AN AMERICAN KLASSIC

Given the work ethic that enabled him to pitch for 27 years in the major leagues, it is not surprising that Nolan Ryan is retired in name only.

At 52, five years after he ended his remarkable career, the power pitcher has become something of a power broker: Part banker, philanthropist, rancher, minor league owner, major league team advisor, government official, restaurant owner and heavily recruited product endorser.

An already full and impressive resume will be enhanced Sunday, when Ryan is inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y.--a man of many hats choosing to be bronzed in that of the Texas Rangers, although he spent only his last five seasons with the Rangers compared with eight with the Angels and nine with the Houston Astros.

“If it hadn’t been for the things that happened here,” he said, sitting in an executive office at the Ballpark in Arlington, where he serves in a part-time role as assistant to the Ranger president, “I would have gone in as an Angel. My years in Anaheim were good years. It was a tough decision, and I gave it a lot of consideration.”

Among the “things” that happened for the Texan with Texas were his 300th win, his 5,000th strikeout and two no-hitters, the last at age 46.

“My five years with the Rangers were the most enjoyable of my career,” he said. “I was past the point of experiencing the frustration and pressure that every player experiences early in his career. I was at a point where I could have walked away at any time and said, ‘Hey, I’ve had a great career and I’m thankful for it.’ We were also at a point as a family where my wife and children could travel at times and enjoy it with me. I mean, it was like receiving a bonus on top of everything that had already happened. It was very special.”

The five years with the Rangers at an age when most players are thinking only about tee times helped lift Ryan’s catalog of improbable statistics and accomplishments to a level that made his Hall of Fame election automatic--and extended the agony in Anaheim.

His departure as a free agent after the 1979 season still haunts the Angels and then-general manager Buzzie Bavasi, who continues to call it the biggest mistake of his coast-to-coast career as a renowned executive with the Dodgers and Angels.

Ryan had blazed to national prominence in Anaheim, ultimately shedding the control problems that retarded his early development with the New York Mets. He pitched four no-hitters with the Angels, tying Sandy Koufax’s all-time record before going on to bury it with seven, and he also pitched five one-hitters, 13 two-hitters and 19 three-hitters as an Angel. He struck out 300 or more batters five times in the eight years, establishing the all-time record with 383 in 1973. He won 16 or more games six times and 19 or more four times while pitching for a team that had better than a .500 record only twice in the eight years and changed managers six times.

“I used to hear a lot of comments about being a .500 pitcher, but it wasn’t as if those Angel teams were only one player away,” Ryan said. “You could have added Babe Ruth and it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. When you look at the type clubs those were, my control problems were very detrimental to me. I could walk three or four guys, give up four or five hits, and it would cost me the game. If I had been on a team that scored five or six runs a game, it would have been nothing. On the other hand, pitching for those Angel teams made me a more focused and better pitcher since I didn’t have the luxury of making a mistake. I remember a game against Kansas City in which Amos Otis stole home and we lost, 1-0. That was an example of how little margin I had.”

Ryan was 138-121 with a 3.06 earned-run average as an Angel, a .533 percentage compared with the team’s .481 over that span.

Ultimately, none of it meant anything.

Bavasi balked at Ryan’s bid to become baseball’s first $1-million-a-year player, engaged in a personality clash with agent Dick Moss, gambled that Ryan wouldn’t leave because of his close relationship with then-owner Gene Autry and ultimately, after Ryan got his $1 million from the Astros, said that the Angels could easily replace him because he only had to find two 8-7 pitchers, a snide reference to Ryan’s 16-14 record in 1979, when the Angels won their first division title.

Those two 8-7 pitchers became the object of a costly and futile pursuit.

“Nolan belongs in the Hall of Fame, there’s no question about it,” the retired Bavasi said. “If I had to do it over, I would have gone to Gene and convinced him to give him the money, but there was more to it than the salary. We had received a letter from the agent demanding an insurance policy and three pages of incentives. It was tough on Gene because he was so fond of Nolan, but he didn’t understand it and neither did I. You have to keep in mind that Nolan was basically a .500 pitcher in his last two years with us. I had to look at wins and losses. I had to consider whether we were winning pennants with a pitcher who wanted the biggest salary in baseball. I mean, it just wasn’t happening.”

At no time with the Astros and Rangers, Ryan said, did he become closer to an owner than he had been with Autry, but “Gene had hired Buzzie to run the organization and he wasn’t going to get involved, and Buzzie was old school at a time when that school had long since let out.”

The Houston offer made it possible for Ryan to live in his suburban Alvin home full time, and by then his relationship with Bavasi “was so strained I wouldn’t have considered going back. What Buzzie did, basically, was make it possible for me to move on and make a lot of money.”

