We Talk with Tim Brown - Author of a Great New Book About Nolan Ryan - Ep. 714

We're gonna have Tim Brown, author Tim Brown, of Nolan, The Singular Life of American Original, join us on the podcast. And when it comes to Nolan Ryan, ⁓ I think both of us have different feelings about it because I literally grew up as a little kid watching Ryan pitch when he was not that much older than me, ⁓ maybe only thirteen years. And you watched him very late in his career, right? I think, ⁓ at best. mean, not not even really, because he he he's he was

Very he was basically ending his career as I was born. So I only ever knew him as a myth. And so learning him as a person was very interesting for me through this book. Yeah. Well, ⁓ we you know, we're we're happy to, you know, have somebody to talk to who get got a chance to spend a lot of time with the Ryan family. ⁓ the book is is fantastic. We'll talk more about it. But we really hope you enjoy our conversation with Tim Brown.

Gordon and I are happy to welcome author Tim Brown to our podcast. And ⁓ we're we're ⁓ gonna talk a little bit about his ⁓ or a lot about his new book, Nolan, The Singular Life of an American Original from Grand Central Publishing. ⁓ Tim has written three other books that I could count. Tim, you can correct me if not. The Tow of the Packet Catcher, The Phenomenon about Rick Ankeel, and a New York Times bestselling book with about the left-handed pitcher with one arm, one hand, not one arm, Jim Abbott.

⁓ and I've not read the other books, but after reading ⁓ and enjoying Nolan very much, you'll be sure I'll be getting to those, Tim. Welcome to the document. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. I actually really want to read the Rick Ann Keel book now because I mean that that was so contemporary. That's such a he was such a six out in my mind from that time period. Like I remember his phenomic rise in that postseason so clearly and then the fall.

Yeah, it was, you know, that book was really interesting for me because I was, I mean, I basically covered baseball since nineteen eighty-nine, but I took a five year period where I covered the Lakers for the LA Times. And it was during that period where Rick sort of had his meteoric rise, and then of course, you know, the the sort of the tragic fall. And so I didn't know a ton about it until he and I connected. So it that was really fun for me. Yeah.

Yeah, he's a he's a brave guy. And and and for for Met fans, I I don't think I'll ever forget. I I don't know that's where it really started. ⁓ I got I didn't I haven't read the book, but I I just have this recollection of like what's going on when he couldn't throw the ball near the catcher ⁓ in that playoff game. Right. One start before that is when it started. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So we didn't know what to expect. And it's actually kind of interesting because reading Nolan for me was much the same way because

I only knew him because it's like he he I I was born in 1989 and his final season was in '93. So I never had any conception of him as a player when I was growing up. So I only ever heard about like the mythology of Nolan Ryan. And so it was really interesting for me learning about who he was as a person because it was just this sort of blind spot that I had because

He was always talked about as a contemporary because he had played for so long, but he was a guy that was not far removed at the beginning of his career from Tom Seaver pitching dominantly for the best. So it's just so interesting seeing how much time he covered as a big name pitcher in baseball. Yeah. Well, one of the reasons I took on this book was because of that very thing, is that 33 years now since he threw his last pitch.

There is this notion of Nolan Ryan. Maybe it's bigger than life, maybe it's smaller than life. You look at the stats and you think, wow, a lot of walks. The record is, you know, pretty close to 500. So I I wanted to write a book that was that accurately reflected who he was at the time, and then also tackling it through the lens of today's game, how quickly the game has changed to where the starter's role has been so diminished.

It is interesting thinking about it because if you put his baseball reference page in some front of some analytically minded 20-year-old Gen Z person who would never watch Nolan Ryan play there, and then you had that person talk to one of his contemporaries, somebody that faced him in the batter's box, you would probably come away with like he was two completely different players because one guy would be only looking at the stats, and the other guy would be like, No, that was the scariest man to ever be in the batter's box against. Right. Yes. ⁓ yeah, and that and that's really true. And and and

