HOUSTON -- Lost but now found in the crannies of the Milo Hamilton press box at Minute Maid Park is an image that can best be described as "an uneasy peace made of distant thunder."
Please bear cowed witness ...
Hills be shaken: It's 12 feet and 10 inches of moundsman. There's Nolan Ryan, whose aspect calls to mind a seductive wildcatter. And there's J.R. Richard, looking like he just got the drop on the drop itself, which he did.
These two right-handers spent a mere half-season as teammates in 1980. Ryan had just arrived in Houston -- bareback on palomino via the Gustafson Path (i.e., free agency) -- whereas Richard was in his 10th season with the rainbow across his beating heart and mighty will. Richard would start the All-Star Game that year and suffer a stroke days later. His career was in essence over at the age of 30. He wound up living under a bridge in Houston.
But then he punched his way out and made the Astros Walk of Fame. Years later, he described himself as "peacock proud and honeymoon happy." You don't get the drop on J.R. Richard, you see, even if for 20 years you thought you did.
Ryan pitched until they added a book about him to the Old Testament. "The Lamentations of Those Who Have Stood Athwart Me," it is called. In it many despotic kings, turned doughy by their assumptions, are killed.
You see the number 50 above. It is not, despite implications, the number of Pecos River tributaries. It is the number of ways you can look at this photo, and all 50 lead to one conclusion -- that in 1980 J.R. Richard decided it was time for someone else to be Sheriff of Pitching County. So he stepped back and let the new guy have a go.
Kept one eye on his pardner's back, though.
