TUCSON - A year ago today, Dave Veres underwent hip-replacement surgery. He was looking for relief of five years of constant pain, hoping that he could simply walk without a limp and play catch with his young sons as they grew up.

Now look at him.

Friday afternoon, on the eve of the anniversary of the surgery, Veres, 40, was on the mound, pitching a 1-2-3 inning in an intrasquad game for the Rockies at Hi Corbett Field, taking another big step on a path he hopes will lead him back to a spot in the Rockies bullpen during the coming big-league season.

"Nervous?" he asked, repeating a question. "Did you see me warming up (to come in and pitch)? I went to the bathroom three, four times. I was ready to go in five tosses. Yeah, I was pretty excited."

He also was pretty good. In intrasquad games, each inning starts off with a runner on base so pitchers can work on fielding bunts. Veres' artificial right hip got a quick test when he had to race to the third base line and field a bunt, without hesitation. He even twice had to race over and cover first base on groundballs to the right side.

Not too shabby for a guy who has a "patient identification card" in his wallet so he can get through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at airports because of the metal hip Dr. Peter Lammens, of Golden, inserted into Veres. Other athletes have tried to come back from hip surgery and failed; Bo Jackson was 27 in 1993 when he made his ill-fated try, and Jack Nicklaus was 59 at the time he underwent the surgery.

Veres feels he is the benefactor of the advancements in surgery through the years.

The Rockies are hoping they will benefit from a rejuvenated Veres, who pitched for Colorado in the 1998-99 seasons, leading the team in saves in 1999. Veres, who lives in Castle Rock, earned the respect of his teammates and club management for the way he went about his business, which is a key reason he is even in camp with the Rockies.

"If we didn't know what Dave is all about, we would have been skeptical," general manager Dan O'Dowd said. "We have a frame of reference. If he is healthy we feel he can help this team, and after watching him (work out at Coors Field in January), we felt it was something that had merit."

The Rockies had no qualms about what Veres showed Friday. He threw strikes, had movement on the split-fingered pitch that is his calling card and faced big-league hitters for the first time in more than three years, even if they were teammates.

"I have a sense he had some butterflies," manager Clint Hurdle said. "I have a sense this was a big step forward for him."

There were no radar gun readings, but none was needed.

"It's not like I was an upper-90s guy when I was closing (for the Rockies and St. Louis)," he said. "I was 87 to 92 (mph)."

As Hurdle put it, "Hitters are going to tell us if he has his stuff by their swings. It's not velocity. It's having hitters off- balance. He already had that herky- jerky delivery. He is still deceptive. He has that split."

And he has a dream of extending a career that has been a testament to determination from the beginning. After all, Veres spent more than eight years in the minor leagues, including part of the 1992 season in Mexico, before making his big- league debut with the Houston Astros in mid-May 1994.

Veres was ready to call it all history when he walked away from Triple-A Fresno in 2004. The hip made it difficult to walk and impossible to pitch. After the surgery a year ago, though, he felt so good that the competitive juices began flowing. He pitched in a recreation league last summer, and the arm felt so good, he made an offseason pitch that O'Dowd caught.

"There's nothing to lose," Veres said. "If it works out, the Rockies get a 10-year veteran for nothing, and I get to pitch again. If it doesn't work out, I go home, retire and head back to the city league."

For now, though, the city league is on hold. The sights are set on the big leagues.

The next step comes Monday morning, in a so-called "B" game on a back field at the Chicago White Sox complex here.

"(Friday) was a legitimate step," Veres said. "You wonder about a lot of things until you face hitters, until you are in a game situation, until you field a bunt."

So far, so good.

ringolsbyt@RockyMountainNews.com