Titles Piled Up With Nollie Here

And to think it all nearly fell apart during those tense, blustery days back in November of ‘79, when Nolan Ryan received a $1-million contract offer from the Houston Astros and Buzzie Bavasi, reeling in mid-conniption, dared Ryan to take it.

“We can replace him with two 8-7 pitchers,” Bavasi ranted at the time--and haven’t Buzzie and Nolan enjoyed a few laughs over that one, 14 years and eight Angel pennants after the fact?

But, the truth be known, the Angels came perilously close to losing Ryan then. Ryan had already booked a flight to Houston to sign the contract when Gene Autry, catching wind of Bavasi’s snit fit, hustled into a limo and caught Ryan at the LAX Tarmac, where, flushed and out of breath, the Angel owner promptly doubled the Astros’ offer on the spot.

“I swear to you,” Autry told Ryan that day, “as long as I’m living and breathing and running this team, you’ll never wear another uniform.”

The two men shook hands and as they did, the course of American sports history was forever changed.

Looking back, the Angels’ re-signing of Ryan in the fall of 1979 was a watershed moment in 20th Century sports--rivaled in the post-war era by only San Francisco’s drafting of Joe Montana and Portland’s selection of Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. Ryan took the step from baseball superstar to cross-cultural phenomenon during the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and as he did, the Angels went along for the ride.

The pennants began to rain down on Anaheim in 1982, when Ryan ignored what doctors regarded a season-ending knee injury and rejoined Gene Mauch’s rotation in time to pitch the Game 4 clincher in Milwaukee. In a heroic performance, Ryan shut out the Brewers on three hits, prompting Mauch to exclaim amid a champagne shower, “Thank God for Nollie! If not for him, I’d have been down to running Tommy John out there on three days’ rest!”

A week later, Ryan duplicated Don Larsen’s legendary feat by no-hitting St. Louis in Game 6 of the World Series, bringing the Angels their first of seven world championships.

Ryan played a pivotal role in all of them.

His two-hit, 19-strikeout virtuoso in Game 2 of the 1984 American League playoffs broke the spirits of the heavily favored Detroit Tigers, then lauded as baseball’s “Team of the Decade,” and vaulted the Angels into the first all-Southern California World Series, where they swept San Diego with stunning ease.

A 1985 World Series rematch between the Angels and the Cardinals was stalemated at 3-3 before Ryan, working on two days’ rest, threw World Series no-hitter No. 3 in Game 7.

The Angels’ streak of six consecutive American League pennants was nearly interrupted in 1986, when, in Game 5 of the playoffs against Boston, Mike Witt was having trouble closing out the ninth inning.

Mauch brought on relief pitcher Gary Lucas to pitch to Rich Gedman and Lucas hit him on the wrist with his first pitch, bringing the go-ahead run to the plate. Mauch rang the bullpen again, ready to call on sore-armed Donnie Moore, but Ryan grabbed the phone on the first ring and talked Mauch out of it.

“I know I pitched nine yesterday, Skip,” Ryan said, “but I figger my arm has to be in better shape than ol’ Donnie’s. He’s leaking cortisone out here.”

Mauch shrugged and said, “What the hell, it’s only a baseball game.” Ryan needed only three pitches to punch out Dave Henderson and the Angels returned to the World Series, where they defeated the New York Mets in seven games--a series decided when Rob Wilfong’s potential game-ending grounder skipped through the legs of first baseman Keith Hernandez, a gaffe from which the Mets, judging from the current standings, have yet to recover.

The Angels and the Cardinals met for the third time in the 1987 World Series and Ryan, like an old habit, no-hit St. Louis again. Cardinals Manager Whitey Herzog, galled by yet another defeat, retired immediately after the Series. Autry, feeling sorry for his old friend, offered Herzog a fancy title and a cushy front-office job, which consists basically of Herzog phoning Autry every so often in between fishing vacations in Missouri. To this day, Herzog has resisted the urge to return to managing, for good reason.

Mauch also retired in the spring in 1988, his place is baseball history secure: five World Series titles in six seasons. Speaking at Mauch’s Hall of Fame induction, Ryan deadpanned, “When Gene first came to the Angels, all I heard is that this guy ‘couldn’t win the big one . . .’ ” before waves of raucous laughter drowned him out.

Cookie Rojas was Mauch’s hand-picked successor. Although Cookie’s contribution in 1988 was limited, basically, to telling reporters, “Nollie pitch a helluva game tonight,” the Angels won the pennant again, setting up the long-awaited Freeway Series with the Dodgers in October.

In the ninth inning of Game 1, Cookie was confronted with a stumper: What to do about Dodger pinch-hitter Kirk Gibson, limping on bad knees but always dangerous?

“What do I do?” Cookie asked Angel first base coach Bobby Knoop.

“Well, Gene had a similar situation in ‘86,” Knoop replied.

“What did he do?”

“He brought in Ryan.”

“Good idea,” said Cookie, who grabbed the dugout phone and alerted the bullpen: “Bring in Brian!”

Thinking it a bit strange, but being the consummate team player, Brian Downing walked out to the mound and followed orders, hanging a split-fingered fastball that Gibson golfed into the right-field stands.

The Dodgers went on to beat the Angels in five games and Autry wanted to fire Rojas on the spot. Ryan talked him out of it, though, saying, “Awww, give him a another chance, Gene. Cookie’s just a rookie.”

Autry relented and Rojas has gone on to become something of a latter-day Casey Stengel. He still drives purists crazy by doing things like drawing up lineups with two first basemen and no center fielder, but because he wins, he endures. En route to his fourth and fifth Cy Young Awards, Ryan pitched the Angels into the World Series again in 1989 and 1991, making the covers of Time and Newsweek for rescuing a group of frightened Cub Scouts who were stranded in the upper deck of Candlestick Park during the Quake of ’89.

The Angel dynasty has cast a gargantuan shadow over the Southland sports community.

The Dodgers, relegated to bottom-of-the-sports-page status, have panicked in their desperation to keep pace, wasting millions on such free-agent busts as Bill Travers, Dave Parker, Gary Gaetti and Darryl Strawberry.

The Rams, long considered the welfare tenants of Anaheim Stadium, were forced to pay huge salaries to keep Eric Dickerson and bring in Jerry Rice, Keith Jackson and Reggie White. Surrounded by this cornucopia of talent, Jim Everett led the Rams to three straight Super Bowls (1989-91) and now his Orange County-based fan club, some three million strong, is urging a state senate campaign.

Amid public hue and cry, Ryan Arena was erected across the street from Anaheim Stadium last year and now houses the NBA Clippers, who upset two-time defending champion Chicago in the ’93 finals, and the Disney-owned NHL Express, named for Ryan after the proposed nickname--”Mighty Ducks”--prompted a massive fan revolt. “That Mickey Mouse stuff might play in Dallas or New York,” the group’s leader railed, “but not here, in the City of Champions.”

Tonight, the architect of it all makes his final appearance in the recently expanded Anaheim Stadium, where a sellout crowd of 85,000 is expected. One shudders to think what might have happened if the Angels had let Ryan walk on the fateful day in late 1979.

One shudders to think of Ryan pitching tonight’s game in the uniform of, egads, the Texas Rangers. Picture that one, if you can, and keep a box of Kleenex close at hand.