Ryan Is Not Older, Just Faster

The Philadelphia Phillies recently fired Nick Leyva, their manager. He is younger than Nolan Ryan. The Dallas Mavericks just released Alex English, the seventh-leading NBA scorer of all time. He is much younger than Nolan Ryan. Bjorn Borg returned to competitive tennis with a resounding defeat after eight years off. He is 10 years younger than Nolan Ryan.

George Foreman?

Too slow.

Jim Palmer?

Too slow.

Mark Spitz?

Too slow.

Where others make comebacks, Nolan Ryan never goes away. Where others fail, Ryan succeeds. Where others run out of gas, Ryan roars on. The man’s not getting older; he’s getting faster . Nolan Ryan is our nominee for eighth wonder of the world. He has thrown another Nolan No-No, a no-hitter against the Toronto Blue Jays, a baseball club that knows how to club a baseball. He was as swift and expedient with the final hitter Wednesday as he was with the first, humming a fastball by him before the poor soul’s eyelids had a chance to blink. And when the deed was done, he reverted back into good ol’, aw-shucks, weren’t-nothin’ Nolan again, toeing the dirt, simple and straightforward as always, thanking everybody for comin’ out and watchin’ and y’all come back now, y’hear?

Such pleasure Nolan Ryan gives the public. He seems plain and genuine and no-frills, in a Chuck Yeager/Lee Iacocca sort of way, just a no-muss, no-fuss, 9-to-5 ballplayer who punches in with his fellow workers every morning and punches out his adversaries every fifth or sixth night. Nolan Ryan is America’s blue-collar baseball pitcher. His uniform ought to be made out of denim.

On another side of the republic Thursday, one Rickey Henderson was stealing third base. When he reached it, he uprooted it and upraised it, full of self-congratulation, like a prospector at a river bank who had finally panned some gold. He wore shades and shook hands with the man whose record he broke, Lou Brock, who anointed this prince of base thieves “a legend.”

Well, let us see if Mr. Henderson is still pilfering bases when he is 44 years old. Let us see how much he has slowed down by then. Has any athlete ever maintained his physical prowess the way Lynn Nolan Ryan has, without benefit of a designated-hitter rule or a senior tour or longer breathers on some team sport’s bench? By that we mean, not just older and wiser but still as skillful as ever?

Did you see the highlight footage from Arlington, Tex., where the brightest star in what is supposed to be a lone-star state was leaving a tail on that comet every time he hurled it toward home plate, still doing that Rockettes-like leg kick on his delivery, still as mighty in strength and as difficult to catch as Jean Valjean, no matter how much he chronologically ages?

They should charge a higher admission on nights Nolan Ryan pitches. If ever any sports team were within its rights to demand that the public pay extra to catch a specific performer’s act, the Texas Rangers are that team. Ryan is as much a headliner as the hottest ticket in Vegas, as appealing as any entertainer in the wide world of sports today.

Why? Because there is no pretension in what Nolan Ryan does, no gimmickry, no shenanigans, no pomp or pomposity. He just goes and throws.

It happens to be Old-Timers’ Year here in the United States, with Foreman, Palmer, Spitz and more attempting to persuade everyone, themselves included, that youth is wasted on the young. Foreman came out swinging, Palmer slinging, Spitz swimming. Their spirits were willing. Their flesh, well, it did the best it could.

But Nolan Ryan won’t stop cranking. If his shoulders and elbows and knuckles are going snap, crackle, pop, he is refusing to show it. How can it be that this righteous old right-hander is the first pitcher of 1991 to throw a no-hitter, when Roger Clemens and Doc Gooden are out there raking in the big pay?

Nolan Ryan did not exactly bound from the mound after the no-hitter. He smiled, almost sheepishly, before being carted off like Cleopatra on the shoulders of his fellow men in uniform. It was proper that teammates should carry him; after all, he has been carrying them for years.