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[switch flips]
[soft music]
[Announcer] Greg Meyers leading things off bottom
of the fifth inning against Nolan Ryan.
[Narrator] Nolan Ryan, first ballot Hall of Famer,
and holder of 51 Major League records.
[Announcer] Ryan throws a fast ball right on by him.
[Narrator] Now, I'm a bit confused
why you'd open a movie on him
with the second to last start of his career.
Shouldn't we start with something a bit more dramatic?
Like one of his famous no-hitters?
Maybe a World Series win.
Or maybe that famous scuffle he got into.
Not the fifth inning of some no-stakes affair in Anaheim.
I mean this Big Tex, The Express.
Why are we watching him face off
against a career .255 hitter?
Not to get too deep into numbers,
but like baseball, to understand old Noley,
you gotta know his numbers.
Numbers like 7,
383,
100.9,
and 5,714.
That was it.
Nolan's final strike out.
It earned him baseball immortality,
because no one has thrown more
in the sport's near century and a half existence.
Without a doubt, he is the most intimidating pitcher
in the history of the game.
He's rubbing the ball,
he's staring at you.
He had that swagger and that look to him.
I'm the sheriff around here.
I remember hearing Nolan say,
when I step across that white line,
I don't even like myself.
He's one of the best competitors I've ever played against.
It wasn't a day at the beach to face that guy.
I knew that every time I face him,
I'm gonna go 0 for four.
He was like Superman.
He's mythological.
Something that is bigger than what it really is.
But then we all know when you do meet him,
he's...
he's Nolan Ryan.
[train engine roaring]
[phone ringing]
Hello?
Wup, one minute.
- Hello? - Can you hear me?
Yeah, you're on speaker phone.
I'm in the car driving through Alvin.
[Nolan] All right. You haven't left yet then?
No, not yet, but I'll call you when I do.
[Nolan] All right. Well, y'all have fun.
Okay, bye.
[Nolan] Bye.
People say, if you marry a baseball player,
you really marry baseball,
and there's a lot of truth to that statement.
And Alvin was just a fun, innocent, safe childhood.
We rode horses around the school
with my friends that had horses.
Gosh, these trees are so grown up,
'cause Nolan planted the tree that's in the yard.
Yeah, that's it.
Gosh, that thing,
look at that thing.
That thing is huge.
I remember the first time I saw Nolan.
I was only in the fourth grade,
so I wasn't really thinking about boys,
but I did remember seeing him because
he was on the Little League baseball team.
I just remember these games going on
and I could come and just stand there
by the fence and look at the ball games.
You know, I always wished I could play
but they didn't have girl's teams then.
I remember Nolan was on a Little League team
called The Rangers,
and probably when I was in the seventh grade,
that's when I thought about him being cute.
When you're ready.
[Interviewer] We are ready.
[Ruth] I guess I was in eighth grade
when he asked me to go to that movie.
I called her up on the phone
and asked her if she'd like to go out.
Obviously she had to ask her mother.
Evidently there weren't any red flags up towards Nolan.
There was a movie playing
at the Alvin Theater and it was 'Rome Adventure.'
I think it was the name of the movie.
[classic music]
[Man] Did you enjoy it?
Oh, very much, thank you.
You know, my mother has a theory.
She says that for every woman on earth is only one man.
They both went the same high school.
He was voted most handsome and she was voted most beautiful.
And she was a star in tennis.
He was a star in basketball,
and baseball later, but they just hit it off.
[crowd cheering]
For Nolan's and Ruth's second date,
he took Ruth to the old ballpark
next to the Astrodome to watch Sandy Koufax pitch.
Sandy Koufax is the greatest lefthanded pitcher in history.
He was the most dominating lefthander in history
[Announcer] Swing and a miss and struck him out.
Look at those Dodgers congratulate Koufax.
He idolized Sandy Koufax.
He was watching Sandy pitch.
He wouldn't talk to me.
He wouldn't get up.
And he was mesmerized.
We were sitting right behind the plate.
I got a bird's eye view of Sandy warming up,
and I'd never seen anybody throw like that.
That's the first time he saw Sandy Koufax pitch.
Within 10 years, he'd broken all his records.
No one did things Nolan ever did,
but no one was raised like Nolan ever was.
[Narrator] Every legend has an origin,
and Nolan's origin is a doozy.
Youngest of six,
depression era parents
from a tiny town no one ever heard of.
Like a page out of the Humble Beginnings playbook.
But how did he get that arm?
Legend has it, every night Nolan's dad
would wake him up at one in the morning
and they'd hand deliver over 1,500 papers
across the entire city.
Every day, four hours a day for six years straight.
Okay, the fact is he actually drove a car
for his paper route,
but Nolan wouldn't mind us
stretching the truth a little, would he?
The Houston folks used to say,
well Nolan Ryan developed his arm from throwing The Post.
Well, that's totally false.
'Cause when you drive a car, you throw in your left hand.
[Narrator] Well, guess they decided to print the legend.
He could throw the ball harder
than anybody I know about.
And he was here for pitching in Alvin.
He'd bring his catcher mitt and ball.
And he would pitch to me until my hand wore out.
If you caught it right in the catchers mitt,
it was fine.
But if it hit where your palm was, it hurt.
'Cause he was the hardest chunker I've ever caught.
Sometimes he'd burn my hand a little bit and I'd say, boy,
how hard are you throwing?
And he'd say about three-quarter speed.
And that would scare me a little bit.
When I went out as a sophomore
for the Varsity Baseball team,
I hit my final growth spurt.
It was like I had somebody else's arm.
There was a mythology about Nolan that dates back
to when he was at Alvin High School
because he could throw it harder than anybody.
And he was wild.
He hit several batters.
I remember one game in particular,
we were playing Deer Park
and he hit the very first two batters in the game.
He hit one of the players in the head
and cracked his helmet.
The next guy got in line.
And when Nolan threw the ball,
he hit him in the arm
and broke his arm.
And the third batter,
actually went down to their coach and asked him
if he would consider pinch hitting for him.
As it worked out, Nolan struck him out
on three pitches and he was so far from the plate,
he couldn't have covered it if he'd had a broom.
At that point, everybody really took notice
that Nolan could be something very special.
[Red] He weighed about 142-145 pounds.
About six foot one.
So, he was a skinny right-handed chunker.
See, when he threw the baseball, it just exploded
out of his hand with almost effortlessly.
Red Murff pitched for the Braves during his career.
And then he became a scout.
Jim Watson was a baseball coach in Alvin,
and he told Jim not to tell any other Scouts about Nolan.
Well, he told me I had the best arm he'd ever seen,
and truly believed that I would pitch
in the big leagues.
[Interviewer] We'll do the knuckles, there we go.
- Good to see you. - Good to see you.
- How are you? - Yeah, I'm all right.
- All right. - Thank you.
[Interviewer] Excited to talk about Nolan?
Not really, but I'm happy to do it.
Yeah, I mean, yes I am, excuse me.
Fire it up.
My dad's uncle, my grandmother's brother,
was one of the initial owners of the New York Mets.
What's interesting from our family's perspective,
is that a young pitcher on that team was Nolan Ryan.
A constant theme in Nolan's life,
from the start, in baseball,
he was always undervalued.
The Mets were pretty much the only team on him.
Took him in the 12th round.
They just took a flier.
They just thought, well, here's a guy with a good arm,
and let's see what we end up with.
He came to me and said, "I got drafted today."
Well, I thought he meant the Army.
He was 18 and out of high school
and it was during Vietnam.
A lot of our friends had gotten drafted.
And he goes, "No, the baseball draft."
And he said, "I'll be leaving pretty soon."
And I'm like, oh, you know, that was a shock to me.
I had plans to go to college
but when Nolan left at age 18, I was only 16.
I really missed him. I really wanted to be with him.
Red Murff found out
that we were probably gonna get married one day.
He said, Ruth, you know that
you're gonna have to share Nolan with the world.
And I thought, I'm not sharing Nolan with anybody, you know.
I was very put out that he said that to me.
And it was so true.
You know, I did end up sharing him with the world.
I had no idea what the baseball life
would really be like.
That was a shock. [laughs]
[gentle music]
All I was concentrating on
were trying to catch that ball.
I didn't have anybody that threw quite like Nolan did.
Everybody was saying that Nolan was throwing 101,
maybe 102 miles an hour.
That's wrong.
Nolan was throwing 107, 108.
[Interviewer] Do you believe that?
Yes, I was there catching it,
or trying to.
[dramatic music]
[ball slapping catcher's mitt]
There's no question that Nolan Ryan,
when he first came to the Mets,
was very wild.
His Minor League numbers, they're right out of
Nuke LaLoosh from "Bull Durham."
[grunts]
This guy's crazy.
Yep.
And then he gets called up to the Mets,
pretty young, at the point work where
he's probably not ready to go.
[Announcer] So Nolan Ryan makes his Major League debut
against one of the heaviest hitting teams in baseball,
the Atlanta Braves.
I can remember coming outta the bullpen in Shea Stadium
and I'm 19 years old and I'm gon' be facing
Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Felipe Alou
and those guys.
God, I had those guys' baseball cards.
