A HIT. Retired Suffolk lieutenant John Ryan heads to first base at a game last summer.

The batter swings and rips the ball across the infield toward shortstop John Ryan.

Ryan starts running at the crack of the bat, seemingly unaware of the brace on his leg. He bends and scoops up the ball on the run. He twists and fires it to first base, narrowly beating out the runner.

It's a hot Sunday morning in Shoreham last summer, and Ryan, now 45, is sweaty and grinning, reveling in the sport he loves - softball.

Ryan is also a retired Suffolk police lieutenant who collects a $66,460-a-year tax-free disability pension.

John Ryan, hustling shortstop, embodies the paradox found in many police disability cases - disabled on paper but capable of vigorous physical activity in reality.

For some disabled Long Island police, life after retirement can be full. The state never re-examines their injuries, places no limits on their activities, and - after they reach the 20th anniversary of their hiring - allows them to draw unlimited outside income without losing any of their pension money. Unlike New York, many states prohibit outside work by disability pensioners, require periodic medical exams, or force disability recipients back to work if they're found engaged in vigorous activities. Under state pension rules, a disabling injury can be as minor as damage to a trigger finger - the kind of problem that ended the police career of former Nassau officer Benson Huggard in the early 1980s.

Deemed disabled, Huggard nevertheless continued to enjoy his physically demanding hobby - marathon swimming - while collecting his disability pension. His story is oft-cited as an example of the pension system's idiosyncrasies, a system that pays police with trigger-finger impairments the same as paraplegics.

Like Huggard, many mildly injured police draw their tax-free pension checks while leading robust lives.

When disabled police are able to perform physical jobs or enjoy rigorous hobbies, it raises questions, resentments, suspicions and cynical jokes among other officers who feel that such cases reflect badly on the profession and jeopardize pensions for police who have serious disabling injuries.

The photograph of one Nassau police officer, Robert Snead, hung on the bulletin board of the First Precinct in Baldwin until it turned yellow. Snead's colleagues didn't know whether to be angry or amused. Snead had said that, due to a job-related injury, he couldn't run or lift heavy objects, according to state pension system documents. In 1985, six months after he obtained his $21,667 disability pension, Snead's picture appeared next to a Newsday story about a Deer Park charity helping the poor at Christmas. The picture showed Snead and another man lifting a washing machine.

Some officers who claim on-the-job injuries experience almost miraculous recoveries after getting their disability pensions, according to police officials.

Local police folklore is sprinkled liberally with tales of "cane-breakers" who hobble about until their disability pensions are granted, then make great shows of breaking their canes and dramatically casting them aside. PBA publications carry advertisements from disabled officers offering fence installation, transmission repair and carpentry.

Sgt. Vincent Ward, who formerly ran the Suffolk Police Department's medical evalution unit, recalls police officers who seemed chronically injured before retirement, then miraculously improved after they got their pensions.

"I'd see them after they got their retirement. And I would say to them, 'You're walking pretty good, you're walking pretty briskly,' " Ward relates.

"'Yeah,' he says, 'it's amazing. After I retired the stress was relieved from the job,' he says. 'I feel a hell of a lot better.'"

Because the state pension system never re-examines police to determine if they've gotten better, some who were once disabled recover but continue to collect their pensions. Unlike many other states, New York does not have the ability to revoke a pension if police are found to have recovered.

The law governing the pension system gives the comptroller's office the right to conduct periodic physical exams on disability recipients, but it provides no mechanism for revoking their pensions. Therefore, the pension system rarely conducts such examinations because it would be pointless, officials say.

"The present law is flawed," said Deputy State Comptroller John Mauhs. "We do not have the ability to terminate a disability pension and to put the person back on the public payroll in those cases." Mauhs said the comptroller's office is considering requesting legislation to correct the law.

By his own estimation, Mike Yarocki, 46, is one such recovered officer. Yarocki, a former Nassau police officer judged by the state pension system to be disabled with a shoulder injury in 1987, installs acoustical tiles and does carpentry work while drawing his $33,359-a-year tax-free pension. Also, Yarocki acknowledged in a recent interview with Newsday, his shoulder has recovered to the point that he could return to the full duties of a Nassau police officer.

