By Tim Brown.
Appearing on Bookreporter.com:
Being able to watch videos of the baseball heroes of my youth from the 1960s and ’70s makes it hard for me to reconcile that they are now old men, and, by extension, so am I. Some, like 90-year-old Sandy Koufax, look like they still sneak one by the hitter. But unlike Koufax, who retired at the age of 30 because of arm troubles, Nolan Ryan lasted until he was almost AARP-eligible, retiring in 1993 at the age of 46.
The opening pages of Tim Brown’s biography bring to mind a bygone era in which young men were brought up to respect their elders, stand by their word, and do the best job they could without excuses. Rising early to deliver newspapers or tending to the livestock were a given for Ryan and his contemporaries growing up in Alvin, Texas.
The image of Ryan brings to mind the western movie genre. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and spoke only when he felt it necessary. In other words, he was the prototypical Marlboro Man.
Ryan did what he did — pitched in the Major Leagues — longer and better than the vast majority of the thousands of men who played the game. Yes, he had some adversity. His early years with the New York Mets proved to be a disappointment, a country boy dealing with the big city, which wasn’t exactly to his taste. Whether he would have thrived as he did if he had not been traded, who can say? (Actually, Ryan could; he maintained that he never received adequate coaching while with the Mets). But thrive he did, with the California Angels and later his home-state Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
Known for his amazing fastball, which earned him the nickname “The Ryan Express,” he won an amazing 324 games while striking out 5,714 batters, leading the league in that department 11 times. Yet for all his prowess, Ryan never led in wins or received the coveted Cy Young Award, given each year to the best pitcher. He also lost 256 games (which could be attributed to a lack of offensive support) and walked 2,795 batters (leading the way seven times), a testament to his tendency to be a bit wild.
As is the case in many of these types of sports biographies, Brown interviewed teammates and opponents to get a sense of Ryan not only as an all-time great hurler, but as a man. You find nothing but praise for his work ethic and dedication to his craft.
Brown — who also wrote The Tao of the Backup Catcher and collaborated on the autobiographies of Jim Abbott, a one-armed pitcher who threw a no-hitter while a member of the New York Yankees, and Rick Ankiel, another pitcher with control problems who became an outfielder — gives major attention to Ruth Ryan, Nolan’s childhood sweetheart whom he married when he was 20 and she was 18. Brown credits Ruth for her unwavering support on the homefront.
The cover of Nolan shows Ryan in his typical pitcher mode: left knee bent high, eyes down, as if he didn’t even need to see the batter to know the likely outcome: a strikeout. To borrow from the Frank Capra classic, it has been a singular life.
is available on Amazon.com,