[Announcer] Tall and slender righthander.
[Nolan] Joe Torre was on that team.
[Announcer] And the pitch to Joe Torre.
Fly ball, wild hit to right field, way back.
And it's over the wall, a home run.
A lot of people had the same emotions
as the first time they walked on a major league mound.
And they ask do they belong there?
And I had no clue whether I belonged there or not.
[gentle music]
Nolan never expected baseball to be a long career.
His goal was to play four years
and you could qualify for a pension.
Nolan didn't have a plan.
He was gonna be a vet.
When he went on road trips, he would bring his books
about cattle and veterinary medicine and, you know,
study in his free time.
He always tried to prepare himself
for life after baseball.
With the Mets, they had a lot
of good, young arms at the time.
He just didn't know if he would even get in a rotation.
He was in relief pretty much.
At this point, you look back and you go,
Nolan Ryan was a relief pitcher?
But he was young and he was inexperienced.
They didn't think he'd be a consistent winner
because he couldn't control the ball.
[Announcer] High and tight.
He just wasn't polished.
[Narrator] Growing up around cattle,
Nolan understood most calves stand on their own
within the first 30 minutes of birth.
In those early years with the Mets,
he was still finding his legs.
But in the 1969 playoffs,
he would need to stand tall.
The aptly named Miracle Mets
were one game away from the World Series.
And Nolan was brought in to help get them out of a jam.
The reaction of the Mets, his teammates,
when they brought him in, "Are you kidding me?"
They're thinking Gil Hodges quit.
They're giving up the game.
That's what they thought of Nolan Ryan,
his teammates did at the time.
They knew he had talent,
but he hadn't shown anything to be in this position.
The third game of the National League Championship Series.
[Announcer] With a count of 1-and-2 on Rico Carty,
runners at second and third, no one out.
Rico had gone over and asked couple of guys on the bench,
"What do I look for?"
And they said,
"Heat."
[Announcer] And the pitch is swung on and missed.
Ryan strikes out Rico Carty.
He got outta the inning.
He kept them in the game.
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan with a tremendous performance.
I was surprised as other people were
that Gil stayed with me the rest of the game
[fans cheering]
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan, who came in the ball game
with the Mets behind 2-0 in the third.
One out away from the National League pennant.
Mets leading 7-4.
[gentle music]
[smack]
Garrett has the ball, the throw to first,
and the Mets are the National League champions.
[Commentator] The view you're looking at,
has turned in one of baseball's
most unbelievable stories.
The players are going nuts.
They couldn't believe it.
He's the hero, he wins the pennant for the Mets.
People didn't know who he was or what he was.
Just some Texan with a drawl
everybody in New York made fun of,
but when the batter stood in the box,
nobody was making fun of Nolan's drawl.
[Announcer] This has got to be the happiest day
of all for you.
That night, there was a big celebration
in the Diamond Club.
That was the first time I had ever had a glass of champagne.
And the last time I ever had a glass of champagne.
[Narrator] And wouldn't you know it, ten days later,
the Miracle Mets won the whole damn thing.
[Announcer] The Mets are the world champions.
[Narrator] At the tender age of 22,
Nolan Ryan had a World Series ring.
He and his teammates sure had a lot to sing about.
♪ You gotta have heart
♪ All you really need is heart
We were on the Ed Sullivan Show.
All of us, the whole team.
♪ Wait 'til next year and hold
None of us could sing.
The dogs were howling big time after that.
♪ First you gotta have heart
[Nolan] That whole thing was a whirlwind deal
for about four or five days.
And being on the Ed Sullivan Show, to a ticker tape parade,
and being world champions, and then going home
and kinda stepping back into our normal lives.
[gentle music]
I'd go home, get a job so I could survive
until next spring training
and try to go to school too.
Yeah.
I installed central heating and air conditioning.
This is Nolan Ryan for American Standard
Heating and Air Conditioning.
Back in those days, you only got paid during the season.
And my first contract with the Mets was $7,000.
And so, you know, you didn't have extra money.
[Announcer] Look at this scene.
[Ruth] When the Mets won the World Series,
he got a little bit of a bonus.
He helped his parents pay off their house
and he put some money down on a piece of property.
We're back home.
I'm in San Antonio, he's in Alvin,
and I'm with his real estate broker,
looking for a ranch.
Ranching is a way of life here in Texas.
[gentle music]
[Nolan] How y'all doing?
Nolan is a cowboy.
I think it's in his blood.
It's in his nature.
Likes being out in the Texas prairie.
Since the time I was about 5 years old,
I had an attraction to cattle.
Why that is, I don't know.
I think I was just meant to be in that business
and I've always had a passion for it.
Come on. You're nervous.
Come on by.
Hey.
[cows mooing]
I'm the ranch manager for Mr. Nolan Ryan
for about 30 years.
That's a cut, David.
When I first met him, I knew the kind of guy he was.
He's gonna do right and everything.
He was, one's you really would wanna work for.
That's a cut.
Keeper.
It's a cow and calf operation.
It's a real business, just like any other one.
That's a cut.
Keeper. Cut.
We was sorting some heifers, some keeping heifers
and heifers we're gonna try to sale.
That's a keeper.
See if we can make a little money.
Everybody knows Mr. Nolan Ryan, the baseball player
but he's a rancher.
As I got older, I understood one thing,
when you get out of the game,
you have to find that thing in your life
that you loved to do.
I'm very at peace with what I'm doing
and it's where my comfort level is.
[busy city noise bustling]
I was accustomed to being outdoors
and being in a more relaxed atmosphere.
And I didn't really take to New York.
[somber music playing]
I was alone a lot.
Those times he went on road trips.
So I was kind of scared
sometimes, living in an apartment building.
It was just a different world.
And I wouldn't trade any of it.
All that was good experience.
It was an exciting kind of life, in a way.
We depended on each other.
We were just two kids trying to get by.
[crowd cheering]
The highlight of his Mets career
was the playoffs in the series.
Because he came back in 70 and 71,
they tried to start him but he had no consistency.
In the meantime, the Gentrys, the Koosmans, the Sievers,
I mean, they're taking on.
There's no place for Nolan.
The manager, he's worrying about winning games
and I'm sure Nolan's wildness drove some of them crazy.
The lack of success
and not accomplishing what you think you could do.
I was so frustrated in my inconsistency
and the fact that I wasn't pitching on a regular basis.
He didn't really have like say,
a pitching coach that took him under his wing.
He felt like he wasn't a important part of the team.
I started thinking,
oh maybe this isn't what I'm meant to do.
He said he was almost ready to quit baseball.
People do not realize how strong Ruth Ryan is.
Ruth talked Nolan outta quitting.
She is the strength behind Nolan.
I said, "Nolan, I think you have talent.
So I really wish you would stick it out
just a little bit longer."
[Announcer] Ryan pitch,
strike him out with a fastball.
I think Nolan was ready to leave New York
after the 1971 season.
I was about seven months pregnant.
And he told me we're leaving after the game is over.
And I said, in the middle of the night?
And he goes, yes.
I don't really think that I'll be back here next year.
In November, our son, Reed was born.
And two weeks later,
I answered the phone and I said,
"It's Bob Scheffing with the New York Mets."
And he just looked at me and he said,
"I think I'm gonna be traded."
[upbeat pop music]
♪ Everybody is talking at me
♪ I don't hear a word they're saying ♪
♪ Only the echoes of my mind
♪ I'm going where the sun keeps shining ♪
Bob Scheffing, he was General Manager of the Mets.
He said, "Nolan, I just wanted to call and tell you,
you're going to sunny California."
And I thought, all right, I'm gonna be a Dodger.
♪ And skipping over the ocean like a stone ♪
"You're going to California Angels."
And I mean, I could've died.
The Angels back then, they're a doormat.
The redheaded stepchild compared to the LA Dodgers,
the marquee Dodgers.
♪ Riding the range once more
The highlight of being traded
to the California Angels
was I was gonna get to meet Gene Autry.
Growing up in Texas, Gene was a big deal, you know,
the singing cowboy and I had watched all his movies.
♪ I go my way
♪ Back in the saddle again
It was a really good move for me
because I was going to a team
that was in the development stages
so probably was gonna get the pitch on a regular basis.
[rock music]
The biggest thing that changed Nolan Ryan
into the Hall of Fame pitcher that he is,
came when he had a pitching coach
by the name of Tom Morgan.
I never had a pitching coach
until I got to the big leagues.
He was the first person that really got me thinking about
what I had to do in my delivery
to get more consistent.
Big thing with Nolan back then,
he was overthrowing and he'd fall off the mount.
That's the main thing that Tom Morgan sees.
He stood in front of Nolan
and made him stride out past him
so that he didn't spin off the ball.
So Nolan can't fall through to the left
or it'll hit Tom Morgan.
So he straightens out his fundamentals.
[baseball crowd cheering]
[Announcer] Holy cow, what smoke.
It was incredible.
It was like a light bulb went on.
The three years that Morgan was there,
Nolan won 62 games.
Pitched over 900 innings.
That laid the foundation for his whole pitching career.
[rock music]
He was ready.
Being in the background in New York,
the guy that couldn't get an everyday assignment,
it pushed him.