Moreover, state pension law does not limit outside earnings for disability retirees after the 20th anniversary of their hiring as police. A 1987 change in state law eliminated an earnings cap that limited disability pensioners' total income, including their pension, to the next highest pay grade above their pre-retirement salary. Additional earnings had to be forfeited to the pension system. The cap still applies to disabled police officers who have not reached the 20th anniversary of their hiring.

Mauhs, of the retirement system, said he regards removal of that cap a mistake. The pension system noted an increase in disability applications after the removal of the earnings cap and attributed it, in part, to the change in the law. It was opposed by several executive agencies, including the State Insurance Department, whose superintendent, James P. Corcoran, wrote in 1987: "If, as a disabled member, he is permitted to have unlimited earnings after reaching the 20th year, he is financially better off than the one who remained on the job." Despite such opposition, the cap was removed after heavy lobbying by police organizations.

Defending the removal of the earnings cap, police groups have said the previous language prohibited disabled police officers from earning a living even in office jobs.

"What if the individual was able to go to law school and become a lawyer, or an accountant or become some other type of businessman where physical incapacity would not be a detriment to their earning capabilities?" asked Peter Reilly, president of the Police Conference of New York and Paul Carozza, president of the Metropolitan Police Conference, in a 1987 letter to the governor's office supporting removal of the caps.

The legislation removing the caps was adopted in June, 1987, by a 53-0 vote of the Senate and a 144-1 vote of the Assembly. The only dissenting vote was cast by Assemb. Robert D'Andrea (R-Saratoga Springs).

"I don't see why these people should be allowed to make more money when all these years they couldn't work because they were too sick or hurt or whatever it is," D'Andrea said recently, explaining his opposition to the legislation.

Gov. Mario Cuomo's office declined to explain in detail the governor's reason for signing the legislation, except to say that he weighs the pros and cons of all bills before deciding whether to approve them.

In examining the disability pension system, Newsday reviewed the lives of dozens of disability retirees. Many are truly retired and have moved to Florida or the Carolinas, where they lead sedentary lives. Others, however, augment their disability income with jobs ranging from bartending to carpentry, private investigating to lifeguarding, or pursue vigorous hobbies. Still others decide that retirement from the police department is not such a sweet deal. Ryan, for instance, asked to return to his job after his disability pension was granted, but the Suffolk department turned him down.

In addition to Ryan, Huggard and Yarocki:

Neil Maiorino, a former Nassau police sergeant, is director of public safety for the tiny village of Head of the Harbor. He has a civilian title, but in effect he's chief of police. And Maiorino, who reported that he injured his back when he slipped on paper towels, acknowledges that he sometimes performs police duties, including patrolling roads in the residential enclave tucked alongside Stony Brook harbor. In addition to his $31,600 annual salary, Maiorino, 48, collects a state disability pension of $43,998 a year, tax-free.

Paul Fedorys, a disabled Nassau County police officer, is a jailer for the Knox County, Tenn., sheriff's department. The job requires the "physical ability to handle unruly prisoners," according to Lt. Keith Lyon, who is in charge of personnel. In addition to his $17,100 jailer salary, Fedorys, 48, receives $32,541 a year, tax-free, from the New York state pension system.

Vincent Bovino, a former Nassau police officer who now operates a mail-order business in California selling a drink designed to thwart drug tests, works out regularly with exercise machines, despite a neck injury that the retirement system deemed disabling. Bovino, 42, who resigned from the police department while under investigation for selling steroid drugs for bodybuilding, collects $24,683 a year, tax-free, in state pension payments.

In its series this week on the police disability system, Newsday has reported on such cases as former Nassau police officer Raymond Newbold, who receives a disability pension for a bad knee, but works as a lifeguard at Jones Beach, a job that requires running, jumping and swimming; Albert Wieda, a hang-glider pilot whom the state has ruled disabled from Suffolk County police work with a groin injury; and Robert Grzymala, a former Nassau police officer ruled disabled with a bad back who, nevertheless, maintains a golf handicap of 8.3.

As conceived by the Legislature, the police pension system was an effort to compensate police injured by the special, and often dangerous, duties of their jobs, such as catching violent criminals, subduing unruly prisoners and chasing cars down the highway.

The law envisioned a police officer being injured, then retiring on a disability pension.

