BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In the second inning Sunday, Barry Larkin made a play at shortstop to remind us who we've been missing. Larkin went fully horizontal into the hole, snuffed a one-hopped grounder by San Diego's Chris Gomez, pivoted on one knee and threw to force a runner at second base.
You could go to Cinergy Field only once or twice a summer and see Larkin make a play like this. It was an All-Star play, handled like a popup. Greatness is making the difficult seem routine.
When he's right, Larkin makes playing shortstop look like ballet. We've been spoiled watching him play. We didn't realize how good we had it until this year, when we've seen the alternative. It has been a tough season for the Reds, but nothing is so tough as watching Larkin play the field on a leg and a half.
You think there should be a special injury dispensation for the great players. Nobody wanted to watch Willie Mays get old, or Mickey Mantle. Nobody felt good watching Joe Namath walk away from football on two dead knees. Larkin is not there yet, of course; at some point, his miserable left heel will be surgically fixed.
No comparison to '96
But he is 33, and Sunday he said, "I'm on a different playing field now. You can't compare what I'm doing now to what I did last year. It's physically impossible."
He has become frustrated by the limits his body is starting to impose.
"I want to make those plays and be springy," Larkin said. "When I throw those balls, I'm flat-footed. I'm not running and jumping off my left foot and firing. I'm running and sitting on my right foot. I'm not going 100 percent reckless abandon."
It could be like typing with one hand or performing surgery with blurred vision. Can you play classical piano with a broken finger? Larkin was Larkin Sunday, but with no guarantees. He takes treatment. He just took another shot of cortisone. Cortisone is a nasty remedy, delivered through a long needle. It fixes nothing. It only hides the pain.
"I would worry if I got into a situation where I was requesting more shots. But I'm not to that point," Larkin said.
"I felt good today," he said. "I still ache. I still had to come out of the game (after six innings) so I could play tomorrow." It takes a lot more now to perform the ballet.
You wonder if a time will come this year when Larkin's presence won't be as urgent as the need for him to heal and protect himself. You also wonder if his stature - and stubbornness - might prevent manager Ray Knight and - or General Manager Jim Bowden from making the most rational decision.
Knight frequently opens his chest for public inspection. He will not sit Larkin, or demand Larkin fix his miserable foot. On Sunday, Knight decided the only athlete Knight respected as much as Larkin was Knight's wife, the golfer Nancy Lopez. "How do you take that kind of heart out of there?" Knight asked.
A matter of judgment
I asked Larkin if he walked a fine line between playing the game, and running it: "Does your stature here force Ray's hand? Have you earned the right to call your own shots?"
"Earned it? I don't know," Larkin said. "They trust my judgment.
"Ray has told me plenty of times if I was another ballplayer on this team, he'd have put me on the DL."
"Is there a point at which you would take yourself out of the lineup?" I asked.
"If I couldn't run. . . If I was a peg leg out there. I came close a couple times this year being like that. A couple times in L.A., I couldn't stand up out there, basically," Larkin said.
On Sunday, those were issues for another day. Larkin was Larkin, making the plays we used to take for granted. No more.
Three times in the first three innings, Larkin made defensive stops that should go straight to SportsCenter. "It felt good," he said. "(But) tomorrow's another day. Let's see how I go at it tomorrow."
The ballet is back. Enjoy it while you can.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your calls at 768-8454.
DAUGHERTY ARCHIVE
REDS 5, PADRES 0
BOX, RUNS
PHOTO PAGE
NOTEBOOK: PEREZ STATS WON'T KEEP MORRIS OUT
REDS PAGE
USA TODAY BASEBALL PAGE