Ryan pitched for 14 years after he left the Angels and may have continued if he hadn’t torn an elbow ligament in his final 1993 start after consistently registering 95 and 96 mph on the speed gun in his previous start against the Angels, still throwing heat at 46.

He retired with a 324-292 record and 3.19 ERA. His 27 years are a major league record, as are his 5,714 strikeouts and seven no-hitters--a total that was so close to being much higher. He lost five no-hitters in the ninth inning and tied Bob Feller for the most one-hitters with 12. He is fifth on the all-time list in innings pitched and second to Cy Young in starts.

Of the 497 Hall of Fame ballots cast by eligible members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America, Ryan was named on 491, a 98.79% mark that is the second highest in history to the 98.84% received by former Met teammate Tom Seaver in 1992. Seaver was named on 425 of 430 ballots.

“I was honored to have that many people vote for me,” a relaxed Ryan said in his ballpark office. “When you consider that Joe DiMaggio wasn’t even voted in on his first year of eligibility, I think it’s difficult to know what to expect, let alone think you might be unanimous.”

Ryan cited his generally laid-back personality and said that, like many of his accomplishments, his election and induction will probably set in gradually, hitting him later.

“I remember congratulating Don Sutton on his 250th win when we were teammates with the Astros and he said something like, ‘Now I only need 50 more,’ ” Ryan recalled. “I asked him what he meant and he said, ‘There’s never been a 300-game winner who hasn’t been voted into the Hall of Fame.’ I had never thought much about the Hall until then, but I found that interesting and I started looking at who was in the Hall and what their credentials were.”

Ryan insisted, however, that the Hall was never the motivation to keep pitching--nor does he regard it as the ultimate yardstick. His record is what it is. There are many great players and pitchers not in the Hall.

“People would ask me about the Hall as my career was winding down and I’d say, ‘You know, I don’t really think about it because I’m preoccupied with my career and what it takes to perform,’ ” he said.

“In the years since I’ve been retired, people would introduce me as a future Hall of Famer and it always made me feel a little funny. As much as I’m looking forward to the inductions, it will be nice to have them behind me.”

More than 150 friends and relatives will join Ryan in Cooperstown. Many are flying there on “the Ryan Express,” part of Southwest Airlines’ regular fleet.

“I’m not a public speaker, but I intend to thank the people who played a role in my career,” Ryan said. “With every organization I played in, there were people who had a positive effect.”

With the Mets, he said, there was Seaver, whose competitiveness and professionalism set a tone.

With the Angels, the late pitching coach, Tom Morgan, helped him overcome his control problems by focusing on his delivery and mechanics, and the late Jimmie Reese, the master of the fungo, became a friend and confidant who extended his conditioning program during the many hours that Reese wielded his fungo, hitting line drives and ground balls at Ryan.

With the Astros, the first organization Ryan went to that had a complete conditioning room, he encountered a strength and conditioning coach, Gene Coleman, who put him on the program that was vital to Ryan’s longevity and helped delay the aging process, a program enhanced with the Rangers through his close relationship with pitching coach Tom House, whose innovative training and conditioning concepts Ryan was always eager to try.

“I think the impact that Tom Morgan had on my delivery and that Gene Coleman and Tom House had on my conditioning were pivotal to my longevity and durability,” Ryan said. “I was never motivated by the number of years or the goal of pitching to a certain age, but the challenge was in continuing to compete at that level against guys who were a lot younger than I was, and because of that I was willing to work and put in the additional hours. When you come from a background where you don’t know anything but work, you don’t think anything of it.”

Which is why, among the many people Ryan will thank Sunday, his late father, Nolan Sr., will be at the head of the list. The senior Ryan worked two jobs to help sustain a family that included two sons and four daughters. From the time Nolan was in the second grade, he would be up at 1 a.m. to help his father with a Houston Post distributorship, then return to bed at 4:30 for a few hours before school, when his father left for his day job as an oil field supervisor.

“The work ethic I grew up with and always maintained came from my father and mother,” Ryan said. “When you think about all the pitches I threw and all the innings, I never gave it any thought. Now it’s hard for me to understand why young pitchers can’t go more than five or six innings and they worry so much about pitch counts. I was throwing 170 pitches a game in those early years with the Angels and I would get stronger as the game went on. Maybe I got in a groove and became consistent with my delivery, but the young pitchers now don’t often get the chance to go deep in the game. Times change, I guess, but I’ve always been amused when I think about how I was like 6-2 and 140 or 150 pounds as a senior in high school and scouts would come through and not give me a second look because they didn’t think I’d hold up.”

Ryan held up to the extent that he threw his seventh no-hitter 18 years after his first, won 71 games after turning 40, was still throwing in the mid-90s during his final starts, and loved the idea of dealing from power--perhaps the quintessential power pitcher even when he developed the deadly changeup that allowed him to compensate for lost velocity.

