Nolan Ryan joins Sharp campaign

Ryan had the best right arm in baseball history.

He may have had the hardest throwing right arm in baseball history (and even that may be a question of debate - especially among old-time Baltimore Oriole hands who remember a minor league pitcher named Steve Dalkowski, who blew his arm out practically the minute he finally made the Orioles), but Nolan Ryan was very far from being the best righthanded pitcher in baseball history. From where I sit, the best righthanded pitcher in baseball history would be Walter Johnson as the head of a class including second place being shared extremely tightly by Christy Mathewson, Bob Gibson, and Tom Seaver.

It's easy enough to overrate Nolan Ryan because of the five thousand strikeouts and the seven no-hitters, but the plain truth is that he was a very overrated pitcher (aside from his overall winning percentage, his earned run averages are serviceable but not singular) who was actually very vulnerable, overall, when his teams were anywhere close to a pennant race. (He was, in fact, passing his prime when he turned in his single best pennant race or postseason performance, in the 1986 League Championship Series; Bob Gibson he wasn't in the heat of a pennant race or in the post-season, overall.) And he wasn't even close to Walter Johnson or Tom Seaver for pitching top-of-the-line baseball for comparatively bad teams.

This is not to say he didn't earn his place in the Hall of Fame, by any means. He did earn it. But he was not the greatest righthanded pitcher of them all regardless of the raw quality of his pitching arm, and he was certainly not one of the top ten pitchers in baseball history.

I'm not arguing that GOP'ers vote for John Sharp. He's a Democrat, and he'll vote Dim on leadership.

I was making the argument introduced above, that 'Rats like him are a dying breed, and that the 'Rat leadership will promote the new "minority-led" Democratic Party, even contemplating the current 'Rat cadre's own extinction a la Lindy Boggs (Hale's widow, Cokie Roberts's mom), who was long a die-hard liberal Democrat representing Louisiana's Second Congressional District (New Orleans and environs). Boggs received a delegation of black ministers and NAACP functionaries one day who just told her thanks, Mrs. Boggs, you've done a lot for our people, but now it's time for a change; it's time for one of our own. And that was it. That was her career.

The 'Rats are siding with Malthusian Third World populations against the ones what brung 'em. The ones what brung 'em may well vote GOP now, especially the men, who see what is going on, finally breaking those brass collars as it becomes obvious that the 'Rats are going to put the Alamo itself in the scales, and everything Travis and Crockett fought for there. The Democratic nominee keeps giving me a whiff of President Chavez of Venezuela -- he's got an aroma of the Left caudillo and the Peronista about him. And yes, I could see him as the new Santa Anna.

Texas is going to be a footrace, to see if the conservatives can shut the floodgates before the RINO's and other NWO's can drown us all in a sea of dirt-floor labor and straight-ticket DemonRat votes.

Thank you for the bump and the compliment.

On a given day, Nolan Ryan was the toughest pitcher to hit against bar none, except maybe Bob Gibson.

Nolan Ryan actually has the best hits-per-nine innings average in baseball history - and yet he was still barely better than a .500 pitcher with a lifetime ERA (3.19) barely .40 below his league's average. (Gibson was nearly a full point under his league's average lifetime.) You can't just attribute this to bad teams, however - Walter Johnson and Tom Seaver actually played for more bad teams than Ryan did. A guy who's giving up only six hits a game average should have been a 20-game winner more than twice in his lifetime - Ryan's only two such seasons in a 27 year career put him at 21-16 and 22-16. That's not exactly the kind of pitching you expect out of a holy terror. Moreover, Ryan overall was not one of the prime pitchers in his league when his teams were in a pennant race down to the hot stretch, other than in 1969, when he was used as a spot starter as well as a reliever for the marbles-winning Mets. He was actually better in the post-season than he was in the heat of a pennant race - but Greg Maddux is way better in the heat of a pennant race than he's been in the postseason.

Let me share with you this analysis by Bill James, whose rating system based on win shares puts Nolan Ryan ranked as the number 24th pitcher of all time. I've seen others, I think I indicated above, which put him around 30th, but I think James has the better placement. Here's James:

The mystique of Nolan Ryan was based on two things. First, the other players were somewhat in awe of Ryan. The hitters were in awe of him because they couldn't hit him; the pitchers were in awe of him because they understood how difficult it was to do what he did.

Second, while Ryan was certainly not the greatest pitcher of his time, he was one of the most unusual pitchers of all time. Ryan tried to throw unhittable pitches, one after another, even to weak hitters, even when he was behind in the count. The "ease up and let the fielders do their work" software had never been installed on his machine. From the beginning of his career to his end, a Nolan Ryan game featured strikeouts, walks, and very few hits.

This could be perceived in two ways. On the one hand, it could be perceived as a "no compromises" position, that Ryan never gave in to the hitter, even in situations where any other pitcher would have. But on the other hand, it could be seen as a sort of permanent compromise. Ryan was saying to the hitters, in essence, "You can have a walk if you want it, but I'm not giving you anything to hit." Giving the hitter the walk, in some eyes, was enough.

