Larkin takes right way to Cooperstown
I love that Barry Larkin once learned Spanish so he could better relate to his Spanish-speaking teammates. Just think how much more effective Ozzie Guillen could be if he spoke even one language fluently (kidding!).
I also love that legendary football coach Bo Schembechler not only recruited Larkin, a Cincinnati native, to the University of Michigan ... he then helped launch his shortstop career by deciding to redshirt Larkin as a freshman.
How do you get to Cooperstown? You start with extraordinary talent and incredible skill.
From there, you can either fly into Albany or Syracuse and follow the maps, like so many others do ... or you can recognize your moment when talent converges with circumstance, and you can make something of it.
Greatness is so much more than just numbers. And one of the instructive things with Larkin, the newest member of baseball's Hall of Fame, is that there is so much to mine from a baseball life rich with depth.
The numbers are there for all to see: The impressive 86 percent vote total that earned him Hall admission as the 22nd shortstop in history to be elected. The 1995 NL MVP award, the essential play in leading the Reds to the surprise 1990 World Series title, the three consecutive Gold Gloves (1994-1996), the 12 All-Star teams, the unbelievable .815 career OPS that ranked 137 points higher than the average shortstop in his generation.
But before life rolls forward in big, colorful brush strokes, in baseball or skyscraper offices, it starts with small watercolors on back fields or tiny office cubicles.
"He had recruited my brother the year before, but he ended up following Gerry Faust to Notre Dame, and Bo told my mother he was going to get her next son," Larkin, a three-sport star (basketball, football, baseball) from Cincinnati's legendary Moeller High, was recalling Monday afternoon. "When I got to Michigan, Bo decided to redshirt me. It was the first time in my life I played just one sport."
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At the time, Larkin recalled, he was more skilled as a defensive back than as a shortstop. His unwanted hiatus from football became, he said, an "eye-opener." And life-changing.
Michigan baseball coach Bud Middaugh and his assistant, Danny Hall (now the head man at Georgia Tech), were hell on wheels when it came to fundamentals and playing the game the right way.
"Very good at X's and O's, hitting behind the runner, the mental part of the game, playing the correct way to be in a position to win," Larkin said. "I remember being programmed that if it was a right-hander's breaking ball, you were hitting this ball to right field.
"I remember guys telling me specifics on technique, technique, technique. I was green. I was raw. But I saw myself getting better."
So much so that the Reds picked him fourth overall in the 1985 draft.
A year later, at 22, he debuted in Cincinnati ... and would replace the legendary Davey Concepcion by 1987.
Circumstances had helped bring him to this moment. But Larkin's acute sense of himself, and where he saw himself going, helped him seize it.
Español classes?
"That's true," Larkin said. "There were two guys I idolized as a younger guy, Tony Perez and Davey Concepcion. The only thing they could do that I could not do was speak Spanish. I could emulate, imitate, do everything they did, but I couldn't speak Spanish. So I went to school to speak Spanish."
Forget, for a moment, Larkin's glittering play at shortstop. From the time he established himself to his retirement following the 2004 season, he was incredibly respected throughout the game for his willingness and knack for taking young players under his wing and helping them. A true captain.
Speaking Spanish helped immensely on some of these occasions ... and on the field, too.
"Mariano Duncan and I used to speak Spanish sometimes when there was a runner on second base," Larkin said. "A couple of times, runners would look at me questioning, like did I know what I was doing?
"When they did that, I looked at Mariano and said, in Spanish, next time the pitcher looks back, call a pickoff play. And we got a couple of runners that way."
How do you get to Cooperstown? Yes, you start with extraordinary talent and incredible skill.
And sometimes when circumstances smile and you answer that by making yourself as well-rounded as possible, the future can be limitless. Kind of like in life, too.
Once Larkin decided to specialize, Schembechler sometimes would amble through the baseball field and growl at him. You're making a mistake, kid. You should be in Michigan Stadium on Saturday afternoons. What are you doing?
Larkin knew what he was doing. All these years later, he's really glad he knew what he was doing.
"Had I played football?" Larkin mused. "I probably would have been broke up. I think of Deion Sanders. Deion was phenomenal. Phenomenal. But in my opinion, Deion never was the baseball player he could have been because he spent half his time playing football. I think the same fate would have come my way.
"I'd be in the same type of situation because of the physical demands of football. From working out, I'd be much bigger physically because I would have had to have been. I wouldn't have had the dexterity to do some things I needed to do on the baseball field. I wouldn't have had time.
"And I feel like had I continued to play football, I'd be walking around without the use of all of my extremities. Because Lord knows, I had plenty of injuries playing baseball."
As Larkin became a hometown hero in Cincinnati, a perennial All-Star and, by the end, one of the greatest shortstops in major-league history, he would talk with Schembechler from time to time when Michigan things came up.
As you might expect, the old coach never did admit he was wrong about Larkin never again snapping his chin strap.
"Bo always told me he'd strike me out anyway," Larkin said. "That's Bo's way of saying, 'Congratulations, kid, you did it.'
"I spoke to Bo about a week before the Ohio State game when he died [2006] because I was being considered for the Hall of Honor at the University of Michigan ... Bo was never like, 'All right, kid, you did it the right way, you did good.'
"He always told me you'll miss football, that nobody comes to the University of Michigan to play baseball."
