I'm not a baseball fan now. But I was back in the day, and remember when the Astros were too cheap to sign Nolan Ryan back for 1 million dollars. The owner was a cheapskate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Ryan#Houston_Astros_.281980.E2.80.931988.29 Nolan owns the rangers now and he's in the World Series. Dr. John McMullen, How does it taste?
Well Nolan Ryan was the first million dollar sports contract in the US so it wasn't chump change back then.
Nolan Ryan is a minority owner of the Rangers, he does not "own" the Rangers. Nolan Ryan would kick the everlivingsh!t out of Vernon Maxwell - yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Both Houston legends got screwed over on contract extensions. Bob Knepper is better than any of the Astros pitchers now
I'm more of a causal fan when it comes to the Astros, so I'll pose this question for those in the know. Which one hurt the Astros the most? Losing Ryan to the Rangers or losing Randy Johnson to the D'Backs? To answer my own question I think it was losing Johnson, since Bagwell and Biggio was still in their primes and we had awesome rotation at the time as well.
I mean, Ryan was a part of the Astros organization about 5 years ago. He wanted to move up and they didn't offer him any high level jobs so he went to the Rangers. It's not really on the owner from the 80s. It's on Drayton and Tal Smith. What pisses me off is that letting him go to the rangers caused him to choose a rangers hat on his hall of fame statue. If he got in today, they would have picked an Angels or Astros hat for him
Ryan, we went on to win the division 2 of the next 3 years without RJ. RJ was a rental and everyone involved knew it, Ryan wanted to stay and was shown the door for it.
Everyone on this board was excited to see the Astros trade away a 33-year-old Roy Oswalt, given the rebuilding state of the ballclub, so they could rebuild for the future. Nolan Ryan was 41 when he left Houston. He had the 4th best ERA in our starting rotation, and went 12-11 for a mediocre .500 ballclub that gave up more runs than it scored. He left our rebuilding club at a time where we were starting over, going with younger talent, and developing guys like Bags, Biggio, Caminiti and Finley while building to a late-90s run of success. The Rangers, meanwhile, made the playoffs exactly zero times with Nolan, which is coincidentally the same number of times the franchise had made the playoffs before they got him.
I think the million dollar contract he signed with the Astros in 1980 was the first million dollar contract in baseball. But the contract he signed with the Rangers in 1989 did not set any records by any means, if I remember correctly. I think the offer made by the Astros was actually a pay cut, which was just stupid and ridiculous.
repped. i mean, i was so bitterly pissed off when Nolie left -- but Sam is dead-on right about this. Good luck to Nolan. It is so appropriate that the Rangers required the intervention of a Houstonian to finally go somewhere in the playoffs.
You make good points but a couple of things here, he had the 4th best ERA but it was still 3.52 and was part of a great rotation of Scott, Jimmy D and Knepper. His win loss was irrelevant because the guy never got run support so that was always misleading, just look at a few years earlier when he won the ERA title with a 8-16 record. His last year was 1988 and while the Cammy and Biggio era had just begun, Baggy and Finley were still a few years away. The club was NOT rebuilding at that time and losing Ryan was a blow to the rotation next year because you replaced him with two washed up pitchers in Rick Rhoden and Jim Clancy. In 1989 the club went through some injuries and had no choice but to start rebuilding and setting up 1990 which is the beginning of the Stros we came know through 2006. That same team won the NL West two years earlier and still had guys in their prime, Hatcher, Doran and Bass with a strong rotation that could challenge anyone in the West. Ryan with the Rangers was an above average pitcher posting a 3.42 ERA and striking out 10 batters per 9 innings. The guy still had great stuff and could have helped another contender but chose to stay close to home, I wouldn't blame him for the Rangers not making the playoffs. This is water under the bridge and while it sucks to have a legend leave twice, life goes on and we have our own legends now in Biggio and Baggy so I'm fine with it.
