hockey player, former NHL sniper Mike Bossy, Olympic wrestling champion Daniel Igali, cross-country skiing gold medallist Beckie Scott and builders Sam Jacks and Robert Steadward.
