RYAN : Houston’s Strikeout King Has Probably Lost a Little Speed on His Still-Feared Fastball, but He Hasn’t Lost That Burning Desire to Win

The old gun is still the fastest gun, outlasting all the legends and dodging all the dreamers.

If Willie doesn’t write a song about him, Waylon will. The movie rights belong to Clint Eastwood. The Duke would have loved the part.

As myth would have it, Nolan Ryan will go out, six-shooters a’blazin’, gunning down Dwight Gooden or Roger Clemens or Mike Witt in one final showdown. Then he’ll ride off into the sunset with his sweetheart, the prettiest girl in Alvin, Tex., galloping away while the singing cowboy himself, Gene Autry, croons a suitable ditty.

With nothing left to prove, Nolan Ryan could then retire to punching cattle instead of punching out batters, having tamed the West--and the American and National leagues, too.

Louis L’Amour wouldn’t have it any other way.

But Lynn Nolan Ryan would. Sure, the Houston Astro right-hander would like nothing better than to be pitching in another World Series, four months shy of his 40th birthday and 17 years after making his only other Series appearance, as a reliever for the ’69 Mets.

But if you don’t mind, the greatest strikeout pitcher in baseball history will choose his own last hurrah, thank you.

And this, he says, isn’t it.

“I’m not riding off yet,” he said.

“I shall return, just like MacArthur.”

After a record 4,277 strikeouts, there may not be many bullets left in Ryan’s belt. Of course, they’ve been saying that about him for years. Ryan himself has reluctantly acknowledged the mortal properties of his amazing right arm.

“If my arm doesn’t respond and it doesn’t work out, I’ve had a good career,” he said. “Sooner or later, everybody’s going to have to leave the game, and I don’t think anybody’s ever ready for it.”

A recent conversation with Ryan? Try 1976, shortly after he’d had surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow.

That was 10 years and more than 2,000 strikeouts ago. Six years ago, he said: “I’m 33 years old. Koufax was retired by then. Gibson was starting to go downhill. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the kind of years they did. I know I’d like to have one.”

The next year, at 34, Ryan threw his fifth no-hitter, breaking the record he had shared with Koufax.

His fastball, which once exceeded 100 m.p.h., was timed at 99 in 1984. As recently as July, it was clocked at 95. He consistently remains in the 93-94 range, even though the pain in his elbow screams to be recognized every time he pitches.

That’s why Ryan doesn’t even pick up a ball except when it’s time to warm up on the day he’s pitching. He doesn’t even play long-toss in the outfield anymore.

“If I had my choice, I’d be out there throwing,” Ryan said.

If Ryan had his choice, he wouldn’t have been on the disabled list for a second time this season in July. Astro Manager Hal Lanier made that choice for him.

But Ryan isn’t prepared to have anyone tell him it’s time to retire to his ranch, even if sealing wax may be all that’s holding the elbow together.

Surgery?

“I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question but it’s on the back burner,” Ryan said.

“All I need is enough time to rest it. If I rest this winter, I think it’ll respond 100% next year.”

And there will be another next year, he said. Plan on it.

“I enjoy what I’m doing,” he said. “And as long as there’s nothing pressing, I have to move on to for another year or two, why shouldn’t I keep doing what I enjoy?”

Ryan has a year remaining on a contract that pays him $1 million a season. There is also an option year.

“The team’s option,” he said with a grin. “I can’t get one of those Reggie Jackson contracts.”

So the cattle--Ryan keeps heifers on his property in nearby Alvin and a herd of 250 registered beefmaster cattle (part Brahman, part Hereford) on his commercial ranch 150 miles away--will have to wait.

Roger Craig, the Giants’ manager and a former pitcher, isn’t surprised.

“Nobody’s thrown as hard as he has for as long as he has for as long as I’ve been living,” said Craig, 55, after watching Ryan hold the Giants to one hit through eight innings while striking out a dozen batters on the night the Astros clinched a tie for the Western Division title.

“He might pitch till he’s 50. He might cool down to 90 miles an hour in five more years.”

