It’s also fair to say of Rohr that he is: an offbeat local legend in softball circles, a genuine disc-golf pioneer, an avid spelunker and bird-watcher, a juggler and a card shark, and a magician/wizard of sorts. As well, he’s a tireless collector of hats, natural wonders, Disney toys, and you name it.
When Larry - a lover of all things orange - isn’t zestfully pursuing one of his beloved avocations, the 53-year-old gentle iconoclast is probably doing a favor for someone in his vast legion of friends and associates. This is a busy man, with little time for seeking, or accepting, credit for the kind things that happen along the way; wherever he’s been in his orange VW bus.
The phrase - a piece of work - is always applied to colorful personalities. Although it’s heard less often these days, it’s still useful. Perhaps it’s easier to illustrate it than to state precisely what the expression means in a few words.
Bill Clinton is a 24-carat piece of work. Yet, no one would ever call Al Gore or George W. Bush a piece of work. Captain Outrageous - Ted Turner - is a piece of work, with parts to spare. And yet, The Donald - Donald Trump - is too much of a wannabe to ever be a piece of work. So, too, NFL team-owner/maverick Al Davis is. While NFL team-owner/maverick Jerry Jones is something other than.
Staying with the NFL theme, quarterback Brett Favre is surely a piece of work. He’d be glad to play football with no referees to shield him. Then, there’s John Elway, who was just as tough; just as good, maybe better. But Elway is too smug and artificially laid-back to be a piece of work.
Rohr finished his 26th season as a pitcher with the Biograph softball team last summer. Although he supposedly retired following the 2000 season, he heard the call to return to the mound a few times in 2001.
While Larry is blessed with excellent eye-hand coordination, his strong suit has never been flashy raw athleticism. Larry’s days of bursting out of the batters box like a shot out of a canon are behind him. No, this is a man who has grown accustomed to besting his opponents with luck.
If the ball takes a fortuitous bounce, the smart money will always be on that ball bouncing his way. Another old expression comes to mind to do with Larry’s uncanny grasp on the mercurial element of chance - good luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
Rohr expects good luck and he’s ready when it arrives. He isn’t at all surprised when his routine pop-up is dropped, because a bug flew into the outfielder’s eye. No. Larry is running - if you want to call it that - to first base, as if the ball had been hit sharply into a gap.
Thus, he has made a career of besting opponents who are supposed to be better than he is, on paper. Larry doesn’t mind being perceived as the underdog; like most who truly enjoy competition, he uses it.
In frisbee-golf - or disc-golf, if you prefer - there are always those who can throw it further. There are some who carry more trick shots in their bag. For sure, most of the best golfers are about half his age.
However, if you put enough pressure on those younger and more supple competitors, a good percentage of them will crack. Larry, on the other hand, will smile as he watches his shot glance wildly off a tree limb, careen onto the ground to roll on its edge for 50 odd yards, hop a curb and stop harmlessly next to the target object.
Rohr’s fellow Frizbeetarians have been losing matches to him in this manner since he and a few of his friends helped to establish this poor man’s alternative to golf in the metro area in the mid-‘70s.
Larry is a longtime employee of Reynolds Metals, now Alcoa. He and his wife, Wendy, have a son, Leo, who attends the University of Virginia. Leo is tossing a mean frisbee, himself, these days.
Although there are many well-known pieces of work, being such doesn’t usually lead to fame and fortune. Truth be told, most of them don’t get rich. What they all do have in common, famous or not, is this - a real piece of work isn’t waiting for someone else to come along and validate him.
In all our travels, no one reminds us of Larry Rohr. And, Larry Rohr - the master of the lucky bounce - brings no one else to mind.
-- 30 --
This piece was originally published by Richmond.com in 2000. The updated version above appeared in the December 2001 issue of SLANT.
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