Ryan Had Stuff They Didn’t See

There are lots of things I would rather do than go to bat against Nolan Ryan in the deepening shadows of a California twilight.

Let’s see, in no particular order, they would be,

1.) Go to the dentist for a root canal.

2.) Spend Saturday night in Gestapo headquarters.

3.) Be on the deck of the Titanic.

4.) Ride shotgun for Custer.

5.) Get caught on the ropes by Mike Tyson.

6.) Be in the cockpit of an Indy car with the brakes gone and the tires shredding.

7.) Ride a shark, milk a rattlesnake.

8.) Be on the ocean floor in a submarine with depth charges going off over your head, or

9.) Win a trip to Beirut.

English translation: there are better ways to make a living.

There are All-Stars and there are All-Stars. Long after the final score has been forgotten, the 1989 All-Star game will be remembered for a massive home run hit by Bo Jackson on the second pitch in the bottom of the first inning--and a 35-pitch performance by Lynn Nolan Ryan in which only one pitch was hit out of the infield and most weren’t hit at all.

Nolan Ryan is the oldest man to win an All-Star game. He is the second-oldest to pitch in it.

At the age of 42 1/2, you’re supposed to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in All-Star games, not ones about 97 miles an hour in on the fists of a guy two-thirds your age. That’s what Nolan Ryan’s first pitch did to Ryne Sandberg, who meekly popped it up halfway down the third base line.

There were 56 of the best baseball players on the planet in Tuesday’s All-Star game. Only one is a certified legend. Some day, a half-dozen, or even a dozen of the participants may qualify for the Hall of Fame. Nolan’s already got one foot in it. Some day, old-timers may remember and embellish the home run Bo Jackson hit and rank it with the one another Jackson (Reggie) hit in Detroit in an All-Star game. But Bo Jackson has to hit 300 more before he gets his place in baseball history Nolan Ryan has.

Giving Nolan Ryan twilight to pitch in is like giving Dempsey the first punch. It’s all he will need. The pitching line on him was not earth-shattering. Nolan did not strike out five in a row a la Hubbell in 1934. He just mowed down the lineup with a three-strikeout, one-hit performance. The “hit” went off his glove and never even got as far as the outfield grass, but Tony Gwynn was able to beat it out. Nolan promptly fanned Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell, a slugger who is chasing Babe Ruth’s and Roger Maris’ single-season home run records. Then, Ryan got Eric Davis to get the bat on the ball late and fly out harmlessly to right. It was the only ball to leave the infield.

Nolan Ryan is tough to hit with the sun shining, the sky cloudless and the air quality good and the ball spotless. In the crepuscular light of 7 o’clock on a summer night, the pitches should carry a warning by the Surgeon General.

Playing a game at that hour is the next best thing to playing it underwater. It’s a form of zombie baseball. The light is adequate from the start of a game, 5:30 to about 6:45. Then, when the artificial lights struggle to take over, batters are pretty much at the mercy of a fastball, to say nothing of a Ryan fastball.

It is a measure of how far Nolan Ryan has come as a pitcher that he turned back some of the best hitters in the game with his breaking pitches as much as fastballs Tuesday.

Giving Nolan Ryan a changeup should be a violation of anti-trust. It’s like giving a leopard another set of claws or letting Tyson bite.

They used 14 pitchers in the All-Star game, one of them a little better than half Ryan’s age. But Nolan Ryan, leaning on his knees between pitches and hanging his head as if he were bone-tired and not at all sure if he could hoist the next pitch up to the plate--only to straighten up and loose something that glowed on its way to the plate is a sight to carry away from All-Star game No. 60.

It could ultimately belong to Bo Jackson, as exciting with a bat as Nolan Ryan is with the ball. On the basis of what this Jackson showed on the field--a home run, single, stolen base, running catch and strikeout--you would have to conclude giving him a football is like giving Rembrandt a camera. He might be good at that, too, but it’s a historical oversight. When you can hit the curveball that well, you shouldn’t be in any sport where you have to wear shoulder pads and risk nosebleeds and permanent headaches. Nobody blind-sides you in a home run trot.

There is no question Nolan Ryan is in the right profession. He is as good as any immortal who ever loosed a 100-mile-an-hour fastball at some poor guy with only a bat to do anything about it. If he could always have pitched in twilight, they would have had to ban him like any other assault weapon.