Now, he saw his opportunity
and I don't think he was gonna pass that up.
♪ I'm ready for you
♪ I hope you're ready for me.
My principal goal is to win 20 games,
but if I'd win 20 games
and also set a new strikeout record,
I'll definitely gonna try.
73, it goes ballistic.
He wins 21 games that year.
[baseball crowd cheering]
The no-hitters came very quickly.
I think I was as surprised as anyone
that I threw a no-hitter.
He did it.
Nolan Ryan has a no-hit no-run game.
And they swarm the 26-year- old, Alvin, Texas native.
It was one of those special nights.
And then 60 days later, I throw number two.
Some people say they don't think about it
but I thought about it from probably the third inning on.
I'm thinking, oh, he hasn't given up any hits.
And then, it just gets more exciting as it builds up.
First seven innings, he's got 16, 17 strikeouts.
The last batter of the game is Norm Cash.
I looked at him as he walks in the batter's box
and I didn't know what he had, but I knew he didn't have a bat.
He had taken a leg off of a table in the clubhouse,
came out there to bat with this table leg.
I told Ron Luciano the umpire,
he can't hit with that.
And he said, it doesn't matter, Ron.
He says I can't hit him anyway.
Leave it to Norman for a little levity
and Ron Luciano is breaking up behind the play.
And the stands now cheering for Nolan Ryan.
Here it comes.
He pops it up.
A tough play.
No hit.
Nolan Ryan.
Ryan has become only the fifth man
in modern Major League history
to throw two no-hit no-run games in the same season.
And it's a standing ovation from the fans
in Detroit, Michigan.
[dramatic music]
[Announcer] Five strikeouts for Koufax.
Fast ball got him, strikeout number eight.
[Narrator] In 1965,
Sandy Koufax set baseball single season strikeout record
with 382.
No one thought it could be broken.
Well, having someone to chase after
was great motivation for Nolan.
And in 1973, he was hot on Sandy's heels.
In his final start of the season,
Nolan was 16 strikeouts away
from breaking his idol's record.
[Announcer] There is 375.
Here is the pitch to kill over a fastball.
Hey, good job.
There is 380.
Guys are coming back and says,
"Boys, we're in for a tough night tonight.
They were swinging and missing."
[baseball crowd cheering]
[Announcer] One more strike that would tie Koufax.
Ryan straightens, here's the pitch.
He's got it.
[baseball crowd cheering]
Ruth was at the game with me that night.
The end of nine innings, the score's tied,
he's got 15 strikeouts for the night.
He's tied with Koufax.
I had pulled my hamstring in one of the extra innings.
He had cramps in his legs, he could hardly walk,
but he kept going.
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan will have fought into the 11th.
[Nolan] When you talk about pain,
I call it discomfort.
You learned to pitch with it.
And that just came with the territory.
[Announcer] And Ryan does not have much left.
There goes Carew, swing and a miss,
the throw to second base.
Not in time.
And the crowd wanted Carew to be safe.
Ryan now has two strikes on Rich Reese.
[tense music]
Two-strike pitch coming up.
Ryan's set. Here it is.
Swing and a miss!
Nolan Ryan
is the major league strikeout king of all time!
He was letting it all out there, all that he had.
383, that's a lot.
383 strikeouts in the season, is,
it's still the record, yeah.
[Announcer] And ladies and gentlemen,
we have seen one of the finest young men
ever to wear a baseball uniform
record one of the most incredible records
in Major League history.
It meant a lot to Nolan,
just because of whose record he broke.
It was a fun night at the ballpark.
[Reporter] Nolan, anyone who looks at the record books
will find that there aren't many left for you to conquer.
[Nolan] [laughs] Well, I don't give
a whole lot of emphasis on statistics.
I just try to go out and win every game I pitch in,
and hope that I improve every year.
It's 1973, he's out on his ranch
and he gets a call from Ruth
that Jim Palmer won the Cy Young Award.
The Cy Young Award
is what the sports writers vote in each league,
what they think is the best pitcher for that season.
Nolan, it didn't bother him,
but it did bother me.
Jim Palmer was a great pitcher,
but he did not certainly outshine Ryan
in that particular season.
Two no-hitters, 21 wins, makes the strikeout record.
Four.
Cy Youngs? Four.
Uh, three.
I don't think he won any. It's crazy.
Zero?
You gotta be kidding.
Nolan Ryan never won a Cy Young Award?
Well, that's a joke.
I thought he had won three or four or five.
Yeah, I have no idea
how Nolan didn't win a Cy Young Award,
because he had to be knocking
on the door for that, many times.
[Announcer] Ryan winds, and the 3-2 pitch,
he struck him out!
He has not allowed a Yankee hit for seven innings.
It is surprising that he's never won one,
but I don't think that has really tarnished his
reputation or his legacy.
[Announcer] Here's Ryan's payoff pitch.
And he walked him.
He led the world in walks,
but he also led the world in strikeouts.
He didn't need a Cy Young Award to be the biggest thing going.
He was Nolan Ryan,
the guy with the Guinness record for the fastest pitch.
[Narrator] Some of the smartest scientists
west of the Rio Grande
used some fancy equipment to clock Nolan's fastball
at 100.9 miles per hour.
Using the more accurate technology of today,
that number really comes out to 108.1 miles per hour.
Yes, sir.
The legend of the Ryan Express
was most definitely picking up steam.
His time with the Angels
is entirely unique in baseball history.
Look at the numbers that he put up.
The strikeout numbers in particular.
They're unheard of.
I don't believe there's ever been a stretch like that.
[Announcer] Two-strike pitch.
Gone!
Bye, bye.
I tell you, that's gotta be a 100 mile an hour pitch right there.
When you're throwing 100 miles an hour,
you feel this sense of
this game is right here.
And you're right here in the palm of my hand.
Nolan set the standard for a power pitcher.
He could throw hard, be a fierce competitor.
He was not afraid to use some intimidation,
'cause he's gonna buzz you if he has to.
[electric guitar surges]
Intimidation was part of his game.
He had the ability to put you on your toes at any moment.
He could be conveniently wild, if you know what I mean.
He might throw one up and in on your chin,
and the next one would be low and away on the corner.
So that's conveniently wild.
He had that aura about him,
that the hitter just isn't quite sure
where they're coming from.
That's always a good thing for a pitcher.
[Interviewer]
I used it to my advantage when I could.
Throw inside. [chuckles]
- Look out. Inside. - Wow.
If you're gonna be a successful pitcher,
you have to pitch inside.
I don't care how hard you throw.
So you have to pitch in and out, up and down,
and move the ball around a little bit.
And he was masterful at it.
[Announcer] High and tight to Frank Robinson.
With that mindset, you're gonna hit some people.
The first time I faced him,
Jim Wohlford was hitting ahead of me.
And for some reason he got hit,
and I'm seeing Wolfie on the ground,
trying to breathe. He couldn't breathe,
and I'm going, "Oh my God, I gotta face this guy?"
He drilled a guy in the rib cage.
I said, "Did you hit that guy on purpose?"
And he goes, "George, sometimes you just have to
take control of the situation."
[chuckles]
[dramatic music]
He hated players to bunt on him.
Don't bunt on him and don't steal on him.
'Cause he's gonna hit you. [laughs]
When you get in that batter's box,
and you're like toeing in,
you know, digging that hole, that back foot,
and he's ready to go,
you about to get one in your earhole, man.
I didn't wanna get hit in head by Nolan Ryan.
Even if I had a helmet on.
[laughs]
I think that summed up how some people felt.
[Woman] Pete, this is the shoe we're gonna have you sign
"The Hit King."
And Nolan, we're gonna have you sign "The No-hit King."
[Nolan] You gonna sign it right here.
[Pete] I'm gonna sign it, right?
- [Nolan] Okay I'll sign those - [Pete] "Pete Rose."
[Bystander] Those look like Usain Bolt shoes, right there.
[Nolan] They're great.
[Nolan] Good, Bob.
This is as close as I wanna be to this guy.
Oh, you love me, Pete.
I'm gonna go down and say hi to some folks.
[Pete] Well, you're from Texas, you got to.
Yeah, I'll see you down there.
[Pete] You own this ballpark, you got to.
[Nolan laughs]
[Emcee] Let's bring him up to the stage.
I'm gonna turn it over to him and Pete.
Mr. Nolan Ryan, come on up.
[crowd cheers, whistles, and applauds]
[Pete laughs]
It was the fifth game of the playoffs.
And I was pitching that day,
and I went out and take batting practice.
Pete was down there and I got in the cage
and took my swings.
And when I was walking out, he goes, "Hey, Nolan."
I go, "Yeah, Pete?"
He says, "I wish you'd get that curve ball of yours
over just one time."
And I go, "Yeah? Why is that, Pete?"
And he says, "'Cause I'm gonna hit it
off your blanking forehead."
[crowd laughs]
I thought, "Well, we'll see about that."
So the first two times up in the game,
I got him out on fast balls.
Third time up,
I figured now's the time to throw my curve ball.
And as soon as I released it, and he read curve ball,
his eyes lit up like stars.