Said Ryan, when told of Craig’s remarks: “I don’t think in five years you’ll have to worry about me.”

It’s the years in between, though, that have National League hitters concerned. When it comes to describing the experience of facing Ryan with a bat in your hands, Reggie Jackson still said it best: “Hitting Nolan Ryan’s fastball is like eating coffee with a fork.”

Is this any way for a grown man to act his age?

With two out in the second inning of that game against the Giants, two weeks before the start of the National League playoffs, Nolan Ryan was thrown out trying to steal second base. He said he wanted to give the batter, Billy Hatcher, a chance to drive in a run.

“I’m told he does it about once a year,” said Lanier, new to the Astros this year.

“That just shows what kind of competitor he is. I’m just going to have to have (Davey) Lopes work with him.”

Lopes was in the Dodger lineup against the Astros Sept. 26, 1981, when Ryan threw no-hitter No. 5. Since coming to the Astros from the Cubs this summer, his appreciation of Ryan has only grown.

“I’ve seen other things I didn’t see when I played against him,” Lopes said. “I knew he was a great competitor, but I didn’t know how great.

“His desire to win. His threshold of pain. You see a guy throwing like he does and say, ‘BS, he’s not hurt.’ But I know a few things about him now.”

Of all of Ryan’s Astro teammates, reliever Charlie Kerfeld would seem to be the most unlikely candidate to wind up as Ryan’s buddy. Kerfeld, by his own definition, is a “rookie lunatic.” His goofiness would hardly seem to go hand in hand with Ryan’s gentility.

Yet, Kerfeld says, Ryan has taken him under his wing. Maybe Ryan just has a soft spot for rookies. When Jim Deshaies, another rookie, set a big league record by striking out the first eight Dodgers to face him, Ryan and his wife Ruth gave Deshaies and his wife a bottle of fine wine.

“That was awfully nice but what’s new?” Deshaies said. “That’s the kind of guy he is, the kind of people they are.”

What drew Ryan to Kerfeld, the rookie reliever said, wasn’t his niceness.

“We’re a little bit alike,” Kerfeld said. “We both have a little mean streak in us.

“He’s the best competitor I’ve ever seen in baseball. He never gives in to nobody. Meaner than a junkyard dog.”

It was Ryan, Kerfeld said, who introduced him to bow ties--and he wasn’t talking about neckwear.

“That’s a pitch we throw right here--right about the chin,” Kerfeld said, an evil gleam in his eye. “We call ‘em bow ties. Nolan said he first heard about ‘em from Satchel Paige.”

Dodger utility man Enos Cabell, who played first base for Houston, recalled the first time he approached the mound when Ryan was pitching.

“He asked me, what was I doing there?” Cabell said. “I just said, ‘Excuse me’ and went back to first.

“He never wanted anyone to come to the mound when he was pitching. When he’d step off and walk around the mound, that was his time, he wanted to get himself together.

“He’s a great competitor. He hates to lose. He’s really a nice guy, but on the mound, he’s a bitch.”

A dual personality? You bet.

“There’s no doubt I’m two different people on and off the field,” Ryan said. “That’s why I won’t get close to players on opposing teams, because if I have to knock them down I will.

“I’ll do what I have to do to win. I’m not a real nice person out there.”

Nolan Ryan was four years out of high school when he last appeared in a World Series. He relieved Gary Gentry in Game 3 of the ’69 Series and picked up a save for the Mets in their stunning five-game blitz of the Baltimore Orioles.

“I spent the majority of that season in and out of the rotation and the bullpen,” he said. “I was coming back to Houston every other weekend because of my military obligation (he was in the Army reserve).

“It was my second year in the big leagues. When you’re young like that, you take a lot of things for granted. You assume, when things happen that fast, that early, that that’s the way it is.

“That’s why, after all the things that have happened to me since then, that this year has been so enjoyable. I realize how fortunate I am to be in this position.

“Bad arm and all, this has been one of the most enjoyable years of my career. There have been a lot of years that I accomplished more on a personal basis than I have this year. On a personal basis, there has been a lot of adversity this year.”