In practice, the system frequently doesn't work that way. Often, police are injured on the job, then work their regular assignments for years until nearly time for their service retirements. In reviewing records, Newsday found several cases in which as a police officer's retirement date approached, the old injury flared up and the police officer sought medical treatment for it, reopening a workers' compensation claim and creating a paper trail. Nassau police Lt. James Ahearn was in two on-duty car accidents in 1976. In subsequent years he complained sporadically of lower back pain. But in 1990, as his retirement date approached, he complained that his back pain was much worse. He received a tax-free disability pension in 1991 of $78,348 a year, which was boosted by overtime. Similarly, Suffolk Police Officer John T. Curley was awarded a disability retirement in 1986 based on back and neck injuries sustained in 1966, 1967, and 1971 in three on-duty accidents. He testified at a retirement hearing that from 1971 to 1980, when he stopped working due to back pain, he was on full duty as a police officer and did not lose any extended periods of time. Curley was initially turned down for disability retirement in 1982, but his application was approved in 1986 after doctors said his condition had deteriorated. Curley, now 58, retired in 1986 and collects a tax-free pension of $32,064 a year.

When ready to retire, the officer may put in an application for a service retirement and, at the same time, for a disability retirement, hoping to receive the more lucrative disability benefit. The time elapsed between the actual injury and the disability award can be as long as 15 years, in some cases reviewed by Newsday.

In other cases, police are injured, then work light duty - in clerical or telephone-answering jobs - for many years until it's time for retirement. At that point, the officer may also apply for both types of pensions, which can be significantly increased with extra overtime during the last year.

Suffolk Lt. Frank Coppola Jr., for instance, said he injured his back in 1988, a week after he was fined 15 days' pay in a departmental probe of falsified pistol-range records. His tax-free $59,055 disability pension, awarded in 1990, was boosted by the $14,070 of overtime he worked in his last year. Nassau Police Officer Robert Rich said he slipped on applesauce in 1976 at a tractor-trailer accident on the Long Island Expressway. Over the years, he missed hundreds of days of work, and he was awarded a disability pension 15 years later. In his final year on the job, Rich boosted his salary by $16,454 worth of overtime, increasing his pension to $60,471 a year, tax-free. In many cases, the overtime is worked by officers who are on light-duty assignments in office jobs.

Over the years, the pension system has vacillated on how it treats police who've been on light-duty status. Police normally are evaluated for disability based on the rigorous standard of whether they can perform the full duties of a police officer. Using that standard, a trigger-finger injury such as the one suffered by Benson Huggard qualifies a police officer for disability. But if a police officer has been performing clerical duties in a "light duty" role, pension officials at times have wavered on whether the officer's disability should be measured on the same basis, or on whether he or she can function in an administrative job.

In the mid-1980s, the state pension system began a cycle of rejecting disability retirement applications for officers on light duty on the grounds that they were able to perform the duties assigned them, not whether they were fit to perform the full duties for which they had been hired. As a result, the Nassau PBA began advising its injured officers to stay home and not accept light-duty assignments.

After negotiations between the PBA and the police department, Commissioner Samuel Rozzi in 1989 agreed to provide "general- duty" job descriptions to the state, even for light-duty officers, indicating that they could be required to perform full duties, according to PBA President Gary DelaRaba. Similarly, general-duty statements have been supplied by other police departments, including Suffolk County.

As a result of that agreement, officers went back to work on light duty and a number of disability pensions that had been previously denied were then awarded.

Faced with an increase in disability applications from Long Island over the next few years, some of them from officers working in light-duty jobs, the pension system once again reviewed its position on pension applications from light-duty officers. In October, 1992, Mauhs sent a letter to all employers: "It is not appropriate to pay disability pensions to persons who can perform their assigned duties," the state deputy comptroller said, urging that police departments provide job descriptions to the state of the "actual duties performed" when disability applicants had been assigned light-duty jobs for two or more years or for reasons other than disability.

"When you're using full duties, it's conceivable that even a fairly mild disability could end up getting approval," said Assistant Deputy Comptroller John McManaman. "That's one reasons we have modified the use of the full-duty standard."

In recent months, the pension system has begun turning down disability applications on that basis. Police organizations, however, cry foul.

They argue that the current interpretation of the disability law by the pension system encourages police officers to remain at home after they are injured, rather than coming in to work to perform light duty because to do so would preclude them from ever getting a disability pension for that injury. They also argue that the pension system should not change the rules midcourse.