And he hit the most vicious line drive
that would've hit me right in the face
if I hadn't got my glove up.
It hit off the heel of my glove, fell down,
I picked it up and threw him out.
And he was running to first base,
pointing at me the whole time.
[crowd laughs]
[Emcee] Do you remember that story
the same way he told it?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, I don't have as many records as him.
How many records you got?
[Emcee] 51? 51.
[Pete] 51?
[laughing]
[Reporter] Of course you have three no-hitters
to your credit, which is another tremendous accomplishment
at the young age, just how old are you now?
[Nolan] I'm 28.
[Reporter] Oh my God, you're still a spring chicken.
[Nolan] Ha ha, well, I hope so.
[Narrator] At that time,
only four pitchers in history had three or more no-hitters.
Nolan threw three in just 16 months.
I mean, this was mind-boggling stuff.
But he wasn't satisfied yet.
In 1975, the chase of his idol continued.
Sandy had the record at four.
Once I got number three,
I was in hopes that I could accomplish that too.
June 1st, 1975, he can't get out of bed.
He can't move his arm.
He can't brush his teeth.
He can't tie his shoes.
Ruth has to do it for him.
I developed bone chips in my elbow.
Those chips would move around and they would get in the joint
and then keep me from extending.
He's slated to start a Sunday day game
versus Baltimore Orioles.
I'm bat boy that day.
Well, evidently I warmed up and it, it all worked out.
[Announcer] There's no one at the exit today,
they're watching Ryan and cheering.
Many of them on their feet now,
a no-hitter on the line.
The top of the ninth inning, I was third up, and I went,
"Oh, oh, I could be the last out here for the no-hitter."
[Announcer] Ryan, two balls, two strikes, the count.
Two outs in the ninth innings.
[dramatic music]
Throwing two fast balls and he fouled them off.
[Announcer] And Rich is making it tough on everyone.
So I'm looking fastball and he threw it
and I saw it coming, and I stepped out,
but it never got there.
I'm going [gags] and he threw a two-two change up.
[suspenseful music]
[Announcer] The two-two pitch. Change.
[suspenseful music]
I had no chance.
I mean, that was the last thing in the world I expected
in the ninth inning, was his third best pitch.
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan [indistinct].
You know, you tip your hat and you go,
"Nolan, nice going, buddy.
But I guess I'm in the record book too." [chuckles]
[dramatic music]
[Ruth] We never thought about fame.
I think after the no-hitters,
he became more famous.
[Nolan] I think at times you like being recognized
and other times you don't.
You have to accept the fact that
it comes with the territory.
[Ruth] I would cope with that sometimes with women.
Like, some woman would come up
and she'd hand me her camera and say,
"Here, take our picture," you know?
And then she'd go give Nolan a big hug.
So you get that feeling that you're sort of invisible.
The longer he played there, it became a lot tougher,
I guess, for me, as far as dealing with the fame.
I was trying to raise three little kids at the time.
[Nolan] I don't know that when you have a child
that you're really prepared for that responsibility
and the impact that it has on your life.
Obviously, kids make your life more complete.
You grow into that and you develop that ability
and the care and love that you experience for a child.
[somber music]
It's worst kind of phone call you can get,
that something happened to one of your children.
To make it even worse is that you're not there.
It was one of the worst things that had happened in our lives.
[somber music]
[Ruth] It was May the ninth of 1979.
Reed was seven years old.
I was out in the yard with the two and three-year-old
while Reed was across the street playing baseball.
Kids were teasing him about his little baseball shirt.
They were gonna take his shirt away.
And so he was running back to our yard.
Of course, he didn't look, and this girl turned the corner
and he ran out in the street,
right when she turned into the neighborhood
and knocked him up in the air.
[somber music]
Reed said, "Mom, am I gonna die?"
That was what he said to me.
So that, just like, tore me up.
[somber music]
I called the ballpark in Boston
because that's where Nolan was playing.
When I heard Nolan's voice,
I just broke down in tears.
And I was like, hah, you know,
I still wanna cry.
He lost a kidney and...
he lost spleen,
but he recovered from everything.
[Reid] I left that experience feeling blessed to be alive,
blessed to be able-bodied still.
Really, from that moment on,
I just decided that I was gonna be positive
the rest of my life because every day is a gift.
[somber music]
[Nolan] That kinda reaffirmed my feelings
about hoping that I could pitch closer to home.
[somber music]
I grew up as a Texan.
I am a Texan,
and I'm proud to be a Texan.
And there's a mystique about it.
It's in my blood.
[country music]
When we left Anaheim for the last time,
dad had a single-cab pickup truck
and we rode from Anaheim to Alvin
which is like 24-hour drive in the bed of the truck.
That was before seatbelt laws and everything else.
We had one of those sliding glass windows.
And so Reed and I could crawl back and forth
between, you know, being in the front with my dad
and being in the back with the dogs
and these green army men that he had bought us.
We thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
[Narrator] Wanting to come home
was one of the reasons Nolan left the Angels,
but that's not the whole story.
During contract negotiations in 79,
the top brass at Anaheim
thought Nolan was getting a bit too big for his britches.
With the general manager, Buzzie Bavasi,
even saying in the press,
he could just sign two
eight and seven pitchers to replace Nolan
who was 16 and 14 that season.
Talk about a slap in the face.
Undervalued again.
Well, one team's loss was another team's gain.
[Barry] Nolan had a manifest destiny
of finishing his career in Texas,
and no better place than 35 miles away
from where he played high school ball
and fell in love with Ruth.
[Narrator] Nolan signed a free-agent contract
with the Houston Astros
to become baseball's first million-dollar man.
And not just in baseball, in any sport,
period.
He said, "Well, if they got the money,
I'll be more than happy to take it."
He broke the barrier, started players actually
getting paid what they really deserved.
And I tip my hat to him.
Thank you, Noley.
[Don] It was a big number.
And in those days it got a lot of attention.
But I think because it was Nolan Ryan,
it was not a,
"Gosh, this athlete's being paid more than his worth."
Whatever you would've paid him,
you've said, "Hey this guy's worth it."
[audience cheering]
[Enos] When I first got here in 75,
we couldn't beat anybody.
And then the atmosphere started to change
and we started to win. We thought we could win.
And then when we got Nolan,
we weren't afraid of anybody.
[Craig] As important as pitching is in baseball,
it is, the first game Nolan pitched
was not about his pitching.
[Pete] I bet there's one thing Nolan ever talked about,
his batting average.
[chuckles] And I don't think he liked to hear it.
[Alan] I was the base runner in second base
and I [chuckles] thought, "You gotta be kidding me."
[audience cheering] [upbeat music]
Nolan Ryan just hit a home run.
And he couldn't hit. [laughs]
Somebody told you it was coming, Noley.
[Enos] And it him took about a hour
to get around the bases because he wasn't fast.
[fans cheering]
[Ruth] They thought, "Oh gee, this guy can pitch and hit."
You know? [laughs]
Not.
His lifetime batting averages.
Somebody brought it to my attention that it was 1-10.
That's not good for anybody.
[Barry] Nolan, as poorly as you hit,
they could put a Saturn rocket
from our friends down at NASA, and still may not help you.
Yeah, but if I ever make contact, Barry.
Hair will grow on my head.
[chuckles] I doubt it.
Say goodbye, Nolan.
Chirp. All right.
See you later.
[Roger] A friend of a friend
knew a person that worked the back gate in the Astrodome.
Go, Nolan.
[Roger] I was only allowed to go in
when Nolan was pitching.
I snuck in to just watch him warm up.
Nolan's throwing a 93, 95,
it sounds like 105.
You could hear the ball,
it sounded like bacon in a frying pan.
You'd hear that sizzle [sss-pow],
hitting that glove.
Nolan's fastball,
there was no other sound like it.
[fss] You could hear it.
Whoosh.
Whoo-pop. It just come in there, [pop].
Phuh. Phuh.
[upbeat music]
[Announcer] Career strikeout number 3,000.
♪ Tell me can you feel it
♪ The heat is on
♪ Yeah
♪ The heat is on
[Announcer] Strike three called.
And there's the record-breaker.
♪ Burnin' burnin' burnin'
♪ It's on the streets
[Announcer] Strikeout number 4,000 for Nolan Ryan.
♪ The heat is on
[Randy] Hitters that faced him, they were gonna say,
"Facing him on a day where he's got 100 mile an hour
fastball and a curve ball that was 12 to 6,"
♪ On.
"It was no fun."
He threw a lot of bastard pitches.
Guy makes a great pitch,
we call him a bastard.
[Dave] You have to look fastball.
And then when that curve comes in there,
jelly leg, you know, they call it, you know, oh-ho.
[George] If Nolan Ryan was on his game,
and he had that curve ball working--
[Announcer] Look at that.
You're not gonna hit that. You're not gonna hit it.
If he was getting that over, it's goodnight, Irene.
[Announcer] We're looking at the top of the Astrodome.
Here in Houston they refer to the Astrodome
as the Eighth Wonder of the World.
And this afternoon,
the Dodgers and the Houston Astros.
It'll be Nolan Ryan against Ted Power.
I keep the video on my phone.
