Good manners, and patience, pay off for Larry Walker as he enters baseball Hall of Fame

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Despite enjoying a career for the ages, Larry Walker had somehow become a figure of disappointment.

His representative quote came after losing a Canadian athlete of the year ballot to auto racer Jacques Villeneuve: “I got beat by a machine.”

That became how we thought of Walker, a guy standing over in the corner garlanded by an MVP award and a bunch of batting titles, with his hands up in the air saying, "What do I have to do to prove it to you people?”

He spent the best years of his career in the relative anonymity of Colorado, and spent all the time since apologizing for playing in the best hitters’ park in baseball.

His all-around game was so good that no particular part of it stuck out. Walker could do it all, which, by some bizarre stats alchemy, meant to some people that he hadn’t done very much.

But we live in age of cults and Walker became one. Somehow, his long and achingly public desire to get into the Hall of Fame turned a guy who made more than US$100-million going to work in his pyjamas into an underdog.

Canadians, baseball nerds and fans of lost causes picked up Walker’s banner. They turned the yearly Hall election into an extended lesson in player comparisons.

By any fair statistical measure, Walker matched up with some of the greatest to play the game. The argument went something like this – “If he’d done the same things in New York/Boston/Los Angeles, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

As his clock wound down, Walker began cheering on his supporters. It was a rare example of a pro asking the little people for their help. The result was something inexpressibly charming, whether or not you felt invested in the result.

On Tuesday afternoon, Walker tried reverse psychology on himself, tweeting out a message that began, “Although I believe I’m gonna come up a little short today …”

For once, humanity’s widespread, secret practice of saying out loud that something won’t happen (while simultaneously believing deep in your bones that it will) paid off.

By the hairs of his chinny-chin-chin, Walker was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his 10th, and final, attempt.

He received 304 votes – six more than he needed to hit the 75-per-cent threshold of all tallies.

He now stands alongside Ferguson Jenkins as the only Canadians in the Hall. Ten or so years from now, Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto will join them. That one will be far less painful.

We could sit here all day and argue about what qualifies you for the Hall. Is it stats, plain and simple? Is it a combination of excellence and longevity? Do winners get bonus points? What about huge personalities?

The only other player elected to the Hall on Tuesday was Derek Jeter. He got 396 of 397 votes. Thank God for that one curmudgeon. Because that right there – that delightful pettiness – is more expressive of the spirit of sportswriting than anything that’s ever been written. Never give it up easy, even when you absolutely should. That’s the code.

In the last while, it had became popular to contrast Walker with Jeter. They played different positions, but during the same general era. They each had a varied skill set. They’d produced a nearly identical Wins Against Replacement over their careers – 72.7 for Walker; 72.4 for Jeter.

That meant to some people that they were essentially the same player. Even by the impossibly low standard of sports arguments, that line of reasoning is specious.

Jeter wasn’t almost-unanimously elected because he hit so many doubles. He was an automatic because he transcended the sport.

It’s likely there will never again be a baseball player who is the most recognizable pro athlete in America. Jeter was the last. He also stood for something greater than the game – class while under constant scrutiny. Had Derek Jeter batted .250 and kicked every third ball into the stands, he’d still have a pretty good argument for getting into the Hall simply for fronting the New York Yankees when last they were THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

Jeter and Walker represent the two polarities of a good case for the Hall. One was iconic; the other quietly and indisputably excellent. Iconism will always excite more people, but both things deserve recognition.

An under-discussed element of Hall election is popularity. Not with the baseball-watching public, but with the baseball-writing (and Hall voting) schlubs of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

At the height of his powers, Jeter remained the most accommodating interview subject in sport. He called everyone “sir” or “ma’am.” Everyone. Walker was also famously approachable. That – and not a deep consideration of his on-base percentage – is what put Walker over the edge.

Of late, it can definitively be said that the position getting the least amount of love from the writers is jerks. If you played a lot of jerk during your career, then I fear for you.

That’s why Curt Schilling missed out again (70 per cent of ballots). His stats and durability arguments are stellar. He won three World Series. And he was a god in Boston.

Jim Rice got in and all he had was the last thing.

But Schilling was not nice to people. Now, as a result, some people are not being nice to him.

The same can be said of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. The pair continued to tread water with 61 per cent and 60.7 per cent of votes, respectively.

Yes, they did performance-enhancing drugs. So did lots of other players. But if baseball is not going to exclude them from the ballot, there is no reasonable world in which they aren’t elected. You could mount a defensible argument that they are the best pitcher and hitter in history.

But they also weren’t nice to the common folk, so they are being left to dangle. Is that fair? No, but neither is baseball.

Maybe that’s the lesson of Larry Walker’s well-deserved induction. That it isn’t enough in life to be good at what you do. It isn’t truly a success unless you do it in a way that makes other people feel good as well.