I wanted to really tell a human story about who this guy was, ⁓ again, because of all that's gone on since. And and he was unique when he pitched. And now, I mean, you look at it today, and it's almost unfathomable who who this guy was. And you know, forget about the sort of the counting numbers. ⁓ just the notion of of like the seven no-hitters and and

the 12 one hitters and the 18 two hitters. And ⁓ the every every opponent I talked to, to your point, said, you know, there were other pitchers who perhaps threw as hard, perhaps were as competitive. Nobody made it so personal. Like, no, I thought this was it felt like it was personal four or five times a game, where, you know, it was like this existential

battle all of a sudden where it was just different. The you know, the counting numbers, and you're right, because it you know, at the time Ryan Pitch, the wins and losses meant so much. And and actually I think he'd fare better today in because we're not so in interested in and playing for lousy angel teams, let's be honest. You know, did certainly didn't help him, you know, in his quest. But I'll I have two for you, Tim, that I I don't know if you're if you're we did ⁓ a podcast yesterday and I had uncovered in it in some research for an article I'm writing

That pitcher game scores, which is a new sort of thing b bandied about in baseball, getting a hundred pitcher game score is an amazing accomplishment. Mizerowski just did that ⁓ over the weekend. So I went back and looked at there've only been seventeen in major league history. Nolan Ryan has four. Nobody else has more than one. Yeah. Well, you know, he again, the seven no-hitters, that would go a long way. And and I understand that ⁓ some of those no hitters were, you know.

15 strikeouts, eight walks, which you know, I don't know exactly how game score works. I know there've been some in the 140s and 130s along the way. ⁓ but ⁓ the funny thing is I did ask Nolan, I said what what's the best game you ever pitched? And ⁓ it was in June of 72. And I wanna say it was it was it was definitely against the

Red Sox. At Kansas as a Red Sox. Was it away game or was it a whole ⁓ I was in Anaheim and top of the first, he walks Tommy Harper, ⁓ the leadoff hitter, strikes out the next hitter. Yustremsky grounds a single through, I think it was the right side, and then he gets the next twenty six hitters in a row. as close as he'd ever he he'd ever get to a perfect game. For for a guy who let's he he, you know.

Like you said, he had the walk. that was always part one of the reasons why he wasn't with the Mets is they they grew impatient and they had one of the worst owners in the history of baseball, by the way, the guy who traded not only Nolan Ryan, later traded Tom Seaver and Donald Grant. And you know, after watching what he did in California, all Met fans went, ⁓ wow, this guy was right here in front of us. ⁓

So ⁓ so in nineteen sixty nine, I was fortunate enough to go to game three of the National League Championship series against the Brave. That was the first NLCS. There you go. And Ryan actually relieved Gary Gentry that day and pitched seven innings and got the win in the clinching game. Well, it got better because I went to game three of the World Series. Okay. Very lucky.

Very lucky. And sure enough, Gary Gentry pitches the the first four innings again, a sort of a piggyback old style. ⁓ and then Ryan comes in and pitches five innings and gets the first recorded save in major league history in a postseason game for any player, of as an official statistic. Yeah. And that's always remembered as the Tommy A. Game, right? Of course. That that's A. G let off the game with a home run, which people forget with the two catches that he also homework just leaded lead it off. Right. And ⁓

I remember asking Ruth, Nolan's wife, who was in the stands that day, I said, Do you remember what you were thinking when the ball left Paul Blair's bat? And she said, I think like 50,000 other people, I thought it was going to be a hit. ⁓ so yeah, and those, you know, fascinating about that is that, you know, Nolan was 22 years old, and those were the last World Series pitches he ever threw. And to your point about mediocre, look.

Angels teams were mediocre at best. The Astros teams were mediocre at best. The Rangers team also mediocre at best. And this goes to the why did Nolan Ryan never win a Cy Young Award, which is because of what you're talking about, baseball writers, and I include myself, you know, early on. We looked at records. You know, this is that's a reflection of the pitcher, right? Is what's his record? And

It was only recent years, what the last twenty years or so where we began to understand that that ⁓ wasn't necessarily a a good statistic to be looking at. It didn't didn't really ⁓ reflect the pitcher at all. ⁓ so I I think that was a big part of it ⁓ as well. And and also some of the worst run support in the history of major league baseball, like top five worst run support.

Which you would think, okay, that's probably a guy who pitched eight years, but that's over almost three decades of getting that awful, awful run support. So different teams too. It's not like it was just one team couldn't hit from him, nobody could. Right. Right. ⁓ just bad luck. And and you know, I and I went through it, it was funny because I thought when I started this project during the research, I will surely find a year or two where Nolan Ryan got robbed at the Cy Young. And that's not really the case, you know.

