Larry Walker is recognized as the best baseball player Canada has ever produced, and while he might humbly agree, the Maple Ridge, B.C., product maintains that his lofty status won’t be enduring.

“It’s humbling, but put it this way, if I am it’s not going to last very much longer because the crop of talent coming up behind me in Matt Stairs and Jason Bay and especially Justin Morneau — those guys are certainly going to surpass anything I’m going to do,” Walker said Wednesday during a conference call announcing his induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

That’s debatable.

Walker’s numbers through an auspicious, 17-year MLB career that started and blossomed with the Montreal Expos in the early 1990s are mightily impressive, and will be hard to overtake.

A career .313 hitter, Walker ripped 383 home runs, collected 2,160 hits and stole 230 bases.

He claimed seven Gold Glove Awards, three Silver Sluggers and nine Tip O’Neill Awards as Canadian baseball player of the year.

He was an accomplished defensive outfielder with a rocket of an arm to boot.

The five-time all-star also added the National League’s MVP trophy to his resume in 1997.

Morneau likely is the only slugger with a shot at eclipsing some of those marks — at the age of 27, Morneau has exactly 250 fewer homers than Walker. Morneau’s already laid claim to an MVP crown (in 2006), two Silver Sluggers and two all-star game appearances.

Canada has a strong contingent of pitchers as well in Jeff Francis, Eric Bedard, Rich Harden and Ryan Dempster — but none sport the same kind of wow factor Walker conjured in his time through the 1980s.

In 2011, Walker becomes eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

He has a few things going against him, though, as he admitted on Wednesday. Injuries took away a good chunk of his career and the boisterous statistics that could have helped his cause. Walker even gets devalued for his remarkable 1997 MVP season. After all, much of the 49-home-run, 130-RBI year took place in the hitter-friendly confines of Colorado’s Coors Field.

“It’s always been that way and always will,” Walker said alluding to the knock on burly stats coming out of the thin air.

The suggestion that he’ll get the nod to head to Cooperstown in two years produces a chuckle.

“I don’t think there’s a chance (for a Hall of Fame induction),” said Walker. “I’ve said all along that it would be cool to get some votes, that would be an honour for me. First of all, I have to get on the darn ballot. So if I make the ballot, there’s an honour. If I get a small amount of votes, that’d be just as great an honour. But I don’t think I’ll have a chance, not with putting up the numbers and playing where I played. . . . And too many stupid injuries.”

For now, just getting into the smaller venue up north is good enough for the proud Canadian.

“For me being Canadian, anything with that word involved is very meaningful to me. It’s where I grew up, it’s what I am,” said Walker.

“Although I don’t live there and I married an American girl, my roots and my heart and my soul are Canadian and it’s a proud moment to me to have the Maple Leaf in my blood and represented in the Canadian Hall of Fame.”

The 42-year-old will be an assistant coach for Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic, which begins next month.

“Larry is special — so unique, and so down-to-earth, a true Canadian,” said Team Canada general manager Greg Hamilton.

Former Toronto catcher Ernie Whitt, who slammed 131 homers in 12 seasons with the Blue Jays, will also inducted during the ceremony on June 20.

Bernie Soulliere, a former Baseball Canada vice-president from Windsor, Ont., and the late Roy (Doc) Miller, a pro ballplayer from the early 1900s from Chatham, Ont., are also on their way into the Hall of Fame.