Wednesday, October 9, 2013

A Larkin Retrospective - Part 1: Turning Two

My Barry Larkin collection is sitting pretty around 635 unique cards. So many, in fact, that themes can arise within only this population of Larkin goodness. So how about a multiple part retrospective on the cardboard life of Hall of Fame shortstop and lifetime-Red Barry Larkin? Done. 


How many parts? I dunno. How long will this take? I dunno. How often will these be peppered throughout the blog? I dunno. How many questions can I ask myself, a sign of incredibly lazy writing? Well, so far, five.


Today's focus is on the double play. Larkin was involved in 1092 double plays in 2085 games, a clip of better than one every other game. That's a lot of DP's. But more importantly, Barry did it with flair. You can see by a lot of his expressions in these photos, he's performing Olympic-level acrobatics without so much as a grimace. 


As a result, all major brands embraced Larkin's fielding. Every game the photographers got a show. Must've been nice. Just point your lens at #11, light a cigarette, and wait an inning or two. Boom. A+ photo. I own 21 such double play cards. I wish I had more. In time, I surely will.

Go Reds.

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