Cincinnati Reds Press Clippings January 18, 2018 THIS DAY IN REDS HISTORY 1996-Owners unanimously approve interleague play for the 1997 season. Each team will play 15 or 16 games against teams in the same division of the other league, to raise fan interest and generate additional revenue MLB.COM Reds Caravan Finale At Florence Mall January 28 Event Is Free And Open To The Public The Reds Caravan will end its multi-state tour with a final fan stop at the Florence Mall on Sunday, Jan. 28. Scheduled to attend are Reds Manager Bryan Price, four Major League players and four minor league players. Joining them will be Reds CEO Bob Castellini, General Manager Dick Williams, Reds alumni, front office personnel, broadcasters and mascots. The doors to the Florence Mall will open at 9 a.m. with a Q&A session beginning at 11 a.m. in the Center Court area. From Noon to 2 p.m., the Major League players will sign autographs (while time allows) and the minor leaguers and Reds alumni will pose for photos with fans. The entire event is open to the public and free-of-charge. Appearances and schedules subject to change. Reds Caravan at Florence Mall on Sunday, Jan. 28 • 2028 Florence Mall, Florence, KY 41042 • 9 a.m.: Mall doors open to the public • 11 a.m. to Noon: Q&A hosted by Marty Brennaman, Jim Day & Jeff Piecoro (Center Court area) • Noon to 2 p.m.: Autographs with Major League players and photos with minor leaguers and alumni • Mall parking info: www.florencemall.com/en/parking.html Major Leaguers: (appearances subject to change) • Bryan Price - manager • Cody Reed - pitcher • Sal Romano - pitcher • Phillip Ervin - outfielder • Amir Garrett - pitcher* *Scheduled to arrive after the event has started due to a previous commitment. Minor Leaguers: • Nick Senzel - infielder • Tyler Stephenson - catcher • Taylor Trammell - outfielder • TJ Friedl - outfielder Reds Hall of Famers and alumni: • Tom Browning • Jeff Brantley • Corky Miller • Dmitri Young Reds executives: (participating in Q&A only) • Bob Castellini - CEO • Dick Williams - President of Baseball Operations & General Manager • Buddy Bell - Vice President & Senior Advisor to the General Manager Additional details: • Each fan is limited to one autograph per player and there are no posed photos with the Major Leaguers. • There will be two photo booth opportunities for fans: one with the minor leaguers and the other with alumni. • Fans will receive a complimentary 4"x6" photo and are welcome to use their personal cameras as well. • Autographs are not permitted at the photo stations. The 2018 Reds Caravan, presented by Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network, consists of four separate tours traveling over 3,800 miles making stops in five states from Jan. 25-28. Visit reds.com/Caravan for up-to-date information on the 2018 Reds Caravan. CINCINNATI ENQUIRER B-Lark University: Barry Larkin shapes young stars…until he’s ready to manage the Reds EVERY OFFSEASON, PLAYERS LIKE DEE GORDON AND FRANCISCO LINDOR SEEK OUT THE PRIVATE COACHING OF BARRY LARKIN. TAKE A VISIT TO B-LARK UNIVERSITY. Zach Buchanan, [email protected] ORLANDO – It wasn’t yet winter break, but the walkways at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World were teeming with people. The Pop Warner football national title game was about to kick off on an oddly muggy day in early December, and everywhere parents were leading their children by the hand. There was a special guest for the coin toss. Mickey Mouse, the Don of Disney World himself, walked up the 50-yard line, his entrance accompanied by the most distressingly overproduced and poppy version of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song ever heard. But over the din, loud thwaps could be heard from a nearby building. There, in a narrow caged patio that nobody noticed lodged underneath a staircase, Cincinnati Reds great Barry Larkin was being repeatedly punched. Reds prospect Shed Long was doing the punching, working combinations on Larkin’s padded hands. Long’s first right jab at the Hall of Famer caused Larkin to cringe and shake the appendage loose as if he’d just caught his fingers in a car door. It’s here that Larkin spends his winters, training pro ballplayers who don’t understand the meaning of “off” in “offseason.” They box, an activity Larkin felt helped him in his playing days. They lift weights. They shag fly balls and take batting practice, and then run through infield drills on the same fields used by the Atlanta Braves during spring training. Seattle Mariners center fielder Dee Gordon, Larkin’s original pupil, calls it B-Lark University. He