Stu Cowan: Friends Cam Neely and Larry Walker now both Hall of Famers

Cam Neely laughed when he saw Larry Walker wearing a NASCAR-style SpongeBob SquarePants shirt during an MLB Network interview Tuesday night, shortly after the former Expos outfielder learned he had been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“That’s Larry,” Neely said during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon about Walker’s shirt, which included the words “Ain’t No Ordinary Sponge” on the front and “Keep It Real!” on the back.

Neely and Walker grew up together in Maple Ridge, B.C., and are now both Hall of Famers. Neely, who starred for 10 seasons with the Boston Bruins, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005, while Walker will be officially inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 26, along with former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.

“Remember those old 45s that we used to listen to (on the record player) and they had the song on the A side, and then the song on the B side that you really didn’t know about,” Walker said on the MLB network about being inducted with Jeter. “I’m the B side!”

Walker made it official Wednesday that he will enter the Hall of Fame wearing a Colorado Rockies cap. That makes sense since he spent only five full seasons in Montreal and 10 in Colorado, where he won the 1997 National League MVP award along with three batting titles.

“It was a hard decision as a Canadian,” Walker said Wednesday during a New York news conference with Jeter.

Walker and Neely both played hockey and baseball while growing up in Maple Ridge.

“We’re a year apart in age, so every other year we’d be on the same team,” said Neely, who at 54 is one year older than Walker. “And then we played a lot street hockey together and stuff like that.”

Walker was a goalie and, like Neely, his dream was to play in the NHL. After getting cut by the junior Regina Pats in 1984, Walker decided to focus on baseball, which up until then had just been something to do in the summer while waiting for hockey season to start again. The Expos signed Walker for $1,500 after watching him play at the 1984 World Youth Baseball Championships in Kindersley, Sask.

“Back then, we played whatever the sport was that time of year,” recalled Neely, who is now president of the Bruins. “Baseball was one of the other sports. As an athlete you could tell who was a better athlete, but at that time it’s not like I was thinking this guy is going to be a Hall of Fame baseball player. It’s obviously extremely impressive to see the kind of career that Larry carved out, especially coming from an environment where it wasn’t baseball 24/7, 12 months a year.

“I pitched and played first base,” Neely added. “I was OK, but I couldn’t hit worth s—. I’m a lefty, so I was a decent left-handed pitcher and I thought I was a good first baseman.”

“He was,” Neely said. “And extremely competitive. He was fun to be around. He was always laughing and joking, so I know he was well-liked by his teammates — unless, of course, he let in a soft one.

“I just know that Larry loved to bust chops,” Neely added. “I think that’s the gene that maybe was passed down from his dad. I don’t think anybody was off limits.”

Neely said he hasn’t had a chance to speak with Walker since the Hall of Fame announcement, figuring he’s “probably overwhelmed” right now.

Maple Ridge is located in the northeastern section of Greater Vancouver — about 45 kilometres from downtown — between the Fraser River and the Golden Ears mountain summits with a population of just over 80,000. Neely said it was a great place to grow up.

“For me, it was a real sense of community in sports,” he said. “Hockey was a big deal, obviously, but so was baseball. You’d get signed up for baseball to do something else in the summer so you weren’t driving your parents crazy. You could ride your bike pretty much anywhere … you rode your bike to school, you rode your bike to baseball. Hockey was a little different, obviously, a lot more car pooling going on and travel was a little bit more extensive. But in the summertime it was really just: Here’s your practice, here’s your games and you just kind of figured out on your own how to get there.”

Now, Neely and Walker have both made it to their respective Hall of Fames.

“You don’t really think about that when you’re getting up at 5 a.m to play hockey or whatever Larry had to do to advance in his baseball career,” Neely said. “You just loved playing the game and you went and played. But I think it’s extremely impressive. Larry’s only the second Canadian in the Baseball Hall of Fame (after pitcher Ferguson Jenkins), so that says a lot right there.”

Source: Montrealgazette.com

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