When the Ryan Express was derailed
An excerpt from "Last Time Out" - available on Amazon
EDITOR’S NOTE: Every so often, some baseball fan puts out a Facebook post either wondering why he hadn’t won a Cy Young Award or whether or not he was overrated. Simply put, Nolan Ryan was a phenomenon, one we’ll never see again. Since he seems to be a topic of discussion, I thought I’d offer a chapter from my recent baseball book, “Last Time Out” which documents the final MLB games of 43 of baseball’s all-time greats. The final chapter is about my son, John’s first MLB game. Kind of a nice way to wrap up the book. “Last Time Out” is available on Amazon, if you’re interested. It’s also available locally at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Hearth and Soul, My Favorite Books and Midtown Reader. Speaking of Midtown Reader, I’ll be doing a reading from my new political book: “Nashua: How Ronald Reagan led us to Donald Trump” on July 25 at 6:30 p.m. Hope to see you!
NOLAN RYAN SEPTEMBER 22, 1993
When the third-to-the-last pitch of his career was struck for a first-inning grand slam by the left-handed bat of the somewhat-less-than-immortal Dann Howlitt (the fifth and final HR of Howlitt’s brief career) Nolan Ryan may have had his first inkling that he’d wandered out to a major league mound one time too many.
At 46, he’d tried and tried and tried to help the Rangers in this, his 27th big-league season but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He missed some 22 days after surgery on his left or landing knee. Missed another 72 days because of a strained hip muscle, another 21 with a strained ribcage muscle.
The Ryan Express finally, after who knows how many pitches, broke down.
"This whole year has just been a nightmare," Ryan said then. "All I've dealt with all year is frustration. Not only the physical aspect of it, but from the standpoint of not being able to help the club in a pennant race when they really needed me."
With that 5-0 Seattle lead staring back at him from the scoreboard having allowed his eighth career slam, the count 1-1 on Dave Magadan, Ryan did what Ryan had done for 5,386 previous innings, reached back for a little extra and heard a “pop.”
It was the ulnar collateral ligament, “it popped like a rubber band,” Ryan said. He threw one more pitch, just to see, then left the mound. “It’s a hell of a way to end a career,” Ryan said. He was right.
For those of us who were fortunate enough to see him pitch in person – and hell, you had 27 years to do it – there was something about the way Ryan threw a baseball that leaving his hand it seemed smaller than anyone else’s, more like a dart than a sphere. It was a ball that, even when struck well, the ball seemed to be surprised and unable to handle it.
Sure, Ryan gave up quite a few home runs (361); in a 27-year career, you’re bound to. But over 5,386 career innings, he allowed just 3,923 hits. So that means he threw 1,463 major-league innings without allowing a hit or roughly the entire career of, say, a Stephen Strasberg to this point.
How many innings was that? Well, if someone ordered Nolan Ryan to throw a nine-inning complete game every day for a team’s complete 162-season, he could have pitched for 3.694 seasons. Just him. Every day. He would have been a team’s whole staff for a little over three and a half seasons.
According to the trusty Baseball Reference.com page, Ryan threw 222 complete games with 61 shutouts. That includes a record seven no-hitters, a dozen one-hitters and 18 two-hitters, 69 three-hitters. Talk about dominance.
Ryan also, however, managed to walk 2,795 hitters, by far the most of anyone in baseball history. He also threw 277 wild pitches, roughly 10 a year, hit 174 batters and made 91 errors. According to a recent Joe Posnanski article, Ryan also surrendered 757 steals or 200 more than any other pitcher in the modern era.
Which means Ryan almost certainly cost himself wins with (A.) walks, (B.) bad fielding by himself, (C.) wild pitches (D.) players getting tired of watching him pitch from the stretch and (E.) his team not scoring any damn runs for him. And indeed, Ryan lost 292 games and plenty of them were because of lack of run support. In 1987, for example, as a 40-year-old, he led the National League with a 2.76 ERA. He was 8-16.
He also won 324 games, sometimes pitching, as noted, with pretty bad teams. For 27 seasons, every fourth or fifth day, you could count on something unusual happening when No. 34 took the mound.
The baseball seemed to react differently coming out of his hand. If you got close enough, it even seemed to make a different sound. Early in his career, there were stories about Ryan soaking his fingers, particularly his middle finger, in pickle brine to toughen the skin. The middle finger, of course, was appropriate as Ryan’s salute to major-league hitters. (The Mets’ current fireballer, Noah Syndergaard, stricken with the same middle-finger blister issue, incidentally, tried the Ryan routine and gave it the thumbs down.)
But let’s talk about the sound. Sitting in the right field stands on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late June in Detroit’s old Tiger Stadium, overlooking the visitors’ bullpen, Ryan warmed up for what would be his 315th career win on June 29, 1992. As you watched closely, you could see something of the gunslinger in his manner; you always could, whether he was throwing for the Mets, the California Angels, the Houston Astros (later) or the Texas Rangers (here).
