MLB ALL-STAR GAME

July 13, 1999

Barry Larkin

BARRY LARKIN: It was tough. All the pregame things that went on, they were nice and all. But when it was time to play the game, everybody was ready. Pedro was just that dominating today. I don't know if they had a gun on him or whatever, he was throwing hard. The last pitch he struck me out on was a change-up with tremendous movement. You could feel the fans were into it. It was a great situation. I didn't really appreciate leading off today, but I had to do it.

BARRY LARKIN: Well, it was just kind of a flavor, that's what I call it, with all the pregame festivities going on, the greatest players of the last century being out there, the fact that this is the last game, All-Star Game of this century, and it's here at Fenway, the year before they move on or whatever. It was just great. It's just a whole -- the flavor of the whole three days has just been tremendous. We've got nothing but positive things happening. Positive things happening the other day, at the gala today, it's just one of those great things and a great thing to be a part of.

BARRY LARKIN: I would challenge anybody to score runs off that pitching staff, if that's the pitching staff you had to face every time you came to Fenway. The game is not over. I was surprised nobody got a ball over the leftfield wall, because at BP everybody was doing it. But there's an old adage that good pitching beats good hitting, and I think that's the case here, regardless of where you are. In Colorado the ball carries well, but you get some good pitching out there, guys keep the ball down, you're not going to score many runs.

BARRY LARKIN: This is actually my second time playing here. In 1984 I was on the Olympic Tour, and we had a chance to come here and play one game. I didn't get to play much in the city. But it was nice. Like I said, this whole atmosphere thing, talking to Nomar about how the infield plays and seeing Pedro out there on the mound, facing him in the National League, getting a chance to come back and face him here in front of his hometown crowd, it was nice. And there's so much tradition here. I went out yesterday during the work out, I walked underneath the scoreboard, behind the scoreboard, I looked for the shortstop section, and I didn't find it, so I found a place and just put my name up there. It was just a wonderful week, wonderful three days.

BARRY LARKIN: There is no best shortstop. There are some unbelievable talents out there. I categorize them as A-Rod is the power guy, Jeter is the defensive guy that happens to be hitting .370, and Nomar is the high energy guy. And then you've got Omar Vizquel over there. I don't think there's any one particular greatest shortstop right now. Everybody is just playing well. Everybody has a different game. But the thing is that all those players, as well as some players in the National League are now impact players. I think Cal Ripken and Robin Yount made that transition from the all-glove, good defense, no-hit shortstop, to the guy that was offensive minded. And now you have guys making impact offensively and defensively as shortstop.

BARRY LARKIN: I had Sean Casey -- Sean Casey asked me to subtly just take some pictures of him as he was out there playing defense and offense, and it wasn't too subtle. Keith Olbermann saw me out there and he kind of made a big deal out of it. I was shaking. I got some adrenaline going on here, but my goodness, I don't know how to keep that camera still. I hate to see the playback, because it's probably going to make some people sick. I wasn't very good at all (laughter.)

End of FastScripts….