His best years were like Jim Palmer's best year, or it was the Fernando Mania year, or it was this weird year where Sparky Lyle with twenty six saves won the Cy Young. ⁓ and there were there were plenty of years you could have voted for Nolan and if he had won the Cy Young, you'd be like, Okay, that's fine. But no one year where where it turned out that his record ⁓ or run support or whatever really damaged like what should have been a runaway Cy Young year. Weird. Just bad timing.

Not winning a division, you know, ⁓ really, you know, hurt it, right? Because if you win the division and you do that, people are like, Well, I maybe they wouldn't have won if it wasn't for him. But everybody calculated that way. Right. and you know, there wasn't as much a priority on like, well, he threw he did throw 350 innings. That ought to count for something, right? He did strike out 380 batters, that ought to count for something. But ⁓ in the end of the day, it it didn't. He was frequently in the top five.

I mean, like in his run from seventy-two to through seventy-four, where he threw twenty complete games and twenty-six, twenty-six, he threw more complete games in those seasons than like all of Major League Baseball throws these days. So it's it's incredible to think about that. I would put those three you pick any three seasons from your favorite pitcher, whatever wherever. They don't have to be chronological. I would put those three seasons up against any any in history. ⁓ and to our point.

His record in those years, he lost sixteen games in each of those years. Yeah. All about the run support. Yeah. Or la or lack thereof. We ⁓ we were watching ⁓ Met game yesterday and they were talking Keith Hernandez who's who faced Nolan Ryan ⁓ was talk they were they were talking with Keith about, you know, ⁓ the ABS and and basically challenging a pitch. And so I think Gary Cohen asked him, Would you have challenged a pinch against Nolan Ryan? no.

no. So so that kind of like the rev the reverence, I could hear it in his voice, the reverence. Now they didn't have it at the time, and I don't know how Nolan Ryan would have handled all this ABS at this point. And you know, it's hard to put yourself in his head, you know, then it's a great question because you know, you squared a bunt, you're gonna wear it the next time. You you know, even pause for a moment to watch your home run leave the park, you're gonna wear it the next time.

I can't even imagine someone drawing attention to the fact that, you know, a a Nolan fastball missed by a quarter of an inch somewhere. You took too long to get into the batter's box and then dug in. We're probably where it was. Don't dig in, don't linger, just get in, take your medicine and get out. And like like all great fastball pitches of the era, in the book you reference a couple of things there, you know, well, Nolan remembers. He remembered something that happened between you and he. It could have been two or three years ago.

⁓ you know, I I I I like to tell the Bob Gibson story about, you know, Pete Lecoque, you know, hit a home run off him, I think, at the end of his career, and then in a in an old timers game, you know, ten years later, he drills him on the first pitch. You know, that that's the kind of thing Ryan would do too. Yeah, I I that's just so old school, right? It's it's ⁓ you know, maybe there wasn't so much agent sharing or ⁓ well, there's certainly, you know, early on there was no union, there was nothing

like that sort of keeping things together or not not as it wasn't the union that we came to know. ⁓ in fact, because of the early union stuff, Nolan almost got traded to the Braves instead of the Angels because the Braves wanted to get rid of Joe Torrey, who was a little too involved with the union for the for the liking of the Braves owner and general manager. So

⁓ but yeah, it was it was different. It was, you know, even I I love the story from Will Clark, who famously hit a home run in his very first big league bat off Nolan Ryan and hit six off him in his career, which is more than anybody else did. And later on, Nolan's in the front office with the Rangers. Will Clark goes to the Rangers. Nolan's done playing. Will Clark is now, if not his best hitter, top two or three in the lineup.