First, there was the peer-in to his target, a steely-eyed, impassive glance homeward, a Clint Eastwood-esque “Make My Day” expression that seemed to say, “whatever I’m dialing up, you have no chance.”
When the pitching motion commenced, there was a quick rock back on the right foot, then Ryan’s arms – ball in glove - raised up over his head, almost pausing for a second on the back of his neck. As the left leg raises and his hips turn away from the plate, the foot kicks surprisingly high, almost to shoulder height. Ryan tilts his head a little downward as the knee comes to full height and his left shoulder closed as his arms come back down - almost like closing a window - he takes the ball and glove are hidden behind his raised knee.
As he begins the throw, he quickly casts his gaze down at the mound beneath him, not his target, which, for someone with almost 3,000 career walks. 227 wild pitches and frequently terrifying bursts of 100 MPH-plus velocity, could all be somewhat unsettling to the poor soul standing in either batter’s box, just 60 feet, 6 inches away.
Then, here it comes. The left shoulder opens homeward, the left arm with the glove goes forward as the right arm with the baseball reaches back, almost like an archer drawing a bow. When his left foot lands, wham, here comes a sizzling baseball. And you could hear it from the stands.
Normally, a hard thrower produces a pop, a snapping sort of sound made by the collision of accelerating baseball and resistant catcher’s mitt. It’s a flat, loud noise. To these ears, Ryan’s has more of a buzz to it, almost as if the baseball, launched with enough velocity to really go places, was disappointed to be apprehended after just a 60-foot, 6-inch journey.
Since Ryan pitched before spin rate became a topic of conversation and a regularly measured data point, we’ll never know technically speaking how his pitches differed from others. But we saw the results.
Having a miraculous arm, of course, is one thing. New York Mets’ scout Red Murff gushed after seeing Ryan for the first time. “The night before,” he said then, “I had seen the two fastest pitchers in the National League at that time, Jim Maloney and Turk Farrell. Nolan Ryan was already faster than both of them by far.” In his scouting report, he wrote “BEST arm I ever saw ANYWHERE in my life.”
Velocity is only part of the mix, of course. Ryan’s arm landed him in the majors rather quickly, but the Mets’ staff didn’t seem to do much to help him stay there. After spending the first five years of his career with the Mets, posting a 19-23 record despite impressive stats, Ryan reportedly told his wife he’d quit the game if he wasn’t traded.
The Mets obliged him and dealt Ryan across the country to the California Angels with three marginal talents (Don Rose, Leroy Stanton and Frank Estrada) for former All-Star shortstop Jim Fregosi. Fregosi didn’t do much in two seasons in New York while Ryan blossomed into a record-setting hurler.
In his eight years with the weak-hitting Angels, Ryan threw four no-hitters, broke Sandy Koufax’s single-season strikeout mark (by one – 383) en route to five 300-strikeout seasons, was a 20-game winner twice and twice won 19 (with no batting support.) To beat Koufax’s mark, Ryan had to throw all 11 innings of his final start of the year, a 5-4 Angels’ win. He struck out Rich Reese in the 11th inning for No. 383. For the game, he struck out 16, allowed 10 hits and 4 runs but got win No. 21 in his last start of the season.
From there, it was on to Houston for nine seasons, then Texas for five. He won as many as 16 games twice and pitched well, twice leading the National League in ERA (1.69 with an 11-5 mark in 1981 and 2.76 with an 8-16 mark in 1987. But there were no Cy Young Awards, no trips to the World Series, eight All-Star game appearances and lots and lots of close losses.
If nobody ever questioned Ryan’s velocity, neither did they question his toughness. Nolan’s former pitching coach with Texas, Tom House, tells the story of him having trouble in a game and Manager Bobby Valentine sent House out to talk to the fireballer.
“I got to the mound and said, ‘Nolan, how you doing?’” House recalled. “He said, ‘I’m doing terrible, but it’s way better than what you’ve got going in that bullpen, so get the hell off my mound.’ I went back to Bobby and said, ‘OK, we’re going to have trouble getting him out of there.’
“Bobby went to take him out of the game a couple of innings later. When Bobby said, ‘That’ll be it, Tex,’ Nolan said, ‘No it won’t. One of us is leaving the mound and it’s not going to be me.’”
That afternoon at Tiger Stadium, when Ryan picked up his 315th career win, he might have been 45 years old, but his arm seemed years younger. Ryan, twice as old as some of the Tigers who stepped in against him, mowed them down with ease. You never saw so many bad swings, late fouls and intimidated professional hitters.
After the game, an 8-4 Rangers’ win, a Rangers’ beat writer was telling Detroit’s Tony Phillips that back home, Ryan’s 0-3, 4.70 ERA start had Texas fans telling him it was time for him to ride off into the sunset.
