COMMENTARY : Expressly Yours, This Might Have Been Ryan’s Best

Even early, you could feel it, see it, smell it. History was hanging around Arlington Stadium, oh, maybe from the third inning on.

Nolan Ryan was especially special right from the start. Curveball, changeup, blow ‘em away with the sonic boom. Be it the top of the batting order or the bottom, the Toronto Blue Jays appeared clueless.

When a good hitting team is taking feeble hack after feeble hack, and when Ryan is the guy causing such a thing, well. . . .

There was a no-hitter waiting to happen Wednesday night. Just give it nine innings, that’s all.

Nolan Ryan, history-maker and franchise-saver. There has never been anything like him around here, obviously. But is there anything like him anywhere?

What do the Rangers pay Ryan? Isn’t it $3.3 million this season, with team management still negotiating next year’s salary? Your mistake, Tom Grieve. On Tuesday, you might have gotten him cheap, like maybe $4.5 million in 1992.

But after Wednesday night, the price just went to $5.5 million, minimum, and it’s still the biggest bargain in baseball, especially for a manager and general manager, and even an ownership.

Ryan is not the Rangers’ miracle worker simply because he pitches another no-hitter at age 44, or because he’s instant money in the bank at the Arlington Stadium box office.

What Ryan does best is make the paying customers forget about baseball misery. If the team is destined to be mediocre, if the manager is on the hot seat, if the GM is always standing pat, if the ownership is squeezing the dollar, they can still always sell you Nolan.

And believe me, they will. Now, more than ever.

It was simply the greatest event in the 29-year history of Arlington Stadium. Ryan toys--and I do mean toys--with a batting order full of competent hitters, and walks away, tipping his hat, with the seventh no-hitter of his career.

There were 33,431 who actually saw it. But by Thursday morning, at least one million Metroplex residents will swear on a stack of Bibles they were there in person, cheering on ‘ol Nolan.

And then there’s HSE, our local cable outfit. You talk about the biggest blunder in TV history--the HSE honchos blacked out Ryan and provided local viewers with a college game between Oklahoma and Wichita State. Real nice call, fellows. Now, who gets fired first at HSE?

For all those cable subscribers who were denied the privilege of seeing the Ryan no-hitter, allow me to say one thing: It was easy.

There were no great plays behind him, but of course, Ryan kept any plays at all to a minimum by striking out those 16.

Maybe the defensive high came in the sixth, when Manny Lee, the Blue Jays’ shortstop, popped up to what might have been a dead zone out in straight-away center field.

Sure, that one falls in for a hit in most cases, except that Gary Pettis was Bobby Valentine’s pregame choice to start in center. Pettis always plays a shallow defense--that’s his Gold Glove trademark. So when he chased down the balloon from Lee, and made the catch, it was actually a routine play from Pettis.

The hardest hit Toronto ball of the evening came in the eighth, when Mark Whiten smoked a line drive to right. Last year, there might have been extreme panic from Ruben Sierra. But this is a new season and a new Ruben in right field. An easy catch because he played it just right.

Ryan took the mystery out of the eighth after that by striking out the next two hitters. There was also nothing of concern in the ninth, just a couple of routine ground balls to Julio Franco at second, and, finally, the strikeout of Roberto Alomar to end it.

Yes, there had been six other no-hitters by Ryan, but this was easily the most impressive. He had gone from September 1981 to June 1990 between the fifth and sixth no-no, but, honestly, the Oakland A’s had a makeshift lineup on the field a year ago. And besides, that game was played in Oakland.

On this May Day, 1991, Ryan gave Arlington Stadium its first piece of baseball history, at least where a Ranger is concerned.

No-No Nolan does it again.

NO-HITTER BREAKDOWN PITCHES Total: 122 Strikes: 83 Balls: 39 Fastballs for strikes: 62 Curves for strikes: 13 Changeups for strikes: 8 STRIKEOUTS Total: 16 On fastballs swinging: 9 On curves looking: 3 On curves swinging: 3 On changeup swinging: 1 RADAR GUN READINGS Fastball (high speed, 4th inning): 96 m.p.h. Fastball (average speed): 93 m.p.h. Curve (high speed): 80 m.p.h. Curve (average speed): 78 m.p.h. Changeup (high speed): 86 m.p.h. Changeup (average speed): 84 m.p.h. Last pitch (fastball): 93 m.p.h.