Easing into the Retirement Years

Bob Royer, playing in left field, saw the long line drive deep to his right, and ran to intercept it.

He intercepted it with his left ear, which turned out to be a very bad idea. He went down as if someone had hit him in the left ear with a baseball.

Royer is tough. He insisted he was OK; that if it looked like all the pieces of his ear were still there, somewhere, he would get up and walk to the dugout. So he did. In fact, he kept on playing.

Floyd Lance, who usually plays first base, usually has to worry about high pop fly balls that arc up directly between him and the sun, but today the rubber arms of the infielders kept him alert and limber, as a kind of test of whether or not it is time for the 89-year-old to admit that he might not be able to play for eleven more years. Lance is admitting nothing.

In the outfield, Jesse Ochoa was chased to the centerfield fence by an Africanized Killer Bumble Bee Ball, but Jesse ran it down, stomped on it, and heaved it more-or-less toward the cutoff man.

Behind home plate, Chico Bigham took control of the game, having taken off his climbing spurs and laid his tree-trimming chain saw aside, put on his Supreme Court Umpiring Gear, and made perfectly clear what the difference was between a ball and a strike. Chico says he was forty feet off the ground when something in is right arm popped and puffed up, so for the time-being, he will just ump. Chico is tougher than nails, too!

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