The Local Boys by Joe Heffron

Author:Joe Heffron
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781578605545
Publisher: Clerisy Press
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

STEPHEN LARKIN

JULY 24, 1973–

Major League Career

1998

Time as a Red

1998

Position

FIRST BASE

THOUGH BARRY LARKIN IS ENSHRINED IN THE HALL OF FAME, he doesn’t even lead his family in Major League batting average. With a career total of .333, brother Stephen holds the top spot among the Larkins. True, Stephen only batted three times and played in just one game in the majors, but he still has bragging rights, if he cares to use them.

It couldn’t have been easy trying to live up to the accomplishments of older brothers Mike (captain of the football team at Notre Dame), Byron (All-American basketball player at Xavier), and Barry (see previous profile for questions about him), but Stephen achieved athletic status in his own right at Moeller High School, playing football and baseball. But by the time he was 16, he had to overcome a far bigger challenge than the legacies of his older brothers.

He was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an enlargement of the walls of the heart, which can impede the flow of blood. The condition makes strenuous exercise, such as playing sports, risky, potentially even fatal. The Moeller athletic department expressed concerns and suggested he quit playing, but Larkin continued, and when he graduated in 1991, the Reds drafted him in the 40th round. He declined the offer, however, and accepted a scholarship to the University of Texas, where he also met resistance from the athletic department, despite having received a medical clearance and the family having signed a waiver. According to a wire service story in April 1992, when UT benched him during his freshman year due to the condition, he threatened to leave the program and asked his parents to consider filing an injunction. Robert Larkin, his father, told the Enquirer on August 17, 1995, “There is some risk, but we feel fairly safe about it. Stephen has passed every test.” According to the article, he underwent twice-yearly examinations at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

The university let him play; in 1994, he was selected a third-team All-American. The Rangers selected him in the 10th round of the amateur draft that year, sending him to short-season A ball, where he struggled at the plate, hitting .198 in 271 plate appearances. The Reds traded for him in August of the following season, and he spent the next few years slowly working his way through the system. In two spring training games—March 5, 1996, and March 4, 1997—the Reds’ infield featured two pairs of brothers, with Stephen Larkin at first base and Barry at shortstop, along with Bret Boone at second base and his brother Aaron at third.

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