[Interviewer] Can you play it?
[on phone] Since walking Landreaux in the third inning,
here's the pitch on the way to Scioscia.
Fly ball to right center field and he hit it deep.
[Announcer] And Nolan Ryan, along with Sandy Koufax,
only two men in baseball history
to have pitched four no-hitters.
I guess I'd really gotten to where I thought
the no-hit aspect of my career was probably behind me.
He hasn't had a no-hitter in six years.
[Announcer] Ballgame just underway.
Overhead curve ball gets him.
Three, two to Scioscia.
Curve ball!
Oh, that got him!
Three strikeouts and every one of them
been on big up with Charlie.
Nolan Ryan, gets strike out number eight.
So he will go into the sixth inning,
still with a no-hitter in his sight.
Oftentimes, you'd come back to the dugout
and guys would be saying,
"Is he gonna get one tonight? Is this it? Has he got it?"
It had no chance to talk with Nolan in-between innings.
It was taboo to even approach a guy,
especially if his uniform said Ryan on the back.
The pitcher don't wanna hear that.
You already know that he pitching a no-hitter,
so don't mention it.
Stay quiet.
You don't wanna put the curse on him.
[Announcer] Cruz!
[Jose Cruz, Sr] And be there, you know.
Somebody throwing like a no-hitter,
you playing the outfield.
Sometimes you say my God, I gotta be ready.
I gotta try to make a good play.
[Announcer] There has not been a ball hit hard
off Nolan Ryan in this ball game.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Get deep, the right center field!
Puhl going back.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] He makes the catch!
Remember catching the ball with my glove just to
scoop it up, to hold it in the glove at the end.
And for me, that was a good play. [laughs]
[Announcer] And that's the closest they've come
to breaking a no-hitter.
And oftentimes, there is one play that propels
a no-hitter to its finish.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan goes out here in the ninth inning
to try to nail down the three outs
that give him the no-hitter.
Dusty Baker comes up.
All the players, we had butterflies.
We're all nervous.
I'm thinking to myself, I hope he hits it to,
you know, Craig Reynolds at short
instead of me or whatever.
[smack]
[Announcer] This may be it!
He has got it.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan! No-hitter number five!
[crowd cheers]
I was so happy I made the play,
and did it for Nolan.
I have this, these moments that are just
they're frozen in time.
You see those and it's really cool to remember 'em,
probably just, especially when it's somebody
that's your friend and you're so excited for them.
You see it's a part of history they gave
and you think I got to be a part of that.
How cool is that?
[Announcer] The first man ever to pitch
five career no-hitters.
He's beat Sandy Koufax and his legend stature
just went up a notch.
crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Mrs. Ryan, have you seen all of oth-
Nolan's other, uh no-hitters?
No, this is the first one.
[crowd cheers]
It wasn't just a no-hitter.
It was a no-hitter by a hometown kid.
He would always shine the spotlight on a teammate.
I'm sitting in front of my locker and Nolan
shows up and I'm looking at him and he says,
TP, nice catch.
He's got all this stuff going on with him and he had the,
the reserve in him to, to come over to my locker and say,
hey nice catch, 10 minutes after the ball game.
I was like, I mean that's, that's,
that's pretty special.
Terry Puhl, a long way to go for it,
making a running catch for the out.
[indistinct]
[laughs]
But that's the play.
When Nolan came to the Astros,
we were now big kids on the block.
[Announcer] These Astros, collectively, it's good team.
The Astros never got respect nationally.
Nolan gave them respect nationally.
[Announcer] Steps on first and the Astros have won
the National League West.
Making the playoffs really catapulted the Astros
even higher than the football team.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Game five from the Astrodome
in Houston, Texas and for the third time in 12 years,
the National League Championship Series
will go the limit.
It was the best of five series to get to the world series.
That's kind of hard to believe,
but that was cool because we had Nolan on the mound
for game five.
[Narrator] Top of the eighth, big Tex toe in the rubber,
and only six outs to send the 'Stros
to their first ever World Series.
Let's watch Nolan channel some of that old
miracle Mets magic.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] You don't give this big guy on the mound
a lead going into the eighth or ninth inning
because he's held that lead well over a hundred times
in his career.
That's a little looper,
and it's passed Reynolds.
Here's Boone with Bowa on first.
Back, off the pitchers glove.
There'll be no play.
That's gotta be a double play.
It's right there, but behind him just a little bit.
Greg Gross drops down a perfect bunt, bases loaded.
And then the top of the order came up.
[Announcer] 3-2, nobody out.
It's outside, ball four.
Forces in a run.
The next thing you know, all hell broke loose.
[Announcer] Phillies have scored five runs
in the eighth inning.
It was the most crushing game in Astros history,
because they were just so close to World Series.
[Announcer] Maddox going... it's over!
The Phillies win it.
[gentle piano music]
In the 1980 season, I just think after being a free agent
and having a million dollar contract and the people's
expectations of what you coming to a ball club
meant to that club and then us getting so close
and not getting it done, I think probably
stuck with me more than just about any other season.
The game breaks your heart a lot.
Both of those years, 80 and 86
for all the good parts, those were tough losses.
[Announcer] Three and two to Bass.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Strike him out!
New York Mets have won
the 1986 National League pennant.
After 86, we kinda took a turn in the wrong direction.
I, I can't tell you why.
I'm getting to a stage of my career where I don't
have that much longer to play and uh-
- How many more years? - Well, you know, who knows.
He was not gonna be satisfied with the team
not competing nor should he have been.
1987, they put 'em on a pitch count.
100 pitches, you're out of the game.
Pitching great, I don't care.
100 pitches, you're out of the game.
I remember Nolan angrily laughing at pitch count.
What are you talking about, 100 pitches?
When I started the game, my intent was to finish the game
and I really wasn't interested in
turning it over to the bullpen.
He took it as a personal insult
if he didn't finish a game.
Today, it's a miracle if a pitcher throws nine innings.
Nolan, anything like a pitch count was ridiculous.
It was just a crazy year.
I was 8-16, but led the league in ERA and,
and strike outs.
Only more miserable than his record,
was life in the dugout with Nolan during those days.
He was tough to be around
because he was demanding that the
offense gets something done.
Strike!
We didn't score, but our standing joke was
I get you one today. I get you one.
I said that better hold up.
Cause these other guys, they ain't hitting today.
[laughs]
He had 15 starts where we scored
two runs or fewer.
And another stat that I looked up,
in July he was 0-5.
We scored seven runs in five games.
[Announcer] The 0-2 pitch,
got it!
The Astros have stranded 15 through seven.
[Narrator] Adding insult to injury,
the next season in 88,
Nolan tangled with mercurial Astros owner
John McMullen during contract negotiations.
[somber music]
McMullen was a difficult person to be involved with.
John was gonna ask Nolan to take a pay cut.
The owner, who I used to refer to on the air,
as the ayatollah McMullen,
offered him a 20% hometown discount.
[Reid] My dad, he never asked for a raise.
From 80 to 88, nine seasons, no raise
because he wanted that money to go
to building a better team.
[somber music]
He pulled the family together around the dinner table
and said, look guys, we don't know what's out there.
We're gonna, we're gonna see.
The Yankees called,
the Angels called,
we had a team in Japan call,
and then the Rangers were there.
And it wasn't really about the money
or the quality of the club,
as much as it was about
he wanted to be as close to home as possible.
All right, we get everybody?
Dear Lord, thank you for this day
and this week that we all get to spend together.
Please bless this meal going in to our bodies
and let us continue to work in all we do to glorify you.
- Jesus, I pray. Amen. - [Everybody] Amen.
[Man] All right, ladies first.
- Y'all lead the way, ladies. - Okay, I'll go first.
Nolan Ryan is a person who prioritizes family.
And he's had a great career, a lot of fame
but he always put his family first.
When we were at home,
he was dad.
And then the minute he walked into the clubhouse,
he was Nolan Ryan the competitor,
and then he didn't come out
of the clubhouse until he was ready to be dad again.
He never brought that home.
Hey, to family.
[family toasting]
To Nana and Papa, who started it all.
His persona's this like this giant of a man
who's amazing at baseball.
You think of him like this tough guy,
but he's really sweet and intentional
with all of the grandkids.
He loves coming to our sporting events,
doing everything he can to support us.
And also he just loves the family being together.
[Ruth]
My grandmother, we call her Nanamoo.
She's like who I wanna be in life.
She is the most selfless person I've ever known.
She's my--
I don't know, I love her.
She's nurturing and supportive,
but also the most competitive person I've ever met,
which is funny when your grandfather's like,
arguably the best baseball pitcher of all time,
to say my grandmother's significantly more competitive.
My mom is definitely the most competitive person in our family.
By far.
My mom was a 1965 state doubles tennis champion.
It was really good in my dad's career
to have somebody at home that didn't give you the like,
"Oh, that's okay you lost, Nolan."
Really, she pushed him to be the best he could be.
After the games,
my adrenaline would be going pretty big.
I would wanna rehash the games with him and he did not.
That was over and done with.
Now, I can watch a game and enjoy it more
because I'm not just dying with every pitch
and it's not like your livelihood depends on
what's going on out there.
