THE CYCLE:

Debuting Phillies rookie Maikel Franco had just collected his first big-league RBI. Bowa was among those awaiting his return to the Phillies' Turner Field dugout.

As he congratulated the 22-year-old September call-up, something like a pensive smile fleetingly pushed aside the wizened bench coach's perpetual smirk.

Bowa's hair is gray now, his face lined and liver-spotted, his legendary energy calmed by time. He's 68, and his career with the Phillies has spanned five decades, four roles, three ballparks, and now two super-prospects named Franco.

There was a perfect baseball equilibrium in that brief but touching instant, a meeting of young and old, of wide-eyed and wistful, of dreams both fresh and faded.

Once - can it really be 44 years ago? - Bowa was the eager rookie bounding down a dugout's steps. Now he was an end-of-the-line baseball lifer. But unable to run, catch or hit, he could still watch, imagine, and remember.

I'd like to think that in those brief seconds when the start of one career intersected with the twilight of another, he saw himself in Franco.

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