“From the time I was in high school, I was blessed with the ability to be a fastball pitcher,” Ryan said. “That was me, and that’s how I liked going about it. I remember in ‘73, Jim Palmer won the Cy Young Award and I was second and he criticized me by saying that he pitched for outs and I pitched for strikeouts. What was the difference? Was I supposed to apologize for being the type pitcher I was? Did people criticize Sandy Koufax for being a strikeout pitcher?

“I enjoyed being a power pitcher. It was kind of like being a home run hitter. People looked at you a little differently, and I think it created more interest. I enjoy watching a Greg Maddux pitch because he’s truly an artist and I appreciate what he can do, but if I had my choice I’d be what I was because I think there were several advantages. I always felt I could get the strikeout when I needed it, that there were times I could make a mistake as a power pitcher and still get people out, and that it created a degree of intimidation in the mind of some hitters.”

The degree to which Ryan turned the wild potential of his early years into blazing reality will be documented Sunday in Cooperstown--the induction intruding to an extent on his role as owner of three Texas cattle ranches, a member of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, owner and chairman of the Express Bank (with branches in Alvin and Danbury, Texas), owner of the Bass Inn and Waterfront Steakhouse & Grill near Choke Canyon Reservoir, sponsor and member of the board of the Nolan Ryan Foundation and Scholarship Fund at the new Nolan Ryan Center for Continuing Education at Alvin Community College, owner of the Jacksonville Generals of the double-A Texas League, a team that will be known next year as the Round Rock Express and will play in a new stadium being built under son Reid’s supervision in Round Rock, Texas, and a commercial spokesman for a wide range of products.

Ryan also has the advisory position with the Rangers but is so busy that he admits to not having a solid perspective on the team.

“If you ask me what the biggest surprise is since I retired, it’s how busy I’ve been, and that’s good,” he said. “It was time to get away from the game and do some other things, get out of that rut in a sense.”

That rut led right to the Hall of Fame. Even Bavasi and the Angels would doff their caps in tribute.

* Part II: Friday, Robin Yount

NOLAN RYAN BY THE NUMBERS

27: Seasons in the majors (record)

324: Career victories (tied for 12th)

7: No-hitters

5,714: Career strikeouts (record)

12: One-hitters (record, including five no-hitters lost in 9th inning)

215: Times he had 10 or more strikeouts in a game (record)

383: Strikeouts in a season, 1973 (record)

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Most Career Strikeouts

1. Nolan Ryan: 5,714

2. Steve Carlton: 4,136

3. Bert Blyleven: 3,701

4. Tom Seaver: 3,640

5. Don Sutton: 3,574

6. Gaylord Perry: 3,534

7. Walter Johnson: 3,509

8. Phil Niekro: 3,342

9. Roger Clemens: 3,234

10. Ferguson Jenkins: 3,192

NOLAN RYAN TIMELINE

Professional career highlights

Born: Jan 31, 1947

Full name: Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr.

Birthplace: Refugio, Texas

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1965: Signs contract with New York Mets

1966: Named Western Carolina’s pitcher of the year. Makes major league debut against Atlanta Braves on Sept. 11

1967: Sits out most of season with elbow injury.

1968: Pitches first full season with the Mets, posting a 6-9 record.

1969: Goes 6-3 but wins a crucial game in the playoffs and earns a save in the World Series.

1971: Mets trade Ryan to California Angels.

1972: Ryan leads American League with 320 strikeouts and 9 shutouts and is named to All-Star team.

1973: First 20-win season and pitches two no-hitters; ends seasons with 383 strikeouts, a major league record.

1974: Wins career high 22 games; leads a league with 367 strikeouts; pitches third and fourth no-hitters.

1979: Signs with the Houston Astros as free agent. First player in history of major leagues to sign for $1 million.

1980: Strikes out 3,000th batter.

1981: Pitches no-hitter, setting major league record.

1983: Records 3,509th strikeout, breaking major league mark.

1985: Becomes first pitcher in history to record 4,000 strikeouts.

1989: Joins Texas Rangers as a free agent; enjoys sixth 300-strikeout season and records 5,000th strikeout.

1991: Notches seventh and last no hitter.

1990: (Age 43) Pitches sixth no-hitter and wins 300th game.

1993: Pitches 27th and final season in the major leagues; retires with 5,714 strikeouts.

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No hitters

1 & 2 (Age: 26)

3 & 4 (Age: 27)

5 (Age: 34)

6 (Age: 43)

7 (Age: 44)

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METS: 493 strikeouts

ANGELS: 2,416 strikeouts

ASTROS: 1,866 strikeouts

RANGERS: 939 strikeouts

Researched by HOUSTON MITCHELL and PAUL CARBO