Teammates Mike Scott, the probable Cy Young Award winner, and Bob Knepper each have won more games this season than Ryan, who was erratic at the beginning, then was put on the disabled list twice.

It happened the second time, in July, after he had struck out 14 Expos and allowed one hit in 9 innings, then struck out 10 Phillies in five innings in his next start before coming out with a sore elbow.

“When we put him on the DL the second time, he didn’t agree with it,” Lanier said. “He was like a fine-tuned car. His rhythm was good, his curveball was great. But when a guy comes out in the fifth inning complaining about his elbow . . .

“I was looking at the long run. I respected his feelings, but I wanted a healthy Nolan Ryan for a longer period of time. I knew we weren’t going to win or lose the pennant on that one West Coast trip.”

Ryan returned Aug. 12 and has pitched well since, with Lanier limiting him to about 100 pitches a start. He threw 108 in his 1-hit, 12-strikeout performance against the Giants.

“With hindsight, I’d say it paid off,” Ryan says now. “But that’s something you can’t foresee when you’re facing it.”

Ryan’s catcher, Alan Ashby, said he doesn’t know how much pain Ryan is in because the pitcher never tells him.

“Truthfully, I don’t know,” Ashby said. “I’ve been catching him for seven years, and I honestly don’t know if I can tell a difference in the velocity of his fastball.”

Ryan said that the day he loses his velocity will be the day he walks away from it all. Then the only diamond you’ll see him on is the one he’s building on his ranch in Alvin for his three children, two sons and a daughter.

“We’ve got the backstop, the bases and the clay for the mound,” he said. “But my arm problems have made it an off-season project. I want to do it myself.”

There’ll be no artificial turf, he said.

“Economically, that wouldn’t be too good,” he said. “The field is for baseball and for grazing.”

It has meant much to Ryan, who still lives in the town in which he was raised, to be able to pitch so close to home. In Alvin, he’s a director of the local bank, sponsors a scholarship fund, and still gets his hair cut in town.

If it were up to the natives, Ryan would be voted to the Hall of Fame by acclamation. His place in history should be assured, but Ryan has his doubts.

“I don’t give it any thought,” he said. “Guys who never saw Nolan Ryan pitch are going to look at my overall record and say, ‘He was just over a .500 pitcher.’

“That’s the classic criticism, but they haven’t done their homework. Most of ‘em haven’t cracked open a press guide.”

But it isn’t just uninformed sportswriters who have leveled that charge against Ryan. When the Angels let Ryan sign as a free agent with the Astros in 1979, California General Manager Buzzie Bavasi asked where he could find a couple of 8-7 pitchers to replace him.

“Consider that source, too,” Ryan said. “Buzzie did admit that maybe he made a mistake.

“Buzzie’s attitude was a blessing to me. It gave me a chance to play at home and make a lot more money. He could have signed me for about a third of what I signed for.”

Ryan even allows that if, for some reason, Houston chose not to exercise the option on his contract, Anaheim would be the first place he’d like to go.

“I hope (the Angels) go to the World Series,” he said. “I’m a big Gene Autry fan. He was great to me. I’d like to pitch against them in the World Series.”

As last acts go, that would be a grabber. But Ryan isn’t going. For now, his final words are: To be continued.

NOLAN RYAN STRIKEOUT PITCHING

Innings Strikeouts Average for Year Pitched 9 Innings 1966 3 6 18.00 1968 134 133 8.93 1969 89 92 9.30 1970 132 125 8.52 1971 152 137 8.11 1972 284 329 10.43 1973 326 383 10.57 1974 333 367 9.92 1975 198 186 8.45 1976 284 327 10.98 1977 299 341 10.26 1978 235 260 9.96 1979 223 223 9.00 1980 234 200 7.69 1981 149 140 8.46 1982 250 244 8.81 1983 196 183 8.39 1984 183 197 9.65 1985 232 209 8.11 1986 178 194 9.81 Totals 4096 4277 9.40