[gentle music]
I can remember going to Eddie Chiles, our owner,
and saying, "We might have a chance to sign Nolan
but it doesn't appear that he fits in our budget."
And Eddie Chiles said,
"You go sign Nolan Ryan,
let me worry about where the money's gonna come from."
I remember vividly,
Tom Grieve and I in this silly hotel hallway,
jumping up and down,
doing like spins in the air,
slapping each other five,
thinking we just pulled off the impossible.
The Texas Rangers have entered into a contract
with Nolan Ryan.
They're probably 10 members
of the Dallas Fort Worth media there.
Not one of us had a clue
and everybody's kinda looking at each other,
like, "This is great!"
And then like in the next breath it's,
"Wait a minute. How old is Nolan?"
And, now there were no smartphones,
so we actually had go to the books.
He's gonna be 41,
but in Houston, they still cuss it.
Even today,
all these years later they'll be cussing that one.
He was always such a class guy,
but you knew when he went to the Rangers,
he wanted to...
to John McMullen.
The day we signed Nolan Ryan,
it was like we became a Major League team.
[phone ringing]
- Sorry about that. - Oh, no worries.
That's mine.
Hey, just go grab it. [phone ringing]
That afternoon, the phone started ringing in Arlington
and we had 250, 300 calls
for people inquiring about season tickets for 1989.
And for us, believe me, that was a lot.
There's no better way to sell tickets in Texas
than to say "Buy a ticket and come and watch Nolan Ryan."
He's a hero to many Texans.
I used to watch him when I was a little kid.
This is a legend
and now he's coming to the Rangers.
Being with the team that had very little notoriety at all
it was like Elvis had come aboard.
♪ Happy birthday to you
♪ Happy birthday dear Nolan
♪ Happy birthday to you
[cheers and applause]
The fans just loved the fact that he was in his forties
and he was still pitching and competing with these,
you know, youngsters.
[cheering]
That is what gave him that aura
of being something special.
I didn't feel old.
I'd sit in that clubhouse
and I was older than the manager,
and older than the coaches,
and older than the general manager.
Then some of my teammates,
I was older than their parents.
Then you start thinking,
maybe you are old.
[upbeat music]
[Announcer] One run in in the fourth for Detroit.
In that first game, Nolan was struggling a bit.
Bobby sent me out.
I said, "Nolan, how you doing?"
He said, "Tom, I'm doing horse shit
but it's way better than what you got warming up
in that bullpen.
Get the hell off my mound."
So I did.
Bobby said, "What did he say?"
I said, "Bobby, you don't wanna know."
It really wasn't an enjoyable act
of going to the mound
and taking him out of the game.
We learned early on,
that if he thought he had something left
and it was better than what we had warming up,
you were not gonna get him off that mound.
[Announcer] Another K goes up.
I took a lot of pride in the fact
that I was still able to compete
on that level at that age.
He got better. That's the amazing thing.
How many power pitchers can you think of,
get better as they get older?
That's not the way it works.
[Announcer] He just blew it by.
It was the talk of baseball.
How can this guy still pitch
and be so effective at his age?
And then they start talking about,
okay, what does he do?
I used to work out with Nolan Ryan.
His workout routine was rigorous for a 20-year-old,
much less, a 40-year-old.
[Newsreader] His arm is the most feared in baseball.
[Announcer] Got him swinging.
Comes to the ballpark,
ride that bicycle for two hours
and then to the trainer room,
and then go out running,
and then comes in,
and then do weights.
He does that day in and day out,
except the day before he pitch.
That was the goal,
to recover as fast as I could from the last start,
so I would be at my peak for the next start.
[Announcer] Call strike three,
there's 300.
Nolan Ryan for the sixth time in career
has struck out 300 or more batters.
[crowd cheering]
That time was the perfect storm, so to say.
We had the best of old school
and everything that Nolan represented
and the best of the new school,
which was technology and science.
We were filming Nolan
with the little balls all over his body in a 3D environment
to try to figure out the best way to throw,
the best way to be conditioned.
And just, pull the books.
He was actually a better pitcher from age 39 to 46
than at any time in his career.
Well, I have two books here--
We list alphabetically the strikeouts.
From Hank Aaron, who he struck out four times,
Paul Zuvella, who he struck out once.
Claudell Washington sits at the top at 39,
and he struck out 61 players,
15 or more times.
27 Hall of Famers,
seven father and son combinations,
brothers.
The three Alous, Felipe, Jesus, Matty Alou.
Joe and Phil Niekro.
Cal and Bill Ripkin.
Just, you know, Hall of Famers,
just all over the map.
My brother, Billy and I would laugh.
We're on his list.
I faced him when they said he didn't throw hard.
So he was throwing as hard as anybody in the league.
Records are meant to be broken, but not this one.
Tonight, Nolan Ryan went after career strikeout
number 5,000.
[gentle music]
[Announcer] The spotlight of the baseball world
is on this man tonight, Nolan Ryan.
4,994 strikeouts
in his 22nd year in the major leagues.
[soft dramatic music]
When I introduced Nolan Ryan
as the starting pitcher,
"And on the mound for the Rangers,
number 34, Nolan..."
And that's about as far as anybody would hear
because by that time, the crowd's roaring.
[crowd cheering]
[Announcer] Well, you know something's up in baseball
when the President's office calls
during the day of the game
to get the coordinates for the satellite transmission
so that the President on vacation can watch.
[suspenseful music]
And here is by far the easiest Oakland hitter
to strike out.
He strikes out about one every three times.
[crowd cheering]
[Announcer] Breaking ball.
[crowd roars]
4,995.
Strike three!
4,996.
[crowd cheers]
4,997.
[crowd roars]
4,998.
[crowd roars]
Fast ball.
Four, nine, nine, nine.
[crowd roars]
And now Nolan Ryan, closing in.
[dramatic music] [crowd cheers]
Ricky Henderson leading off at the top of the fifth.
Before the game, he told me,
for the 5,000th strikeout,
he was gonna strike out
either Ricky Henderson or Jose Canseco.
[crowd roars]
[Announcer] Everybody here's perched
on this historic moment.
Voila!
The moment we've been waiting for.
And as he threw the pitch,
the entire stadium went up in like one big flash bowl.
[light bulb flashes] Like this, of light.
The ball went in at 97 and Ricky Henderson fouled it off.
I don't know how he did it.
[crowd cheering]
I was sitting with Bart Giamani,
Barbara and Jenna, and Laura.
I'll never forget Jenna saying,
"Dad, it looks like there's a lot of fireflies
in the stadium."
[Interviewer] I just want to get your take on.
Okay.
You don't have to watch the whole thing.
Well, if I'm in there, I might as well, right?
How do you make it work?
Oh.
[Announcer] Two, exploding breaking ball.
First of all, you can hear the crowd.
[crowd roars]
[Announcer] Three balls, two strikes.
[dramatic music]
[suspenseful music]
[crowd cheers]
Strike three!!
Strike out number 5,000.
It's history for Nolan Ryan.
Okay, I mean, he kinda tips his hat,
he doesn't glorify in the moment.
That's unbelievable.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan gets number 5,000.
[crowd cheers]
[Reporter] Well Nolan, 5,000 been approached,
what about 6,000?
[laughs]
I can honestly say Norm,
I don't think I'll be around for it.
[crowd cheers]
Here we are in Arlington Stadium where my father, Nolan Ryan,
and the doctor, Tom House,
had been working on a week-long rehab program.
So you think you're gonna be ready to pitch the 19th?
Oh, I don't know.
A couple more months and I'll be ready for the
Mr. Universe Contest.
He's getting in shape so that he can try to beat me
on the tennis court.
[Reese] Have your biceps gotten larger?
You can come over to the French Riviera
next summer when I'm in competition and look.
My picture will be on the cover of 40 and older.
[Reese] Fit and over 40, huh?
Fit and over 40, Mr. Universe.
[Reese] Fit and way over 40, huh?
I'm gonna bring the crown home to the U.S.
Pete really thought he was gonna go to Arlington
and play one more year.
And we would talk, you know, in the off season,
and he'd say, "Reese, I need to keep playing,
I have to keep playing."
He was enjoying it and he was competitive.
He was actually dominant.
[Announcer] Payoff pitch, got him swinging.
Strikeout number 12 for Nolan Ryan,
and he has not thrown a no-hitter
since September the 26th, 1981.
I don't think that you can retire
when you're pitching no-hitters.
[Announcer] A 2-0 pitch.
Fly ball, right field.
[crowd cheers]
Number six to Nolan Ryan.
[crowd cheering]
The express has done it once again.
When we signed Nolan, we never anticipated
that these things were gonna happen.
Nolan's sixth no-hitter,
5,000 strikeouts,
300 wins.
[Announcer] Nolan Ryan, his 300th career victory.
So as that unfolded,
it just built the legend up more and more.
[Narrator] The bright lights on Nolan
were somehow getting even brighter.
[crowd cheers]
[Narrator] This was a whole new generation
of hitters he was facing.
New superstars who wanted to take the old legend head on.
Bo Jackson said bats were epic.
I remember people running out of the clubhouse
to see Nolan and Bo.
