Ryan’s Farewell Tour Derailed by Injuries : Baseball: Texas Ranger decries his misfortune and wonders whether he will pitch again.

It has been the farewell tour without fanfare.

Nolan Ryan, 46, lumbers toward the end of a baseball career with an injured hip and a sense of urgency. This is not how he wanted his 26th and final season to play out.

“It’s been a miserable year,” Ryan said at a news conference before Monday’s game between the Angels and the Texas Rangers. “I look back and it’s been the worst year in my career.”

Ryan wanted it to be one of his best, a tall order considering he holds or shares 53 major league pitching records. Instead, he has suffered through one injury after another.

First, torn cartilage in his knee. Ryan underwent arthroscopic surgery less than a week after opening the season with a 3-1 victory over Boston, No. 320 of his career.

Ryan came back and made one start and strained a muscle in his hip. He returned to the disabled list May 8 and has been there since.

Suddenly Ryan, who wanted to go out in style, had to wonder if he was going to go out in traction.

“Coming out of spring training, I was hoping it might be one of the more enjoyable seasons,” Ryan said. “It certainly hasn’t worked out that way.”

In three starts, Ryan is 1-2 with a 4.50 earned-run average. After beating Boston, he gave up six runs in four innings against Baltimore.

Ryan came back from the knee injury and surrendered six runs in the first inning at Kansas City. He left after four innings and hasn’t pitched since.

So it hasn’t even been a fair farewell tour.

“I’ve been real disappointed with the way it’s turned out,” Ryan said. “I’m just sitting around waiting for my hip to heal. That’s not making a whole lot of progress.”

There is no timetable for Ryan’s return. At first, doctors said it would be four to six weeks. It has been 4 1/2 weeks and Ryan still hasn’t been able to throw.

“I’m hoping that one day I wake up and it’s a lot better,” Ryan said.

For that to happen, Ryan’s body will have to cooperate. He has always prided himself on staying in shape, working hours on end to maintain his body. But time doesn’t always make that possible.

It’s one of the reasons Ryan decided to call it quits after this season.

“I’ve seen these type of things coming on,” he said. “That was certainly one of the reasons for me to decide to get out of the game. I never had a hip problem. I never had a knee problem. These are new injuries for me to deal with.”

As a result, Ryan has been on only two trips since the season began. So far there have been no pregame ceremonies, gifts or laurels to a man considered the game’s most popular player.

But then, there hasn’t been much chance for that sort of thing.

“I went to Kansas City and pitched, and it was a disaster there,” he said. “This is the second trip I’ve been on, so I can’t readily say how it’s been in visiting cities because I haven’t been to any.”

Ryan was asked to join the Rangers on this trip by Manager Kevin Kennedy, who thought his influence would help the team’s young pitching staff.

The Rangers have hardly collapsed without him, but they’ve hardly thrived. They are 29-32 and four games behind the Royals.

“We had a rough trip last time and we have some young pitchers,” Ryan said. “Kevin thought my presence would be beneficial. I hope next road trip that I’m in the rotation.”

That is still up in the air. All Ryan knows is he doesn’t want to go out this way.

“I would hate to know that I have pitched my last game,” Ryan said. “I will continue to work to try to get ready, even if that means I get only one start the rest of the year and it’s on the last day of the season. If that’s what it comes down to, that’s what I’m going to do.”