Walker worthy of spot in Cooperstown

Just a hunch.

But I bet Larry Walker’s not planning any celebration for Jan. 18 — the day the new inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame will be announced.

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He knows better. This is his seventh time on the ballot.

He’s never come close. It takes 75 percent support from the eligible voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to be elected. Walker’s high-water point came in his second year of eligibility (2012), when he was listed on 22.9 percent of the ballots.

Go figure.

Just start with raw numbers. He hit .313 with 383 home runs, 1,311 RBIs, 471 doubles, 62 triples, a .965 OPS and 230 stolen bases.

The biggest knock has been the fact he spent nearly 10 seasons of his 16-year big league career playing his home games at Coors Field. He also had a history for being injured. And the silliest of all was that he didn’t take the game seriously enough.

Oh, really?

The fact he’d break a shoulder banging into the center-field fence while chasing a fly ball or pull a groin muscle running around the bases or get banged up making a diving catch despite the fact that he was built more like an NFL middle linebacker than a fleet-footed outfielder wasn’t serious enough?

Oh, Walker would laugh. He had fun at the ballpark. He liked playing the game, and just like Hall of Famer George Brett, Walker wasn’t afraid of letting the fans see that he enjoyed coming to work every day.

What’s wrong with that?

Now, Walker wasn’t one of those numbers freaks. He wouldn’t calculate his batting average after every at-bat. He didn’t chalk up a home run on a pole each time he went deep. He wanted to win games. He didn’t …

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