"There has to be consistency," said Nassau PBA lobbyist Kenneth Long. "Once you set up some rules, they should stay the same, whether there's an increase or decrease in pensions being given out. The same criteria has to be used for everybody that applies." Long said that the Metropolitan Police Conference, an umbrella group of downstate police organizations, is currently negotiating with the retirement system over the issue.

The comptroller's office has recently drafted legislation to deal with police who are found to have recovered from their disabilities, officials said in a recent interview. The proposed bill would give the retirement system the right to convert a police officer's pension from a disability pension to a regular service retirement, reducing the benefit and making it subject to federal income taxes. It would also give the pensioner the chance to go back on the public payroll rather than accept the reduced pension.

NEIL MAIORINO:

ABLE TO PATROL

One officer who worked light duty after his injury was Neil Maiorino, currently safety director for the village of Head of the Harbor. Maiorino received his on-the-job injury in 1985 when he said he slipped on paper towels on the floor of the female detention unit at Nassau police headquarters, according to the accident report.

"It was a freak accident, no big gun battle or anything like that," Maiorino says.

At the time, he was assigned to the records bureau and his duties included monitoring in the headquarters holding cells.

His doctor, Stephen Zolan, diagnosed Maiorino with a herniated disc as a result of the injury.

But two diagnostic tests performed before his retirement indicated a mildly bulging disc, with "no evidence for herniation," frequently a more serious problem. Despite that, the state approved his disability retirement in 1987. He collects $43,998 a year in pension payments, tax-free.

By 1990, through an exercise regimen, he had started feeling much better, Maiorino said. "I really started coming around," Maiorino said in an interview. "I was working out. I bought a home system with exercise and weights."

In January, 1991, Maiorino was hired by the Head of the Harbor police department. He acknowledges doing patrols "once or twice a week" as part of the job. "But it's discretionary," he says. "If I feel a twinge, I just get out of the car." Maiorino says his back flares up once or twice a year.

PAUL FEDORYS:

THE JAIL GUARD

Another Nassau officer retired on disability, Paul Fedorys, also found law enforcement employment - as a Knoxville corrections officer.

Fedorys, who refused to talk to Newsday, also reported an on-the-job accident. According to a report, Fedorys said he fell while gassing up his patrol car at the Eighth Precinct in Levittown in October, 1983.

The gas pump failed to turn off, spilling gas on the ground, he said. Fedorys said that as he tried to place the nozzle back into the gas pump, his right foot slipped on the gas and he injured his right knee.

The state pension system initially turned down his request for disability retirement, arguing that the fall was not an accident as defined by the disability statute. A hearing officer upheld that decision, but later the retirement system reversed itself, granting Fedorys a disability pension in 1986, based on court decisions ruling that falls should be considered job-related accidents for the purposes of disability pensions.

Fedorys, who receives $32,541 a year in tax-free disability payments, moved from Massapequa to Maynardville, Tenn., near Knoxville. He is a corrections officer at the Knox County jail.

Lyon, the personnel officer, said he was not aware that Fedorys was on a disability pension. "I'm not allowed to ask such things," said Lyon, citing the recently enacted Americans with Disabilities Act as the reason. "It's between them [New York state] and him."

VINCENT BOVINO:

THE BODYBUILDER

Vincent Bovino served 12 years on the Nassau County police force before running afoul of its internal affairs unit. Then an avid bodybuilder, Bovino was the target of an internal investigation and ultimately arrested on misdemeanor steroid sales charges.

Under a plea arrangement, he pleaded guilty in 1987 to a reduced charge of attempted possession of a syringe. He was placed on conditional discharge, paid the department $672 in restitution and agreed to leave the department.

Bovino had injured his neck in 1986 wrestling with a drunken prisoner who became violent. As a result of the neck injury, Bovino says he suffers a weakness in his grip. The state retirement system agreed that his injuries were disabling and awarded him a $24,682 annual tax-free pension.

Bovino, who has moved to Marina del Rey, Calif., still works out about four times a week, and says he is able to use machines for workouts with the aid of straps.

"I still get numbness in my hands," Bovino said in a recent interview. "It [the numbness] has diminished over a period of time."

After his retirement, Bovino was arrested once again on federal steroids charges in California. Officials said he was a minor operative in a ring that brought steroids into the United States from Mexico. Bovino pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was placed on probation.

He currently markets a product called Defend, a mix that, if ingested before a urinalysis, purportedly masks the presence of drugs.

