Comments on: Nolan Ryan

By: johnq11

johnq11 — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:46:41 +0000

godfreyjon65,

Tanana was actually the better pitcher during the mid to late 70′s and was actually quite a dominant pitcher who was kind of underrated.

Dick Emberg used to broadcast Angels’ games back then and he had a saying, “Tanana & Ryan then 3 days of crying.”

They ended up having some really good position players by the late 70′s, Carew, Grich, and Baylor.

By: godfreyjon65

godfreyjon65 — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:39:12 +0000

shealives,

That’s so cool! I love the internet for stuff like this: a shared memory from 35 years ago from opposite sides of the country. Those mid 70′s Angels were a very unique team but fun to follow. No offense to speak of (Dave Chalk would sometimes bat cleanup), but they had Ryan and, for a while, Frank Tanana, who was just as dominant. Here’s a link to a game that kind of personifies that era (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL197608270.shtml). I didn’t attend this one, but my dad & older brother made it through 12 nail-biting innings. I used to fall asleep to the radio broadcast: Dick Enberg (oh, my!) & Don Drysdale were great.

By: johnq11

johnq11 — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:12:32 +0000

Sb1902,

You’re right, this is a great card. Ryan was very good at taking baseball card photos for some reason. Maybe it’s that whole Texas pitcher/cowboy image he gives off. His cards kind of had a look and feel like they were from an old western.

The ’74 Ryan is a great looking card, and I like the ’76 & ’77 Clint Eastwood pose that Ryan gives in each of those cards.

By: sb1902

sb1902 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:07:39 +0000

By the way, this is the most aesthetically perfect baseball card I’ve ever see, certainly of the Cardboard Gods era. Never a big Nolan Ryan fan, but I have always loved this card.

By: shealives

shealives — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:39:57 +0000

godfreyjon65: This game is my favorite memory of Ryan during my childhood. ’75 was the first season I was coherent enough to follow MLB on an everyday basis and I listened to Bob Murphy broadcast Mets games all year. The night of the Ryan game against the Brewers, Murphy gave inning by inning updates on Ryan’s progress toward back-to-back no-hitters. The excitement was really building when he mentioned Ryan was hitless through five. When he announced that Aaron had broken up the no-hit bid in the sixth, he did so as if he were announcing a Presidential assasination in terms of urgency and gravity… I love Bob Murphy.

By: godfreyjon65

godfreyjon65 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:02:00 +0000

This is the game I always remember when I think of Nolan Ryan:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL197506060.shtml
I grew up about 15 miles from the “Big A” and the school I attended was even closer. The Orange County Register used to give away free tickets to Angels games for honor roll students (which I was in 4th grade) so we picked this one, since Hank Aaron was coming to town. Well, Ryan through a no-hitter in his prior start in Baltimore, so suddenly this became a hot ticket as he was going for 2 in a row (look at the attendance figure for this game compared to the games before and after). I was 10, and I even then I knew about Johnny Van Der Meer and the chance at history. Ryan held them hitless until the 6th inning (though I’ve always thought it was the 7th) when who else but Hank Aaron broke it up with a base hit. I can still feel the air going out of the crowd & see the mass exodus after Aaron’s hit, but what a great memory.

By: thunderfan24

thunderfan24 — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:45:05 +0000

That trade was even worse that a trade for another monumental failure at third base (Joe Foy) in which they gave up Amos Otis.

By: ramblinpete

ramblinpete — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:51:07 +0000

While still a child, I came to consciousness, baseball-wise, just in time to realize that my Mets had recently traded this super-human fireball-throwing strikeout-machine for a bag of urinal chips and Monumental Failure-at-Third Base #137, “Jim Fregosi.”

As Ryan continued to dominate throughout my childhood, adolescence, college years, adulthood, and on and on, and so forth, effortlessly chalking up the hallowed no-hitters which continued to elude the Mets, I began to realize that… (in the parlance of showbiz) we’d been “had.”

The subsequent feeling of disillusionment has still not abated.

By: Brent is a Dodger Fan

Brent is a Dodger Fan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:49:57 +0000

12. A simply wonderful post. Thank you.

By: Ken Arneson

Ken Arneson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:02:18 +0000

11. 2 My memories of Nolan Ryan are tied distinctly to the Oakland Coliseum. I remember the day Ryan upstaged Rickey's feat--I had bleacher tickets to every single A's home game from Opening Day through May, in hopes of seeing Rickey break the record. But there was one day--just one day--where I couldn't go because it was a midweek day game and the first day of the month, which was my job's busiest day. And of course, Rickey broke the record the one day I couldn't go. And then when I got home to check out the highlights of the game I had missed, SportsCenter was all over the Nolan Ryan story, and Rickey had to play second fiddle. I also remember being at the Oakland Coliseum on September 26, 1981, when Nolan Ryan threw his fifth no-hitter. I don't remember anything about the game I saw (Mickey Klutts hit two homers; Rickey stole three bases), but I remember distinctly the buzz in the crowd when the word filtered through that Ryan had thrown his fifth no-hitter. Everyone was in awe of Nolan Ryan, not just Angels fans. When Ryan came back to the AL in 1989, I looked forward to seeing him pitch in person, but it seemed every time the Rangers came through town, Ryan's turn in the rotation didn't come up. So when it finally did on June 11, 1990, I made sure I went to the game. I was glad I did; it was the only time I ever saw him pitch in person, and he happened to throw his sixth no-hitter. It's probably my #1 treasured baseball memory.