Greatest Red of my lifetime goes into Cooperstown

Barry Larkin went into the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday.

I wrote a post dedicated to my Larkin love back in January when the news broke that he would be getting the call. I had to reserve this space in some way for the official event. No Cincinnati Red has been better longer than Larkin was. He was my first favorite Reds player, and no one can ever take that away from him.

When Cincinnati (and the ballpark gem that resided within it) was still this magical, mystical place that my family only traveled to on special occasions; Larkin was the king of that Camelot.

Stretched across an era that included a crazy female chain-smoking owner, mass exodus of players skipping town for the highest dollar, and steroids; Larkin doing his thing in a Reds cap on that old turf remained a constant. The guy was just something different. If you saw him play live you knew you were witnessing Hall of Fame caliber play.