even had T-shirts made. The camp is technically an offshoot of the Tom Shaw Performance camp, which mostly serves professional football players. But over the years, more and more baseball players have flocked to Orlando to work with the former Reds shortstop. Gordon was the first, taken under Larkin’s wing at the request of Gordon’s father five or six years ago. Then came Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor. Other pupils include Long and Gordon’s younger brother Nick, a top prospect with the Minnesota Twins, as well as outfielder Carlos Gonzalez and Reds outfielder Jesse Winker. On this particular day in December, Larkin also worked with Los Angeles Dodgers prospect Edwin Rios. Larkin does just about everything the players do, his physical fitness belying his 53 years of age. He prides himself on being able to keep up. It’s the kind of hands-on work he enjoys, and the same kind of instruction he offers to Reds minor-leaguers during the season as a roving coach with the organization. Except here, there are fewer pupils and more one-on-one coaching to go around. For the present, the Reds legend wouldn’t spend his time any other way. But he has thought about his future in the game. And now, more than any time before, he feels the desire to manage. But only for the Reds. New offseason Larkin used to spend his winters golfing. He’d work out to stay in shape, but didn’t have any other responsibilities. Then he got a call from former big-leaguer Tom Gordon, one of his contemporaries in the game. At the time, Gordon’s son Dee was trying to establish himself in the majors as an infielder with the Dodgers. Would Larkin mind working with him? “I was like, ‘Yeah, but if Dee wants to work with me, Dee’s got to call me. Not his daddy,’” Larkin remembered. “So Dee called me.” Initially, the pair worked out at a local high school. A few years later they were joined by Lindor, then a top prospect for the Indians. When home run balls started breaking classroom windows, it was clear that new digs were required. Larkin approached Shaw about adding a baseball component to his performance camp, and the last three years B-Lark University has called the ESPN complex its home. Players pay for the physical training portion offered by Shaw, but Larkin charges nothing for his baseball tutelage. If you come willing to work, he’ll coach you up. The younger Gordon has been working with Larkin almost as long as his brother. Long has been coming here since 2015, when the Reds moved him off catcher to second base. The previous spring, he was told to forget hitting and just follow Larkin around to work on fielding. Now he follows him in the winters as well. “You’re getting the best teaching in the game, in my opinion,” Long said. A typical day begins early in the morning with weight lifting. Larkin’s pupils mix with other major leaguers like Martin Prado, Ender Inciarte and Luis Valbuena, all of who train at the Tom Shaw camp in the mornings but handle their own baseball duties in the afternoons. Then, they box. Larkin picked up boxing and other martial arts during his playing days, training in the offseasons with a man who worked as a security guard at Riverfront Stadium. He found it helped him keep an aggressive mindset at the plate and in the field, and trained him to be more directional rather than rotational with his swing. While Rios, Long and the younger Gordon took turns working on a heavy bag, Larkin translated boxing into baseball. He reminded Long that the proper hip and torso rotation on a certain combination of punches should feel like turning a double play. (At one point, Long knocked the heavy bag out of its mooring in a steel rafter above. When he turns double plays, incoming baserunners would be wise to duck.) In any given session, Larkin will throw plenty of punches in demonstration. “It’s important that I can talk it but also physically do it,” he said. “I think the guys appreciate that and they respect that.” After boxing, Larkin’s charges take fly balls while the Hall of Famer takes laps around a track. Then it’s on to the true baseball stuff. First comes infield drills. This day, Larkin hit grounder after grounder to Rios, Long and Nick Gordon as they turned double plays. All of them wore only a flat glove, basically a leather oven mitt that allows a player to stop an incoming ball without breaking a finger, but not actually catch it. Then came cage work, with Larkin throwing flips to Rios in the batting cage, helping the Dodgers prospect better reach the inside pitch with his beautiful left-hand swing. Finally, at about 2 p.m., they call it a day.