Sportswriters could have portrayed Ryan either as a heroic pitcher who never compromised, or as a pitcher who was constitutionally compromised. But, because Ryan was so respected by the other athletes, the option of portraying him as constitutionally compromised was shut off to sportswriters, who were unwilling to present Ryan in a manner that might not have set well with the other players...

But the other option, the option of portraying Ryan as a very flawed pitcher, was quite obvious, and loomed like an elm tree over all discussions of Nolan Ryan. And this led to a lot of nonsensical information being generated on behalf of Ryan - for example, sportswriters would write that Ryan added 10,000 fans to the gate every time he pitched, when in reality 500 fans was a generous estimate; or, point out that between 1972 and 1978 Ryan was 107-1 or something when he entered the eighth inning with a lead (which is a meaningless stat, because managers never allow a pitcher to lose the game in late innings. Everybody wins almost all his decisions when entering the eighth inning with a lead, because if you're going to lose that game, you'll let the bullpen lose it).

The struggle between these two views of Ryan propelled him out of the class of ordinary players and lifted his image to a plateau beyond. Ryan has been retired almost ten years; in another ten perhaps we will begin to get a little bit of perspective on him. Ryan's log of spectacular accomplishments is as thick as Bill Clinton's little black book; his list of flaws and failures is lengthy but dry, and will never make for good reading. He rates as well as he does here in part because my method compares a pitcher to zero; he ranks not nearly as well if he is compared to the average.

A no-questions-asked Hall of Famer - but not by a long shot the most lethal pitcher of his time or anyone's. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract rates the top 25 pitchers of all time accordingly, starting with the bottom of that list:

25. Dizzy Dean.
24. Nolan Ryan.
23. Ferguson Jenkins.
22. Whitey Ford.
21. Juan Marichal.
20. Three-Finger Brown.
19. Ed Walsh.
18. Gaylord Perry.
17. Jim Palmer.
16. Robin Roberts. (He's usually underrated because he wasn't a big strikeout pitcher, but most analysts objectively believe he threw at least as hard as Bob Gibson or even Nolan Ryan - and that he was the best pitcher in baseball between 1949 and 1955, who pitched mostly for teams worse than Ryan's worst teams.)
15. Steve Carlton.
14. Greg Maddux.
13. Carl Hubbell.
12. Bob Feller.
11. Roger Clemens.
10. Sandy Koufax.
9. Kid Nichols.
8. Bob Gibson.
7. Christy Mathewson.
6. Tom Seaver.
5. Warren Spahn.
4. Cy Young.
3. Grover Cleveland Alexander.
2. Lefty Grove.
1. Walter Johnson.

Not a bad staff, there...

Bob Gibson he wasn't in the heat of a pennant race or in the post-season, overall.

Except in 1964, when he won the pennant clincher in relief on the season's final day (eliminating the Phillies and Reds) as well as game 7 of the WS; and 1967, when he went 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA as the Cards beat the BoSox in seven; and 1968, when he struck out 17 Tigers in the WS opener (Detroit went on to win that Series).

Nolan Ryan's only WS appearance was with the Mets, when he mopped up Gary Gentry's game 3 victory over the Orioles (the game where Tommie Agee made two circus catches to end Baltimore rallies).

foreverfree

I think you misunderstood the extract you quoted. By saying "Bob Gibson he wasn't," I was saying Mr. Ryan, you're no Bob Gibson. Bob Gibson was very much Bob Gibson down the 1964 stretch.

Nolan Ryan was actually a better postseason pitcher than he was a pennant race pitcher. (Remember - he was in three League Championship Series and one division series.) But Greg Maddux is a better pennant race pitcher than he's been a postseason pitcher. Which is one major reason why they don't hit the top ten all time and Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson do. And, to be perfectly honest, if I had a World Series pitching staff of Koufax, Gibson and Ryan and I come to a game seven, the man I most desperately want on that mound for that seventh game is going to be Koufax. I don't argue with an 0.97 lifetime World Series earned run average (Gibson was almost a point higher, believe it or not). And it's no disgrace to either Bob Gibson or Nolan Ryan to say sorry, guys, but I'm going with Koufax for the money game - whether it's the game that nails the pennant or the game that nails the Series.

I thought it was a typo re Gibby. Sorry.

BTW if memory serves me right, I saw the Ryan express pitch against the Phillies at the Vet in 1971, his last year as a Met. I was 10 years old at the time.

foreverfree

No question that he could bring it. I watched him as a Met and, when he wasn't fighting the blistering trouble he had on his pitching hand in those days (remember the famous pickle brine soak?), he was delivering some very promising pitching - when he could find some semblance of control, that is.

I was speaking about a given day from a hitters standpoint. I played and hit against several guys who pitched in the majors and none of them were intimidating. Nolan Ryan and Bob Gibson were. They wouldn't let you on the plate and there was no digging in up there when batters faced them. Thats the perspective I'm coming from.

When Ryan was at his best bringing it to the inside corner at 104 and then breaking off those benders that start at your nose and cut the inside corner, well thats a damned nightmare. And Gibosn, he'd as soon hit you as look at you if you crowded the plate, tough sob.