The guys

We've done this for five straight years now, but I always look forward to catching up with the guys every season for a minor league baseball game at Truist Stadium in Winston-Salem.

The first thing I noticed when we gather is that we're all still here. I do a head count just to make sure.

We are Kevin Brafford, Jim Buice, Larry Lyon, Donnie Roberts, me and Neill Caldwell (as pictured). We are all former employees of The Dispatch – sports coverage guys – who probably didn't realize it during their overlapping employments but also who were creating a strong and lasting bond while putting in obscenely long hours and driving thousands of miles across the state to bring you the news.

At least, that's how I see it.

Two of us are in our 70s, and the others are at various stages of their 60s. While I don't mean for this to be a Last Man Standing Club, it's why I do the head count. Some of us have had replacement surgeries – or need to – and some of us have had nonessential internal organs sucked out of our bodies.

The guys.

  We talk about these things while the Dash are turning a double play. We talk about getting older while a .300 hitter homers to deep left field. We talk about our aches and pains. We talk about our families, where we go on vacations, how are the grandchildren. 

We talk about sports and how many games have we seen this year while the shortstop bobbles an easy grounder.

We talk about our years at The Dispatch while some bonus baby who makes more money in a single season than any of us did in an entire career hits a weak pop fly to right.

And before you know it, we've killed four hours at the ballpark.

It's perfect.

Shortly before we leave the stadium we ask an unsuspecting stranger in the stands if he'll take our picture. He agrees to take the shot. That's the picture you see here. It's the picture you may have seen on Facebook a couple days ago. It's a good picture, fairly well composed, focusing on six guys who did their jobs, did their jobs well (there are perhaps nearly 100 press awards between all of us), did it professionally and really, really liked what we did.

These guys.