Bovino said the product is designed not to aid drug users but to protect innocent workers and athletes from false-positive urinalyses.

MIKE YAROCKI:

THE CARPENTER

Another former Nassau police officer, Mike Yarocki, was diagnosed with a sprained right shoulder in May, 1986, after he said he tripped and hurt his shoulder going down a steel fire escape at an investigation site.

For more than a year after his injury, Yarocki complained of shoulder pain, and his physician, Dr. Stephen Zolan, diagnosed Yarocki as disabled. Two arthrograms of the shoulder were negative, according to records reviewed by Newsday. McManaman said the determination that Yarocki was disabled was based on the agreement by two orthopedists who treated Yarocki, an orthopedist who examined him on behalf of the state, and a police department doctor.

When first contacted by Newsday in February, Yarocki denied he was working. "My wife is working now and I'm just hanging around the house," he said. "...I can assure you I have no jobs on the side here...

Newsday reporters, however, had several months earlier observed and photographed Yarocki working at a construction site in Sayville where he was renovating the interior of a restaurant. He holds contractor licenses in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties and has also advertised his home renovation business in the PBA newsletter.

When confronted with this information, Yarocki acknowledged that he does such work. "Can I do construction on the side? Yeah, I guess I can, you know," Yarocki said. "If I sometimes overdo it, will my arm bother me more than normal? Sure it will. Do I have access to aspirin and Ben-Gay? Sure. Do I have to notify everybody in the world that I'm on it [disability retirement]? No . . . And I can't tell you how bad my arm hurts or how bad my back hurts. Did I do them myself? I guess I did. Was it my own stupidity climbing down the stairs? Did I fall down the stairs? Sure. I put in my papers and that was it."

Asked if he could now work the full duties of a police officer, Yarocki replied: "Oh, yeah, sure." But he also said: "I received my disability as legally as possible, and I don't have any regrets." He said he continues to have shoulder pain.

Yarocki collects $33,359 a year in tax-free pension payments, according to records provided by the pension system.

JOHN RYAN:

THE PLAYER

John Ryan, the disabled shortstop, retired at age 43. As a Suffolk policeman, he suffered several on-the-job accidents. He was injured in April, 1990, when a floor board slipped in an attic in Wyandanch where he was staked out watching drug activity. His right leg went through Sheetrock.

"My knee always bothered me after that," Ryan said.

In July, 1990, Ryan was involved in a brawl at a police retirement party. Internal affairs charges for "conduct unbecoming an officer" were filed against him in October, 1990.

In July, 1991, Ryan suffered another injury. "I was in the Fifth Precinct and somebody had poured Betadine soap, you know, that anti-bacterial soap, all over the floor, and I slipped on the Betadine soap and went down and pulled something in my chest - I thought I was having a heart attack, I was getting chest pains and my knee was killing me," Ryan said.

Then, in October, 1991, Ryan was chasing a suspect and ran into heavy brush, striking a tree and injuring his head, shoulder, back and neck, according to an accident report. "Upon returning to his vehicle he fell into a hole, injuring his left knee," the report said. Ryan was granted his accidental disability retirement in May, 1992, before the administrative charges against him could be adjudicated.

Ryan's disability pension, according to pension officials, was awarded in connection with the fall on Betadine scrub in the station house restroom, which injured his right knee. "Our orthopedist found the knee deranged and he was unable to perform duty," said McManaman.

Despite his injury, Ryan managed to increase his pension by working $13,688 worth of overtime, or 409 hours, during his final year, according to police department records. The overtime helped raise his pension to $66,460 a year, tax-free.

Ryan, when first contacted by Newsday, denied that he has played ball since his retirement. "I can hardly walk," he said.

Later, after being told that Newsday had photographed him playing softball, he admitted playing in his softball league. "I don't consider that playing ball. That's just a recreational thing I do with my family on a Sunday," he said.

He also coaches junior varsity baseball at Shoreham-Wading River High School.

But life isn't always so sweet after retirement. Within months after retiring, he called the police department and requested to return to work, according to Deputy Suffolk Police Commissioner Robert Kearon. The system allows for officers to return to duty up to one year after a disability retirement. But Kearon said the request was denied, partly because a series of promotions had already been made as a result of Ryan's departure.

If Ryan lives a normal 72-year lifespan, he'll collect about $600,000 more than he would have with a regular police pension, according to Newsday calculations.