Phillips about jumped off his stool. “What?” he said, eyes wide and mouth open. “That’s bullshit. The people that say that, they don’t have to face him. His fastball still has that good hop. His ball has a lot of movement and he still throws hard. He doesn’t look any different to me than the guy we saw last year.” Ryan threw his 7th no-hitter around that time.
As Phillips and the rest of the Tigers could testify, that Sunday afternoon before 42,394 fans at the old Tiger Stadium, Ryan was completely in command for seven shutout innings. He mixed a 90-plus fastball with a changeup and a sharp-breaking curveball that he was able to get over at key spots. Like in the third inning.
Just as finely tuned veteran race cars need a little warming up, Ryan always seemed to get stronger as the game went on. But here in the third, he’d walked Phillips and with two outs, Cecil Fielder looped a single to left. Detroit’s Mickey Tettleton, as good a fastball hitter as the Tigers had, worked the count to 3-1, expected a good fastball, got it, and fouled it off. Full count. What’s next?
The old Ryan would have simply reached back and hummed one. Not this time.
“He came with a 3-2 curve,” Tettleton winced at the memory of the pitch which froze him, “and it was a good one. I take my hat off to him.”
Nolan Ryan, the fastball king, going to a 3-2 deuce, two out, two on. Nasty.
The funny thing is, boys and girls, despite many recommendations from pitching coaches over the years, Ryan didn’t decide to add a changeup to his pitching repertoire until he was over 40. Imagine what those strikeout totals might have been if he had started with that pitch earlier? Hitters everywhere, give thanks.
How many pitches did Nolan Ryan’s arm actually have in it? Estimates ran as high as 34,500 pitches but that seems way too conservative. He had games where he threw over 200 pitches in a single game. It’s a mathematical delight. Just counting walks alone, never mind Spring Training outings, bullpen sessions and mid-week between-starts tossing, we’re talking over 11,000 pitches that were called balls. As for strikeouts – not counting fouls, of course – we’re over 16,000 pitches. Add in wild pitches, hit batters, the pitches he threw that turned into 3,923 hits, you’re at around 31,000 pitches officially recorded in a major-league scorebook. With 27 years of Spring Trainings behind, games of outfield catch…seems like 50,000 would be more like it. No wonder the ulnar collateral ligament said enough already.
Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, Ryan’s 98.8 percentage – ranking him 5th all-time behind Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr. and Tom Seaver – showed the baseball writers and major-league hitters had something in common. They both were really impressed by what Nolan Ryan brought to the mound.
Incidentally, Ryan’s final game shared something with Cardinals’ great Bob Gibson’s finale. Each guy surrendered a grand slam to the last official batter he faced. Ryan handled his embarrassment a little more gracefully, quietly moving on to the next hitter, Dave Magadan – or trying to, without incident. The fiery Gibson, on the contrary, cursed Pete LaCock all the way around the bases before leaving the mound for the last time.
No, Nolan Ryan did not record a single out in the 773rd and final major-league start of his career. The last of his 5,714 strikeout victims was catcher Greg Myers in the fifth inning of his previous start, September 17. The first of the whiffs was Braves’ pitcher Pat Jarvis, the very first batter the 19-year-old Ryan faced in his major-league debut on September 11.
In between, there 5,712 others, including Hank Aaron (4), Dick Allen (11), Wade Boggs (6), Bobby Bonds (10), Barry Bonds (3), George Brett (18), Rod Carew (29), Cecil Cooper (20), Andre Dawson (26), Carlton Fisk (24), Larry Hisle (29), Reggie Jackson (22), Dale Murphy (23), Jorge Orta (30), Dave Parker (23), Jim Rice (19), Pete Rose (13), and Robin Yount (16). Claudell Washington, incidentally, led the way with 39 whiffs.
We also know Ryan threw a record seven no-hitters. But did you know that, but for a few pitches, it might have been 12? Amazingly, there were five other occasions Ryan carried no-hitters into the 9th inning.
· August 7, 1974 – One-out single to Dick Allen in a 3-hit, 2-1 loss to the White Sox.
· July 13, 1979 – One-out single to Reggie Jackson but beat the Yankees, 6-1.
· April 27, 1988 – One-out single to Mike Schmidt, game went to extras. No win.
· April 23, 1989 – One-out triple to Nelson Liriano. Ryan beat the Jays in a one-hitter, 4-1.
· August 10, 1989 – One-out single by Dave Bergman. Rangers went on to win, 4-1.
That was the thing with Nolan Ryan. If he was on the mound, there was a chance he’d throw a no-no or come close. I happened to be in Toronto on April 23 and lobbied heavily to go to the game but was overruled to head back home. So, listening to the game on the radio, Ryan getting closer and closer to the no-no, things were getting a bit more uncomfortable in the car. Something about opportunities missed, etc.. Then up steps Nelson Liriano and he slashes a triple to break up the no-no. I switched off the radio. Heard from the other side of the car: “Now I’m a HUGE Nelson Liriano fan.”
John Nogowski’s “Last Time Out” is available at Tallahassee area book stores and on Amazon.
Wonderful!