https://www.texasmonthly.com/culture/new-nolan-ryan-biography-tim-brown/ Brown’s theory is that Ryan possessed a deep-rooted psychological need to throw harder and longer than other power pitchers. “He believes his right arm was a gift,” Brown said. “[Many players] have been equally blessed. What separated him from most was his desire to honor that gift—with effort, with dedication, with curiosity, and with the sort of commitment he saw every day in his father, who worked two jobs and slept a few hours and never, as far as anyone knew, uttered a word of complaint.”
Very true. In this day and age when athletes attain generational wealth within a few years of becoming stars, the prevailing thoughts of long term health effect vs. quality of life over meaningless records wrestle within said athletes. Most current athletes pick quality of life over records for the most part (but of course only those that can afford to do so). We are probably at a place where we will see fewer and fewer records being broken, simply for the fact that athletes want to be healthy to spend some of their gazillion dollars.
Yes i agree that article in the Texas monthly was great. Thank you for sharing the link. I remember that brawl, I was in high school. I’m now older than that old man Ryan was when beat up Ventura… lol.
Knowing what we now know about velocity ceilings, there probably were more players in Nolans era that could have pumped in high 90s. What separated him was his willingness to go all out, and his true super power of staying healthy despite the crazy usage.
His ability to throw hard without injury was definitely super human. He threw 235 pitches in a game once. Nolan and Randy Johnson were the genetic mutants of my lifetime. They got by on physical gifts. With analytics Nolan probably would have been even more unhittable.
Really really good huh? U dont retire with a lifetime OPS of .943 being really good. That places him between Ty Cobb and Willie. It was a crime how quick he was dropped from the Ballot. Im still pissed to this day. I didnt even bring up his Playoff stats. Im not saying he was a sure fire Hall Of Famer but I do know he got ripped off.
It is sad that 1 season probably made all the difference. He would have had 2k hits and 400HR with just one more typical year for him.
Yeah his 1 game. I cant believe im arguing FOR Lance Berkman and people are arguing against me. Obviously OPS with a certain amount of games played. So u are OK with him coming off the ballot that quick? If Lou Whitaker is a Hallof Famer. I can argue the Puma is. Gold glove center fielder type play? Come on.
It was a terrible vote total, but the worst for me is Jimmy Wynn getting 0 votes. If Joey Votto gets in, I'll start pounding the table for Puma. Unfortunately the dividing line has to come down somewhere.
I want to throw out another amazing Nolan Ryan stat. At 42 years old, he averaged 127 pitches per start and was still throwing over 96 mph. He had one game where he threw 164 pitches that season. Holy Hell!!! Nolan Ryan stats are almost as insane as Barry Bonds stats.
Actually I specifically stated he should have stated on the ballot longer a few posts up. I'm just adding some pespective because all the "pro Lance" posts in this thread reference rate stats and ignore counting stats.
