5,000 : Ryan First to Reach Plateau; He Strikes Out 13 Athletics

The sultry heat of an August night in Texas provided the appropriate environment Tuesday as Nolan Ryan, the longtime personification of pitching heat, attained and surpassed 5,000-career strikeouts, a major league first.

The remarkable Ryan is at 5,007 and counting after providing the flourish to a showcase event by registering 13 strikeouts against the Oakland Athletics, who made just enough contact to defeat Ryan and the Texas Rangers, 2-0.

A five-hitter by Bob Welch and Dennis Eckersley helped the A’s extend their lead in the American League West to two games over the second-place Angels and a season-high 10 1/2 over the fourth-place Rangers, but that seemed incidental to a sellout crowd of 42,869, the second largest in Arlington Stadium history.

Ryan received a standing ovation when he took the mound to deliver his first pitch with the temperature at 96 degrees and he received another when he used a 96-m.p.h. fastball to record his sixth strikeout of the game and 5,000th of his career.

Rickey Henderson swung and missed it for the first out of the fifth inning, prompting Commissioner Bart Giamatti, standing near the Texas dugout, to lift a cup in toast, and each of the Rangers’ starting players to leave their positions to offer Ryan congratulations on the mound.

It was a brief salute--Ryan had told management he did not want a ceremony or long delay--and he quickly returned to work, displaying the same overpowering pitches with which he struck out Atlanta Braves’ pitcher Pat Jarvis for the first strikeout of his major league career in 1966.

Ryan, 42, ended the fifth inning with two more strikeouts, made it five in a row by striking out the side in the sixth, registered two more in the eighth and retired the last 14 A’s in order.

Ryan is 871 strikeouts ahead of Steve Carlton, who is second on the all-time list. Of the top 10, only the Angels’ Bert Blyleven, fifth with 3,536, is also still active.

And when it was over Tuesday night, when Ryan had thrown the last of his 134 pitches and averaged 94 m.p.h. with a fastball that seven times reached 96 on the speed gun, he said the 5,000 represented the most meaningful of his many milestones because no one had ever done it and it reflected the hallmarks of his career: velocity, durability and a commitment to conditioning.

“I’ve been fortunate to have been able to maintain that velocity,” he said. “I’ve been a power pitcher from the start and I’m happy that the 5,000th strikeout came on a fastball because that’s my bread-and-butter pitch. It’s the pitch that got me to the big leagues and the pitch that helped make my other pitches better.

“At my age, if I lost my velocity I’d be finished. I’ve benefited the last few years from better control and the development of a changeup, but I’m too old now to develop another pitch. I have to rely on the fastball.”

Applauded as he strolled into a postgame news conference, Ryan said he was relieved that 5,000 was behind him but disappointed with the loss in the first game of a series he described as critical for the Rangers. He recalled watching Carlton strikeout 19 New York Mets but lose, and said he now knows how Carlton must have felt.

“I’m excited with the accomplishment but disappointed with the bottom line,” he said. “I felt we were a little flat tonight and I hope it (the quest for 5,000) wasn’t a distraction to the team.

“I can tell you I was very nervous myself. In fact, coming down here tonight I drove right past the stadium, which shows you where my mind was. Another reflection of that is that I was overthrowing during the early innings and didn’t really find a groove until the fifth.”

That was when Henderson, who had doubled in the first and struck out in the third, went down for No. 5,000.

“If you ain’t struck out against Nolan, you ain’t struck out against nobody,” Henderson said. “When I went up there in the fifth I asked the umpire (Larry Young) if I could have the ball if I struck out. He kind of laughed and said, ‘I don’t think either of us could get out of here with it.’ ”

Henderson laughed himself as he stood by his locker, then added:

“He struck me out with his best pitch. I can’t feel too badly about it because nobody could hit that pitch. The way I look at it, I’m honored to be part of the record. I’m happy he got it and I’m happy we won.”

The crowd seemed to go home happy as well. Some had paid $150 for $10 box seats. The game was sold out soon after Ryan drew within six of 5,000 by striking out eight in Seattle Wednesday night.

There were full-page color pictures of Ryan and page after page of stories in three Dallas-area papers Tuesday. A Dallas Morning News editorial praised Ryan for his work ethic and called him a true role model in an era of drug abuse.

Characteristic of Ryan’s impact on the Arlington area, said one Ranger official, is that he was able to get off jury duty this week by presenting a court officer with a ball autographed by Ryan, who put his signature on Tuesday night’s game in more ways than one.

He has 232 strikeouts to break the Rangers’ single-season record, set by Ferguson Jenkins in 1974. This was also the 194th time in his career he has struck out 10 or more in a game, the 13th time in 1989, tying a club record.

Although the loss was his eighth against 14 wins, Ryan matched the five-hitter by Welch and Eckersley, giving up only one earned run, and could have pitched a shutout with better fielding support.

Opponents are batting only .182 against him this year and Ryan is averaging 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings, the second best ratio of his career.

Appropriately, Welch also rose to the occasion, equaling his season high with nine strikeouts in eight innings.

A’s equipment man Steve Vucinich had taped a sign to the dugout wall before the game that read: “Bob Welch goes for (win) No. 14 tonight.”

“Got to remember what’s important,” Vucinich said.

The A’s have a way of doing that, but it was still Nolan Ryan’s night, still the “King of Ks” show, as a banner in left field proclaimed.

And now 6,000?

“Well,” Ryan said, “they’re starting up that 35 and older league down in Florida. I wasn’t drafted, but I’m thinking of going down in November and see if I can make one of those clubs.”

RYAN MILESTONES

Milestone strikeouts of Nolan Ryan’s career:

No. Date Player, Team 1 9-11-66 Pat Jarvis, Braves 100 6-18-68 D. LeMaster, Astros 500 4-18-72 Charlie Manuel, Twins 1,000 7-3-73 Sal Bando, Athletics 1,500 8-25-74 Sandy Alomar, Yankees 2,000 8-31-76 Ron LeFlore, Tigers 2,500 8-12-78 Buddy Bell, Indians 3,000 7-4-80 Cesar Geronimo, Reds 3,500 4-17-83 Andre Dawson, Expos 3,509* 4-27-83 Brad Mills, Expos 4,000 7-11-85 Danny Heep, Mets 4,500 9-9-87 Mike Aldrete, Giants 5,000 8-22-88 Rickey Henderson, A’s

* Broke Walter Johnson’s all-time career strikeout record.

STRIKEOUT LEADERS

The top 10 all-time strikeout leaders through Aug. 22:

1 *Nolan Ryan 5,007 2 Steve Carlton 4,136 3 Tom Seaver 3,640 4 Don Sutton 3,574 5 *Bert Blyleven 3,536 6 Gaylord Perry 3,534 7 Walter Johnson 3,508 8 Phil Niekro 3,342 9 Ferguson Jenkins 3,192 10 Bob Gibson 3,117

* active