For baseball fans it was a special time as baseball's greatest moments were trotted out with hype and flourish prior to Game Four of the 2002 World Series. Seeing Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter lauded as a "greatest moment" was an especially moving moment for me.
As an author who was privileged to have the opportunity to get to know him and his family while writing "Throwing Heat," his autobiography, I became intimately aware of how he began and what he has accomplished. The life and times of Nolan Ryan is truly the story of the realization of the American dream.
He grew up in the small town of Alvin, Texas, and still makes his home there. As a teenager Nolan delivered the Houston Post. In "Throwing Heat," he said, "Some people claimed that I developed my arm throwing the Houston Post. That was not the case. It was a short throw from a car, and I made the throw Back-handed with my left hand wile I steered my '52 Chevy with my right hand. But I did develop the knack of being able to roll and tie fifty newspapers in just about five minutes, and that probably helped me develop strong fingers and wrists."
The strong fingers and wrists were part of the reason for Ryan's great success. A tremendous work ethic was another. Nolan had 992,040 votes to rank first among all pitchers on the All-Century team. He was followed by Sandy Koufax (970,434), Cy Young (867,523), Roger Clemens (601,244), Bob Gibson (582,031). That's elite company.
One can only wonder what went through Nolan's mind when he was out there on the field next to Bob Gibson, Hank Aaron, and Sandy Koufax. Aaron was one of Ryan's idols in his growing up years, and Koufax was a pitcher he truly admired.
"One Sunday between my junior and senior years in high school we went to see the Houston Colt .45's play the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sandy Koufax was pitching, and I was a big Koufax fan. It was the first time I had ever seen Sandy pitch. I was truly amazed at how fast he was and how good a curveball he had. I think he was the most overpowering pitcher I had ever seen."
The all time strikeout record belongs to Nolan now. But once upon a time, and for a long period, it belonged to Walter Johnson who finished in sixth-place in the voting for pitchers with 479,279 votes.
One day early in the 1969 season, Nolan was sitting in the Mets' dugout when Jim Bunning recorded his 2,500th strikeout. He asked Tom Seaver what the all-time record for strikeouts was and was told that it was 3,508 and held by Walter Johnson.
"That Johnson record will probably stand forever," Ryan told Seaver. Baseball fans know it didn't. Nolan broke it, and is the all-time strikeout leader with 5,714. That Ryan record will probably stand forever, as will a few other records Nolan picked up along the way.
He holds the record for most strikeouts in a major league season with 383, which he set while playing for the Angels in 1973. He struck out 100 in a season 24 times, another record. He also set the record for most consecutive seasons with 100 or more strikeouts, doing it 23 time in a row. He also holds the record for most career no-hitters with seven.
It is the records that are most associated with the man they called "The Ryan Express." For me it will always be his character. He's a great family man, a person who extends kindness to strangers, a guy who always remembers his friends.
Bravo, Nolan!
» Harvey Frommer is the author of 32 sports books, including "The New York Yankee Encyclopedia, "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,"and "Growing Up Baseball" with Frederic J. Frommer. His "A Yankee Century: A Celebration of the First Hundred Years of Baseball's Greatest Team" was published by Berkley Putnam in October 2002.
Also by Harvey Frommer
» Johnny Vander Meer's Back-to-Back No-Hitters
» October's Baseball Books: Sports Book Review
» New York City Baseball: Once Upon A Time
» The Big Train: Walter Johnson, Baseball Immortal
» Baseball's Best Shots: Sports Book Review
» Wee Willie Keeler: Good Things Come in Small Packages
» Let's Play Two
» The First World Series
» Sandy Koufax, Out of Brooklyn: Sports Book Review
» The 1919 Black Sox (Part II)
» The 1919 Black Sox (Part I)
» Baseball Books On Parade: Sports Book Review
» Yankee Doodle Dandies: Yankee Books: Sports Book Review
» The Harmonica Incident: August 20, 1964
» "Fenway: A Biography in Words and Pictures": Sports Book Review
» Baseball's Mecca: The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown
» Trade a Player a Year Too Early, Not a Year Too Late
» The Yankee Mystique
» Satchel Paige: World's Greatest Pitcher
» "Red Smith on Baseball": Sports Book Review
» The Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia: Sports Book Review
» Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson
» Remembering Irving Rudd
» Subway Series
» Midsummer Classic: Midsummer Mockery
» Yankee Stadium's First Opening Day
» The Birth of Baseball's First Professional Team
» Yankee Stadium's First Opening Day
» Gehrig's Streak
» Willie Mays and the Month of May
» Reese was no Pee Wee
» Yankees vs. Red Sox: Baseball's Greatest Rivalry
» Celebrating Hank Greenberg
» Bobby Thomson's Famous Homer Lives On
» Remembering the Yankee Clipper: Joe DiMaggio
» Shoeless Joe Remains a Scapegoat
» The Mets Have Always Been Amazing
» More submissions
Copyright © 2002 by Harvey Frommer. Posted October 28, 2002.
BALLPLAYERS | TEAMS | CHRONOLOGY | TODAY | BOOKS | NEWSLETTER | ERRATA | FAQ
