COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP)—Robert Larkin coached several sports while son Barry was growing up, none more important to the youngster than football.
And it showed when Barry starred at Moeller High School in Cincinnati and received a scholarship to play for Bo Schembechler at Michigan. But after being redshirted his freshman year with the Wolverines, Larkin focused on baseball, became an All-Star shortstop with Cincinnati, and carved a Hall of Fame career in 19 years with the Reds.
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| NEWEST HALL OF FAMER–Hall of Fame inductee Barry Larkin speaks with reporters following a tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. on May 5. Larkin was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on July 22, along with late Chicago Cubs star third baseman Ron Santo. (AP Photo/Tim Roske, File)
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Larkin, introduced to the game at the age of five by his dad, retired after the 2004 season with a .295 career average, 2,340 hits, 1,329 runs scored and 379 stolen bases, and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Sunday.
Robert Larkin,who started his protege in t-ball, said he was feeling absolute pride. “This is the ultimate,” he said. “I don’t think you can do much more than this.”
If Barry Larkin had decided to stick with football, his dad figures the family would have had to make plans to be elsewhere on Sunday.
“We’d be in Canton,” Robert Larkin said with a laugh as he pondered the pro football Hall of Fame in Ohio.
PARKER’S PROJECT: In his Hall of Fame induction speech on Sunday, former Cincinnati shortstop Barry Larkin credited just about everybody who helped him, even former Pittsburgh star Dave Parker.
Though Parker spent the first 11 years of his major league career starring for the Pirates, he was with the Reds when Larkin was a rookie in 1986 and was in Cooperstown on Sunday. He holds a special place in Larkin’s past.
While Larkin was starring for Michigan in the early 1980s, becoming a two-time All-American and leading the Wolverines to a pair of appearances in the College World Series, Parker made a point of informing Reds shortstop Dave Concepcion—Larkin’s boyhood idol—that his job would soon be in jeopardy.
“While I was up at the University of Michigan, the Reds came to Detroit to play the Tigers in an exhibition game,” recalled Larkin, who drove down to Tiger Stadium with the Wolverines equipment manager to meet some of the Reds players. “As soon as I walked into the clubhouse, Dave Parker grabs me by the hand and walks me right over to my idol’s locker, and he said, ‘Dave, you see this guy right here? This is Barry Larkin. He’s from Cincinnati. He’s going to take your job.
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