Two big-horned sheep bucking heads, right there.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] He hits it well, it could be very deep
and it's gone!
He hit one of the longest home runs
that I've ever seen
and that's not even the event
that people remember most between Bo Jackson and Nolan.
[camera clicks]
The next 20, 25 years,
you could not go to a sports bar
in America, Canada, Mexico,
been to all of them,
and that picture wasn't up there.
It's amazing how you keep telling a story,
how it grows and grows and grows.
Well, I think anytime you put Bo Jackson and Nolan Ryan
in the same sentence,
it's got a chance to.
Everybody says,
"Oh, Bo hit a rocket right off of his mouth."
It was a routine ground ball.
[man laughs]
He hits a little topper,
and the ball got lost in the rain drops.
The ball split his lip open.
Nolan could stick his tongue through his lip, right here.
'Cause it was, like, cut from there down.
He finished that inning somehow.
In between innings he went into the clubhouse,
Dr. Makowski stitched him up,
went back out and finished the game.
[dramatic music]
You think he was intimidating before?
[crowd roars]
Try facing him with his Ranger uniform
just covered with blood.
Now, that's intimidating.
This is Big Tex.
His legend can't grow anymore.
Then you have the Robin Ventura moment.
[dramatic western music]
I'll run into somebody
and that might be the third question they ask me.
I find it amusing that of all the things
that happened in my career,
that's one of the things I'm remembered for.
[Announcer] 46-year-old veteran, Nolan Ryan.
It'll go down in Texas sports lore
as a defining moment.
[laughs] Texans just love that.
[Announcer] There's a base hit into the left field.
There comes Carl.
They're waving him around as Gonzales gets to it.
[Narrator] Okay, now.
For those uninitiated,
this isn't the iconic moment we're talking about.
Don't worry, we'll get there.
But to truly appreciate it,
let's rewind it back a bit.
[tape rewinds]
It's my last season in San Diego,
and I'm gonna be the top free agent on the market.
I'm gonna play hard,
but I'm certainly gonna protect myself.
Nolan Ryan came up and in on me three times that game.
And I said, "Oh hell!"
I was running so fast trying to get Dave
before he got to Nolan.
'Cause Dave was huge and Nolan's big.
I said it's a bull hitting a big-ass horse.
Enos Cabell and the guys are grabbing,
"Hey, Winnie, stop, stop!"
We laugh about it later on,
but that was truly, I think, one of the few times
that I, you know, you lose it.
I realized after he came out
that his intent was to hurt me.
And I was going to take the position,
that if anybody ever came to the mound again
then I was gonna be the aggressor.
[Announcer] Welcome to Arlington stadium
for game three of this four-game series
between The Sox and The Texas Rangers.
The White Sox were actually
in the American League West at that time.
Had Bo Jackson.
And the Rangers had had these battles with these guys.
[Announcer] His only Major League homer.
Coming off of Nolan.
What? Ooh.
Oh, he's hit.
Oh my goodness, look at this.
And so this one night, the White Sox said,
"If Nolan hits anybody tonight, whoever it is,
you're gonna go to the mound."
There was a bounty on Nolan's head.
If you get hit by Nolan and you don't charge the mound,
it's gonna cost you 500 bucks.
Ventura happened to be the first one that day to get hit.
When Robin Ventura went out there,
I just thought he wasn't quite serious.
He wasn't fully committed.
Most guys who charge the mound,
if you had a microphone on him,
you could hear him say "Grab me catcher,
grab me catcher, I don't want to get out there."
Before you could blink, Nolan had him
like a baby calf in a headlock.
Grabbing like he was grabbing a bull.
I was right there, best seat in the house.
[intense music]
♪
When I went down, I was on the bottom
of the pile and I was laying face first into the dirt.
It was one of the scariest moments of my life.
[intense rock music]
I couldn't breathe.
And I really truly thought that I was gonna pass out.
I'm really upset because I never saw Nolan get up.
Then all of a sudden this big arm came into the pile
and reached under my shoulder and pulled me out.
And it was Bo Jackson.
[intense rock music]
[crowd cheers]
You know, at first I was just like,
get him dad, get him.
But then I was also thinking I'm never gonna get a date.
People were already intimidated
by my dad being Nolan Ryan.
And now I thought, great.
You know, nobody's gonna ask me out.
I loved it.
I absolutely loved it.
And then Robin get kicked out,
but Nolan didn't, that was even better.
[Announcer] So Ventura definitely has been ejected.
Ryan holds a lot of records,
but this may be a new one.
Most punches thrown without getting thrown out.
And the momentum had shifted and they come back and win.
I mean, that's amazing.
[Announcer] Ryan's setting down 12 of the next 13
many faced without allowing a hit.
I think it became such a legendary moment
because the photographers got such great pictures of it.
That photo seemed to make it everywhere
from t-shirts to billboards.
And at the end of my dad's career
it ended up being the most purchased photo.
Basically for everybody in their 40s,
it was kind of a rallying cry of,
"Hey, don't count us out yet."
[crickets chirp]
[reels whir]
Keep pulling. Swing it over here.
[laughter]
Papa, we got some bad news,
the girls are dominating the guys out here today.
Yeah, I don't know what the deal is.
He got the most.
Ella has you beat.
Yep, Ella caught that big fish.
I think Lela won, she got the most.
Yeah, Lela got two.
I think whenever he's with the family,
he's very different than whenever we're out and about.
It's fun to see him joking around and just hanging out.
Sometimes we'll be at dinner and stuff
and they'll be like, oh my God,
can you sign this baseball or sign this card?
He's like, sure.
That's really it though.
[Interviewer] Wait, do that impression again.
Uh, sure.
We have some comedians in our family.
I'm Nolan Ryan,
and I'm here to sell you Advil.
Hi, I'm Nolan Ryan and I'm here to sell you some Advil.
[laughter]
It's good!
Here to sell you some Advil, I like that.
It's the medicine doctors recommend most
for sprains and strains, Advil.
For me, it's a couple of Advil
and those muscle aches are long gone.
He had the Advil commercials,
which basically played in perfectly
to a 42-year-old pitcher.
He got a lot of grief from the clubhouse
from the younger players about that.
We'd bust his chops a little bit.
Hey Noley, you're gonna go have a couple Advil
after you just got done.
You know, just kind of messing with him a little bit.
It was fun.
I always loved the ones that he and my mom did together.
I take it for my arthritis pain
so we can exercise together.
Advil stronger than pain.
If you weren't a hardcore baseball fan,
you've got to know Nolan Ryan.
They're not getting older. They're just getting better.
[John Blake] Because of that national exposure.
Hey, I wouldn't steer you wrong.
[Narrator] While Noley was becoming quite
adept at pitching products,
many folks wondered if he'd ever lose steam
pitching fast balls.
The express couldn't run forever.
I watched him during his warmup and it's ugly.
It's not good at all.
I had a back problem and I told Tom warming up.
I said, "Look you might want to tell Bobby
to get somebody ready."
As I watched him begin to go up the steps of the dugout,
he looked down and said,
"This might be it."
[Announcer] Here comes 44-year-old Nolan Ryan.
An arousing ovation from his Texas fans
as he takes the mount.
And I called down to the bullpen
and had the relief pitcher get loose
while Nolan was getting loose out on the field.
And I literally thought before that game started
that I was gonna have to explain to people
that it was over for Nolan Ryan.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Strikes him out.
We're standing 13 pitches,
get a couple of 97s, 98s
off of that terrible warmup.
[Announcer] And Ryan gets the job done for the Rangers.
They're coming to bat in a moment.
When we went off the field
in the first inning,
Jeff Houston and I
looked at each other with that look like,
he's got it.
So let's bear down.
And he looks to the guys around him
and he said, "Boys!"
And everybody stops 'cause Nolan is talking.
He said, "Get me one.
It's all I'm gonna need today."
That's all I'm gonna need.
I said, okay, this fucking game is over.
[upbeat rock music]
[Announcer] That's his sixth strike out!
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Seven strike outs now!
The longer I threw, I developed more rhythm
and my back wasn't to the point that I couldn't throw.
And so it just all came together.
[crowd cheers]
[Announcer] Ryan in no-hit range once again
here in Texas tonight.
He went to that zone where all the superstars go.
[dramatic music]
The quantitative definition of the zone
is when thinking is inversely proportionate
to the stimulus of the environment.
So in those high octane, no-hitter situations.
When the crowds going nuts,
all this chaos is going on.
[crowd roars]
You know what his world is like?
[humming]
Pitch, glove, pitch, glove, nothing else exists.
[crowd cheers]
And this game was not on local television.
So you had to be following the radio.
And it created a buzz.
I remember a friend calling me and saying, you know,
my sons are driving to Arlington right now.
And he said, because they think Nolan Ryan
is gonna complete his no-hitter.
The crowd got bigger as the night went on.
The bleachers were filling up.
The tension was rising.
[Announcer] Lee makes contact
coming hard has managed to keep...
[crowd cheers loudly]
The no-hitters intact!
Being a pitcher, you're watching him going out
again at that age just saying here I am, man.
I'm coming at you with my best stuff.
[Announcer] Number 14.
