Larry Walker fouled off tear after tear. would catch himself, stepping out of an emotional box with deep breaths and long pauses, stubborn to the last.
Then he looked at his family. At his dad. At Todd Helton. At Fergie Jenkins. At Bob Gebhard. At hundreds of strangers surrounding his black lectern, packed into a tiny purple street corner on a blessed Sunday summer morning, smiling back like old friends. And he lost it.
“I’m way too humble of a person to really just think, ‘Yeah, I deserve that (honor),’ ” Walker, the Rockies icon and National Baseball Hall-of-Famer, said of his statue unveiling at Coors Field Sunday, the preamble to a 7-2 Colorado defeat at the hands of Cleveland.
“I’m more comfortable saying, ‘I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.’ It’s just easier for me to do all that stuff. But I’m fortunate and grateful that people think that I deserve it, and they put (that statue) up there for me.”
So he wept. A hockey goalie, the toughest son of a gun to ever patrol right field at 20th & Blake, was both a 15-foot bronze statue with a bat pointed at the heavens, and a blubbering mess.
You won’t remember any of this, Griffin. But you were there, kid. Your father drove you down from Fort Collins to make darn sure of it.
“Our plan on being here was so that we could tell him he was here when he’s an adult,” Garrett Reese, your dad, told me as cannons shot purple and white confetti into an azure sky. “(So) he could see the statue, and could tell him that he was here that day.”
Sure was. Sixty yards or so from legend, resting on your mom Lauren’s “33” Walker home replica jersey.
Sometimes, history rhymes. Your grandma took your dad to the first Rockies Opening Day when he was a baby. He doesn’t really remember it, either, yet they’ve got the goods.
“It’s one of those situations,” Garrett explained, “where we just want to continue that in the family.”
Your family’s had season tickets since Coors opened in 1995. Your first game was spring training a few months ago.
“This place is my favorite place on the planet,” Garrett said.
You’ll get that a lot, Griffin. Even though the Rox celebrated Larry Walker Day by getting swept for the third straight series at home, even though they fell to 30 games under .500 (50-80). Even though this is one of those lost seasons where every homestand for owner Dick Monfort has to feel like calling people to help him move into a new apartment. The Rockies are finding out who their real friends are.
“There was always a spot in right field where the grass wasn’t growing quite as much (at Coors) because of where Larry always stood,” Garrett Reese recalled of happier days. “I don’t know why that wouldn’t be the case with other right fielders. But I remember that with Larry specifically.”
It’s weird what sticks with you, Griffin. Dad harkened back to the ovation Walker got in June 2005, less than a year after No. 33 was traded to St. Louis.
And that arm, kid. That. Arm. As the Rockies would remind us again Sunday, if you take a lousy angle chasing a ball in the Coors outfield, it can roll for what feels like forever and stick to the warning track the way gum sticks to the bottom of your shoe.
For nearly a decade, from 1995-2004, Walker’s legs shortened Major League Baseball’s most charitable gaps. Larry’s right shoulder was a cannon that shrunk the distance from the lush green to the infield dirt.
“I remember just epic defense in right field,” Garrett gushed.
“And his song,” Lauren said.
“Yeah, his song.” Dad added. “Every time that song plays, I think of Larry Walker.”
Look that one up when you get older. It’s a banger.
“I got a little teary listening to his speech when he did, too,” Lauren noted. “It’s just a really special thing. And we love him here in Colorado.”
No kidding. They came in waves to Gate D Sunday, where the joys of the past have become gilded by the pain of the present. The purple tarp fought hard before finally giving way to the giant bronze man with the bat, a walk-off Walker home run that now stands for eternity through wind, rain, sleet and snow. And in May, Coors will see all four over a given hour.
“I typically never showed up a pitcher,” Walker reflected later. “I wouldn’t pimp any of my home runs — today, it’s a little different. They do the ‘Macarena’ going around (the bases). So things have changed a little bit so …
“But John Rocker, he can get under your skin. And he’s nasty, too. Just to get a hit off him, you’re happy from the left side. So to hit one out, to win the game, I guess I felt that a little bit. So it caused a little pose for a second.”
See that swing, Griffin? The statue’s follow-through? Aug. 18, 1999. Uncle Larry blasted one off Rocker, a nasty lefty on several fronts. Look him up, dude.
Actually, don’t. Never mind.
“I feel like (Walker) was probably one of the best 5-tool players around that time when he played,” a graying Danny Neagle, one of several former and current Rockies on hand to celebrate the statue, told me. “Because he ran like a gazelle.
“The way he ran, it just didn’t look like he was moving — I mean, he would hit triples like they were nothing in this park. So it was just so fun to watch him, to be a teammate with him.”
The statue came south from Loveland, where it was lovingly crafted . It made its final journey down I-25 while laid on its side and strapped to a trailer, as unassuming as the man it celebrates.
Now it’s a landmark. A history lesson. A talking point. I asked Walker what he’d like fathers to tell their sons about him, long after all of us have gone.
“I must have done something right,” Walker said, “for a father to bring his children and have my jersey on and everything.”
You won’t remember Sunday’s score, Griffin. Just as well. But like bronze, fathers and sons at Coors are forever.
“You brought a tear to my eye, brother,” Neagle told Walker later.
Crazy, right? But that’s how it goes.
