Review of "Nolan Ryan" - guest post by The Sports Book Lady

I belong to a few online book clubs on the social media site Goodreads, and one of them is a baseball book club.  Some of us decided to read this book as a group read, and while I enjoyed it, rated it four stars and wrote a review; another member of the group, the Sports Book Lady (who co-moderates the baseball book club with me) wrote an even better review.  Therefore, instead of following my usual format for posting a review of a book I have read, I am going to post her review here of "Nolan Ryan: The Making of a Pitcher."

Rating:
4 of 5 stars

Review:

I have always had a wild imagination. It’s the type that forbids me from watching scary movies past 3 in the afternoon. I used to think Darth Vader was coming for me in the shower among other things. Yet, what stands out is a recurring nightmare that I had through my adolescent years. I would be in a tunnel that was fast filling with water and a shark was out to get me until the great Nolan Ryan quickly pulled me to safety through a door on the side. I would be gasping for breath in the comforts of a baseball stadium and Ryan would save the day yet again, this time on the mound. Why, I ask, Nolan Ryan, if I am a Cubs fan to the core and greatest Chicago athlete when I was growing up was Michael Jordan? I still question this nightmare but I do remember watching Ryan’s final no hitter on ESPN and vaguely remember him pitching for the Houston Astros when I first started following baseball during the mid 1980s. When my baseball book buddies decided to read Nolan Ryan: The Making of a Pitcher, I was on board to join them if only to deconstruct the man who has been among the best to ever put on a baseball uniform. 

The Ryan family were among the earliest settlers of Texas when the Republic fought for its independence from Mexico. The Ryans had originally immigrated to the colonies as early as 1760 to escape Irish brutality at the hands of the British. Following the war for independence in 1776, the Ryans eventually settled in Mississippi and later played a role in the battle of the Alamo, settling on farm land near Bexar that they dubbed Old Ryan’s Hill. By the time Nolan Ryan was born in 1945, the youngest of six children to Nolan, Sr and Martha, the Ryan family had been in Texas for one hundred years and were products of the so called Texas mystique. Nolan Sr and Martha would settle in the small farming community of Alvin and along the way pass on a strong work ethic and family values to their children. Although their youngest enjoyed farming and cattle, little did they know that his arm and ability to throw a baseball upwards of 95 miles an hour would have him destined toward fame. 

In Alvin, the best entertainment was a movie, a night at the legion hall, or an ice cream at the Dairy Barn. Nolan took his future wife Ruthie on a date to these town staples for the first time when he was sixteen and she a mere fifteen. The chemistry was instant and the couple was promised to each other from that moment on. Nolan already possessed a strong arm and would drive to Houston if the Dodgers were in town to watch his idol Sandy Koufax pitch. Little did either man know that one day Nolan would surpass all of Koufax’s numbers. By the time Koufax retired following the 1966 season, Nolan would sign with the New York Mets. Scouts and management envisioned him as a cog of a young pitching staff that included future Hall of famer Tom Seaver. Nolan would rise meteorically and join the Mets by the end of 1967 but was sparsely used. He credits management’s inability to use him with extending his career as long it did because he logged so few innings at the beginning. In the 1967 offseason Nolan and Ruthie were married and he reported immediately to spring training. It was Ruth’s presence in New York and her insistence that he stay the course that kept him grounded in an otherwise poor relationship with Mets management. Ruth has been a part of all of Nolan’s baseball decisions since and has been a rock for him at every stop of his baseball journey, twice convincing him not to give up when he had a bright future ahead of him. 

Nolan Ryan would move to the upper echelon of baseball pitchers while a member of the California Angels during the 1970s. Playing away from the bright lights of New York and on a team largely out of contention, Ryan came into his own as a pitcher. With the team he would throw four no hitters, strike out 383 batters in one season, and one year lead the league in strikeouts, wins, and earned run average. The achievements and accolades started to pile up, yet Ryan never envisioned himself as a top pitcher. He worked hard because his father, a product of the Depression, worked hard, and Nolan sought to earn a living to support his family. During the off seasons, he would return to Texas and take up cattle ranching, developing a lucrative business that over time would include four ranches and his own brand of beefsteak. If Nolan, known in baseball as the Ryan Express, had chosen to retire during this earlier portion of his career, he knew that he had a Texas sized empire of ranching to fall back on. 

Ryan would pitch the last fourteen years of his career for the two teams in Texas, the Astros and the Rangers, in order to be closer to his home in Alvin. Both he and Ruth were family oriented people and the chance to live at home while competing at the highest levels of athleticism was a tantalizing prospect. Ryan credits Dr Gene Coleman of the Astros and pitching coach Tom House of the Rangers for using technological innovations to help prolong his career. Using cutting edge training methods as well as the budding use of computer technology to chart Ryan’s pitch delivery and use of various pitches, Coleman and House kept Ryan on the top of his game well into his forties, at a time when most professional athletes had long called it quits. During years meant to be the twilight’s of his career, Ryan pitched three more no hitters, including one at age forty four. As pitchers become more specialized and fail to pitch deep into games, his records of seven no hitters and 5714 strikeouts with twenty seven years in the major leagues will probably never be broken. 

Through it all, Ryan stayed grounded. He and Ruth are still happily married and could teach a lesson or two to the athletic and celebrity couples of today’s generation. The author Goldman was a bat boy for the Angels during Ryan’s tenure there and got to know the family off the field, becoming like another child for them. It is from this close relationship that Goldman was able to provide a window into Ryan’s life on and off of the field, where he was able to separate from being a Texas gentleman and fierce competitor who instilled fear in the eyes of his opponents. As a ten year old, Ryan is the athlete who I chose to lead me to safety from my nightmares. As an ace pitcher who was grounded in his values and his family, Ryan was probably a perfect choice. His Ryan Express fast ball most likely would have also instilled as much fear in the shark of my nightmares as it did in his opponents across two generations of ball players, as well as today’s ball players who still revere him as an ace hurler. 

4 stars