Lights out on the eighth inning.
Fifteen strike outs.
Ryan, three outs away from no-hit number seven.
Stay with us right here on CTV.
Canada's no-hit network.
[crowd cheers]
And now the only man standing between Nolan Ryan,
the seventh career no-hitter,
is Toronto second baseman Roberto Alomar.
[tense music]
[crowd roars]
[Announcer] Like everybody else tonight, he's 0 for three.
And that's strike one.
Robby Alomar used to take pitching lessons
from my dad, his dad and my dad were teammates.
[Announcer] Strike two!
And so the fact that this little boy he used to
play catch with is now who he has to strike out--
to accomplish his task is pretty amazing.
[crowd cheers]
[dramatic music]
[Announcer] One ball and two strikes,
fly ball left field deep.
Toward the wall and it is over and out.
It is a grand slam home run.
[Narrator] Not what you were expecting, huh?
Nolan Ryan is a legend.
No doubt.
But he is human.
After all the strikeouts,
all the records,
only time could stop the express.
[Announcer] And Seattle has a five-nothing lead
with nobody out in the first.
[ominous music]
My elbow was bothering me a lot.
I tried to pitch through it
hoping that it would get better, but it didn't.
[ominous music]
[Announcer] There's Maggot in two-one pitch
inside three and one.
It just popped.
[Announcer] And now Dan, oh boy, Danny Wheat's
coming out to talk to Nolan.
That's not good.
I knew that I'd torn that tendon in my elbow.
And I knew that was it.
[dramatic music]
[Announcer] Oh boy.
[fans cheering]
[Commentator] Oh, you just hope
this isn't the way the rocket ends.
[fans cheering] [dramatic music]
That was a hard moment
to see a legend like that walking out.
His time in the majors was unbelievable.
I don't usually cry at a ball game,
but I cried because it's just sad to see him
not finish that game.
We just had to be thankful for what he had accomplished,
what he proved to himself,
and just be happy with that.
Even though it was sad.
[fans cheering]
You know the first spring training I missed,
boy, I had this feeling I should be doing something,
working out, throwing.
Mm-hmm [affirmative].
And it was really weird that,
that wasn't part of my life anymore.
I always said that there's life after baseball.
Even though you prepare yourself
and you think you should be able to handle it,
it's still a challenge, you know.
It took me two years, not being a player,
to finally put it behind me.
He pitched 27 years.
He's an iron man.
Talk about donating your organs.
Nolan should donate his right arm
to the Cooperstown when he dies
'cause there's never been one like it.
[Jackson] Anybody on there surprise you at all, by numbers?
[Nolan] Well Gaylord, you know,
he wasn't really a strikeout pitcher,
but he pitched so long.
[Jackson] First Bob Gibson, then him, more.
[Nolan] Mm-hmm [affirmative].
The baseball Hall of Fame is probably
the most difficult sports club to enter.
You think about the total number of people
who've ever put on a Major League uniform.
It's literally one percent, the best of the best,
that end up here with their plaque on the wall
in Cooperstown.
Over here on the left.
[dramatic music]
A fierce competitor
and one of baseball's most intimidating figures.
On the pitching mound for four decades,
his overpowering fastball and unappealing longevity
produced 324.
Unparalleled.
Unparalleled longevity.
You want her to start over?
[Director] No, that's great, that's great.
His overpowering fastball and unparalleled longevity
produced 324 victories and a host of Major League records.
Lifetime benchmarks include 5,714 strikeouts.
[Announcer] He stuck him out swinging.
I'm second to him in strikeouts
and he's got a thousand more strikeouts than me.
Congratulations, Nolan, and welcome to Cooperstown.
[fans cheering]
Thank you.
[fans cheering]
Thank you.
This is indeed a special day and I'm privileged to be here.
It took me a while to realize
what a gift that I had been given.
And when I finally did, I dedicated myself
to be the best pitcher I possibly could be
for as long as I possibly could be.
For Nolan to pitch 27 years in the Major Leagues,
it takes so much work behind the scenes.
Ups and downs inside your mind and your heart
and your body to go out there and do it time and time again.
I'd like to say thank you
to the guys that I faced over my career.
I can honestly say that I'm enjoying seeing 'em now
more than I ever have.
And I really didn't particularly care for 'em
when they had their uniforms on.
So guys, I appreciate it.
First time I really got to know Nolan
was when we both went in the Hall of Fame that year,
and guess what, I was still intimidated.
I didn't have to face him. I was nervous being around him.
And to play as long as I did,
and to have a family,
you have to be very blessed.
And I was with my wife, Ruth.
[fans clapping]
And my three fine children, Reed, Reese and Wendy.
Baseball life's a tough life on your family.
One, two, three.
[Nolan] And to be able to play as long as I did,
and have the support that I had from my family.
I can't tell you how, how much that means to me.
We would be here all day if I had to list all the ways
that my dad's made a difference in my life.
Just the example of the kind of human being I want to be,
and I want my children to be.
I'm extremely lucky.
I may be gone, but I won't forget you.
And I appreciate all those times
that you supported me over the 27 years that I played,
and my family.
Thank you.
[fans clapping]
There was certain lions in the league
and there was a lot of lambs.
Nolan was a lion.
When the books are written,
Nolan's going to be up there with all the greats.
There's not ever gonna be another Nolan Ryan.
Out of the many records that Nolan Ryan has,
the seven no-hitters is never gonna be broken.
The man has more strikeouts than anybody will ever have
in the history of the game.
Nobody's ever gonna break it.
No chance.
He's struck out 5,700 plus hitters.
I'm not one of them.
And the only reason that is is that I've never faced him.
[Announcer] Swing and miss.
Ryan did every element of pitching
in a bigger way than anybody who ever played the game.
He didn't just walk hitters.
He walked the most ever, struck out the most ever.
He allowed the fewest hits ever.
Threw the most no-hitters ever.
So every part of him is this Paul Bunyan-esque character.
He's just this larger than life figure.
But at the end, you're like
"where does it Nolan Ryan stand?"
And there's no good answer to that
because there's nobody to compare him to.
[Cal] He's an icon to the game of baseball.
It's almost folklore.
When you think about what he was able to accomplish
and how long he did it.
I don't remember facing anybody like him.
Ultimately in life,
you can have success on the field
but really what matters in the long term
is a good set of values.
And that's what Nolan Ryan exemplifies.
His legacy will be that he had a God-given talent
and he worked hard at his talent.
I'm really proud of that
but I'm just so proud of him as a person.
I guess I'm just his biggest fan.
My mom played a huge role.
Without Ruth Ryan, Nolan Ryan's career would
never have lasted 27 years in the Major Leagues.
She has given up so much for our family.
I never dreamed this would happen, but, then again,
I just wanted to be with him.
Three, two, one. [whoosh]
Everything about Nolan Ryan is rather mythical.
And I think it always will be.
Long after us,
it'll still be mythical.
I guess it was kinda like,
I was born to be a pitcher.
[Announcer] That's it, number seven is in the books.
The remarkable Ryan has done it again.
[Narrator] Now you didn't really think
we'd leave out the seventh no-hitter, did you?
Here's to one hell of run, Big Tex.
[crowd cheering]
[gentle music]
♪
They don't even know what a soap opera is.
Yeah, I have it.
Oh, you're watching it right now?
- Hello, Nolan. - Hi, Mary.
I just wanted to come by and thank you for yesterday
and drop this picture off you asked for.
Oh, how nice of you.
You had hair!
[laughing]
Well, I guess I better go.
I just want to drop that picture by.
Oh, well you just come by anytime you're in town.
Most appreciated.
Yes ma'am, thank you. Nice seeing you.
Goodbye.
Hey, after watching this, let me tell you,
it's a good thing you stuck with baseball,
not acting.
♪ Well, one of these days gonna pay the road. ♪
♪ Yeah, one of these days going to run for fun. ♪
♪ Yeah one these days, when you're all alone. ♪
♪ Out back wishing for the grass to grow, oh ♪
Do, I think my dad's the greatest pitcher of all time.
In some ways I would say no.
And in some ways I'd say yes.
When you pitch as deep as he did
and you pitch it for as long as he did,
there's gonna be numbers that if somebody
wants to make the argument, well, you know
he's the all-time walk leader.
Or he has nearly 300 losses.
Well, that's a valid argument,
but that is also what comes with the territory
when you are a power pitcher and you pitch as long as he did.
You know, you got Randy Johnson, you got Roger Clemens
you got Tom Sever, and I'm being biased.
But I think, bar none, Nolan, as a power pitcher,
is at the head of that list.
Nolan Ryan definitely top five of all time.
No doubt about it.
I caught that dude, man.
I mean, I caught Nolan Ryan.
I caught him.
He can rank right up there
with some of the old pitchers, Sandy Koufax,
people that have accomplished enormous
success in baseball.
There has been pitchers that have won more than him
that have a better ERA.
But in the history of baseball,
he was the most dominating pitcher
that the game has ever seen.
We gotta end on that.
That was perfect.
Yeah, it felt like, wow, that was--
You nailed it.
Wow, I was looking in the camera and I felt, wow.
Well that's the way a documentary should end.