Growing up the son of a Hall of Fame shortstop meant that when Shane Larkin was playing baseball at age 7, his father, Barry, was liable to attract a line of autograph-seekers around the ballpark.
Shane Larkin might get a hit, steal second base, third base and even home, but his father was getting the most attention, unless it was from coaches asking the little Larkin to go easy on the opponent with all the steals.
That’s part of why Barry Larkin, a native of Cincinnati, in the prime of his 19-year career with the Reds, decided to move his wife and three children to Orlando, Fla.
“I didn’t want them to grow up as the son or daughters of …,” Larkin said. “I wanted them to have their own identity and do their own thing.”
Little did he know how far Shane would take it. He quit baseball later that same year and grew up loving basketball and football. Now Larkin is a sophomore point guard for No. 5 Miami and might be the Hurricanes’ most valuable player.
He was the missing piece that coach Jim Larranaga had looked for, just like basketball has been the “own thing” that Larkin always knew he would find.
“I was a hyper kid,” Larkin said. “I didn’t really like the slow-paced game of baseball when I was younger. You had to wait for somebody to hit the ball to you. Sometimes you’d go up to hit, and the pitcher would throw terrible pitches, and you couldn’t hit the ball. So you couldn’t run and steal bases or anything.”
Larkin used to race his two sisters to the car in the parking lot, just to be first, even if it scared his mom to death. When the four of them went to Reds games over the summers or on weekends during the school year, he’d play Pokemon on his Game Boy until he heard “now batting Barry Larkin.”
In basketball and football, he could dictate pace, even if it meant running to the end of the court before anybody on either team — or the ball — made it there.
“Barry finally had to tell him, ‘Shane, you can run down there as fast as you want to, but you might as well take your time,” Lisa Larkin said.
Shane still loved going to spring training with his father, shagging flies and taking turns in the cage. He got hitting tips from Tony Perez and Pete Rose. Deion Sanders gave him his nickname “SugaShane” which is now simply “Sug.”
But when it came time for fall ball with his team in Orlando, Larkin got discouraged by a coach who didn’t like his leg kick and told him he was trying to be too fancy. Larkin was 7 and taught to respect his coaches. He wasn’t going to talk back. He tried it the coaches’ way, and it didn’t feel right.
That’s what he told his dad on the phone through tears, explaining why he didn’t want to play baseball anymore.
“He actually thought it was just going to be for the rest of that season,” Shane said. “But it actually turned into the rest of my life.”
Barry Larkin was admittedly crushed. He still half-jokingly calls that decision “a death blow.”
“It was a shame that it wasn’t just about going out and having fun,” Barry said.
What Shane found though, that even living in Orlando and sticking with football and basketball, he couldn’t escape his father’s legacy.
If he scored four touchdowns in a Pop Warner game, he heard rumblings it was because his father had bribed the opposing coach.
“Until I was about 10 or 11 it really affected my play, and I didn’t want to be a superstar,” said Larkin, whose mother said he didn’t like have friends over to their house either, for fear of being seen as a showoff. “I just wanted to be in the background and just be an OK player.”
Larkin said a conversation with his father changed that, and he began to use the criticisms as motivation. Before every game, his father encouraged him to embrace his talent by saying: “What are you going to do tonight?” Shane would say “dominate.”
Having a world-class athlete for a father had other advantages, too.
After watching his father study video of his swing, Shane wanted to tape his basketball games, so they started filming him at ages 6-8 when he played at the YMCA. They watched together after every game, with his father, who played basketball in high school, too, talking strategy.
His father, who coached him in AAU, taught Shane the advantages not only of having a first quick step but stopping quickly. He helped him work on it with elastic resistance bands.
The Larkins have a full-sized basketball court in their backyard, where Shane would shoot while his dad took his offseason swings in a makeshift batting cage. After his father finished, they would shoot together or play 1 on-1, at least until Shane was 14 and his dad couldn’t beat him anymore.
“I couldn’t even back him down anymore because he put those little bony elbows in my back,” Barry Larkin said.
At the end, Larkin would throw the ball downcourt and count down “5 … 4 … 3,” as Shane sprinted to retrieve it and shoot before his father yelled “ennhhhh” for a buzzer sound. They’d do it until Shane made the shot.
“That’s the one advantage that Shane has over a lot of guys is he grew up in an environment where he saw how competitive people were,” Larranaga said. “He is very humble. He’s very hungry, and he’s got an incredible set of skills that he uses — not just athletic skills, but mental skills. He has the ability to anticipate things far better than most players.”
Larkin is Miami’s second-leading scorer with 13.1 points and leads the Hurricanes in assists (4.3), steals (2.1) and minutes (36.1).
He played a key role in Miami’s 33-point win over then-No. 1 Duke on ESPN. Dad sat courtside as Larkin had 18 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and a steal.
“It’s just cool that we’re able to be there and go through this year,” said Barry Larkin, who keeps a busy schedule between broadcasting for ESPN and this spring’s job managing Brazil in the World Baseball Classic. “It’s an exceptional year to go through with him.”
Larkin still gets pangs when asked if he thinks Shane could have made it as a baseball player.
“Even now whenever he plays around with baseball, he’s got natural movement that’s just like amazing,” Barry Larkin said. “… Tony Perez used to tell me ‘If I had his swing, I might be pretty good.’”
Shane is pretty good making his own way, too. His dad loves it when Shane texts that somebody recognized him at the grocery store or a gas station. Larkin has been known to snap a photo of Shane signing an autograph.
Larkin hung back as his son walked into the local sports grill in Miami after the Duke game, while restaurant patrons stood and clapped. In the background, Barry Larkin leaned to his wife, Lisa, and said, “This is awesome.”
