CINCINNATI — Major League Baseball is back — and so is the Findlay Market Opening Day parade, which will step off at noon on April 12.
Parade officials announced on Wednesday the parade's grand marshal will be former Cincinnati Reds player and Hall-of-Famer Barry Larkin.
Larkin joined the FOX Sports Ohio broadcast team at the start of the 2021 season. He spent his entire 19-year big league career with the Reds and was a key player on the 1990 Reds team that won the World Series.
This will be the first Opening Day parade held since 2019. While the regular season starts April 7 when the Reds travel to Atlanta, fans will flood Great American Ballpark April 12 for the Reds' home opener against the Cleveland Guardians. The MLB moved the start of the game from 6:40 p.m. to 4:10 p.m. to accommodate the festivities before the game.
The Reds not being in Cincinnati on Opening Day marks only the second time the team was scheduled to start the season on the road.
The last time they played away on Opening Day was in 1990, the year the Reds won the World Series.
This is the first time the Findlay Market Opening Day Parade — and thus, the appointment of a grand marshal — has happened since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February 2020, before everything changed, Marty Brennaman was announced as that year's parade grand marshal — a role he never really got to fill. His appointment to the role came just after he called his final game at Great American Ball Park after 46 seasons behind the microphone.
