Jim Plunkett arrived at a celebrity golf tournament in Palm Springs on a warm May day this year expecting the usual banter with fellow former NFL stars.
He got paired with ex-San Diego running back Hank Bauer, who had come to the PGA West Stadium golf course with an added agenda.
The men shared a golf cart and stories about their era of feral football before coming around to how their bodies were breaking down like old, plastic skeletons. Bauer, known as “Hank the Howitzer” while playing for the Chargers, had been holding similar conversations with former players for the past year.