They Have Fans Under the Gun

Those who follow the adventures of Nolan Ryan these days appear to be puzzled by the speed of his fastball.

Nor is the onfusion eased by television, which enlists the help of the radar gun to measure the velocity of Nolan’s hummers, now dispensed by an arm that is 43.

An arm that is 43 is not to be dismantled and sold for parts. But it isn’t supposed to cause trouble, either, getting folks quarreling over whether the pitches it turns loose are traveling 90, 93, 95 or even 100 m.p.h.

Society would be relieved of a major burden today if speed guns had not been invented. Jim Palmer, your friendly neighborhood Hall of Famer, never has trusted the gun, pointing out that Pennsylvania highway police using the instrument one day got no reading on a motorist but clocked a tree going 85.

Then a discrepancy exists between the two principal speed guns employed in baseball, one brand measuring pitches at roughly 4 m.p.h. faster than the other.

And some scouts will submit that low pitches register faster on the gun than high pitches.

Nolan Ryan wishes that arguments over the speed of his pitches would desist.

“It doesn’t mean anything, because how fast you throw the ball isn’t as important as where you throw it,” he explains.

Statistics show, besides, that Ryan today is throwing only 60% fastballs. He goes to the curve 25% of the time and to the changeup 15%.

If Ryan never took speed guns seriously as a rosy-jawed lad, he isn’t taking them seriously at 43. With a knowing smile, he has allowed a promotional circus to be built around his speed for years.

Back in 1974, when Ryan served the Angels, a marketing genius came up with the idea of offering a trip to Hawaii to the fan coming closest to predicting how fast he would throw the ball in a game at Anaheim Stadium.

To give substance to this cerebral explosion, the Angels invited a team of four scientists from Rockwell International to deploy a new infrared radar device used previously for determining the speed of missiles.

Setting up this instrument, the scientists went to work. They clocked Ryan’s fastball at 100.9 m.p.h.--and it was aloha for a customer hitting that figure on the button.

It was explained that the same equipment could measure the speed of a baserunner, but, blessedly, it hasn’t been called upon for that purpose.

Otherwise, you might be hearing on TV, “On that last steal, Vince Coleman reached a maximum speed of 28 m.p.h.”

Do speed guns serve any useful purpose, or, producing more numbers, do they clutter further the minds of viewers?

“The guns are probably most useful in the scouting of young talent,” says Ben Wade, director of scouting for the Dodgers. “Speed is the basic item for beginning your assessment. You put a gun on a kid. If it it measures, say, 90, you know this is someone worth your attention.

“But clocking speed also is dangerous because, finding someone who lacks it, you could walk away from a good pitcher. We have a fine prospect named Jim Neidlinger. He throws only 85. But he has finesse, which is just as important as speed.”

Once a giant of the bullpen, a big velocity man, Goose Gossage contended that speed guns made his job easier.

“Batters hear about these gun ratings,” Gossage said. “They psych out. They grow tense at the plate, worried whether they will be able to get around on the pitch. If I were a hitter, I would step into the box pretending no one throws faster than 82.”

The problem of the batter increases when word reaches him that the pitcher’s fastball rises, as it is supposed to do for such as Ryan, Roger Clemens and Rob Dibble.

Many scholars will debate you on the issue of the rising fastball, claiming that it is an optical illusion. The eye is so trained to seeing pitches that drop that when they maintain their plane, they give the impression of rising, goes that argument.

It reminds you of the testimony offered by Yogi Berra on a tape-measure homer by Mickey Mantle.

“When that ball hit the third tier 400 feet away, it was still rising!” Yogi exclaimed.

Well, an object following a reasonably parabolic course must travel as great a distance on the fall as it does on the rise, meaning that Mantle, to Berra’s discerning eye, had an 800-foot jewel in the works.