And they would pass each other in the hall and Will would say, Hey, Nolan. And Nolan would just look at him coldly, say, Will, and just keep going. You know, so bad. Yeah, he was gonna drag that through forever. Yeah. And I thought one of the really interesting things about him, and kind of like like reading about him as a person, how he was in a kind an iconoclast in some ways, in the head of his

Time a lot of ways because he embraced a lot of things when it came to training and keeping his body in in a condition that allowed him to maintain a level of play that we've really not seen many people be able to perform the way he did into his 40s. I mean, really, the only guy that we've had come along since then that's even kind of resemble Nolan Ryan is Verlander. And I I I just you you really can't even compare that. Yeah, I think it's ⁓

You know, one of the really remarkable aspects about his career is not just the longevity, but the longevity as a power pitcher. And I I think it goes back to I mean, obviously there's some luck involved with you. If your ulnar collateral ligament holds up for that long, there there is gotta be some sort of luck and and ⁓ you know, some good mechanics. And it w these habits that he formed early on, but this this all came from ⁓ I believe.

His childhood, where he grew up in this town that was a real blue-collar town. ⁓ you know, the the men in that town either went to the farm to work or the worked the cattle ranch or they went to the oil fields. And it was that was where he learned his work ethic. ⁓ he this the arm he decided was a gift, and it was up to him to honor this gift. He owed something to this thing that he was given. ⁓ you know, at at

10 years old, he realized he threw harder than anybody else, and that just kept happening. And he wasn't just gonna ride the ride that gift. He wasn't gonna ride the arm. ⁓ so I I think all of the things he did, ⁓ sort of the sacrifices he made, the the work he did, the stairs he ran, the weights he lifted, the by the end, the footballs he threw wa was all in honor of this this thing that

That ⁓ he believed he had done really very little early on to have. So ⁓ yeah, the work ethic. You know, it's interesting is I remember midway through, say, Clayton Kershaw's career, you would ask, say, other pitchers, like, what makes Clayton Kershaw great? And they all talked about his routine and how hard he worked. ⁓ And I said, Well, I mean, that's just effort. Why don't you do that?

You know, if he's so great because of this routine, you should do that routine. He said, my body won't hold up. ⁓ you know, I would be exhausted by the time I picked up a ball to throw it. So I think some guys are just, you know, to use that word again, gifted in that in that way where their body responds so well to to whatever it is going to maintain it or even push it forward.

Right. And with a guy like Nolan Ryan, he would say his gift was his arm that enabled him to throw that special way. But a lot of ways his gift was his work ethic that allowed him to plug away like that and and and be able to go past the limits of what anybody else would be able to kind of push themselves to. That was really what made him yeah, his arm made him special, but that's what allowed him to utilize that talent so well. Yeah, I agree. And we've all seen athletes who are similarly gifted for whatever it is.

And they last five or six years, right? Or they're just average, or ⁓ they just assume this gift is always going to be there for them. ⁓ they there there's no work put in toward it. And Nolan was just not that type of guy. He would show up at spring training ready to throw five innings. ⁓ so I the we know one of the first times, one of the first ⁓ times I ever saw him pitch, he threw like eight and a third in the Texas Heat.

against the Angels and carried a no hitter into the eighth and must have thrown a hundred and fifty pitches that night. And after the game I went to talk to him and he's on a stationary bike huffing and puffing, getting ready for his next start. That was four days away. ⁓ that start was over. He he was tired, but it didn't matter. He had something more to do because he would have to pitch again in four days. So that's just different. Tim, when you know you you you wrote the book and and I I like the way you

sort of introduced and I'm gonna do a book about Nolan Ryan. How do I be sure that this isn't just another book about Nolan Ryan? The same way that other people have done it. And so what you did and and I thought it was really good and I and I love your writing style. I really mean that. I I still have the echoes of the flagpoles and and the these the metal strings banging against the flagpoles in Alvin on a windy day and and getting a sense of how it feels to be in a small town like that.

But you you went to find out about Nolan Ryan, about finding out where he came from, the people around him and the environment that made him who he was. ⁓ and I think you really translated that and maybe you could talk a little bit about that too. Thanks. Yeah. I so I found myself over the last say fifteen years sitting in press boxes or sitting at home watching on TV and watching a starter come out of a game after five innings and tipping his cap to a standing ovation.

⁓ watching no hitters die, not in the batter's box, but by manager decision pitch counts or whatever it was going to be. And I would I would sort of mutter to myself, where have you gone, Nolan Ryan? ⁓ and one day I decided just to get in my car and drive to Alvin and find Nolan Ryan. I is you know, it's like, stop complaining and go do something about it. So I knew that the the answers to a lot of my questions would be in Alvin. ⁓ what sort of community

produces an athlete like this, a man like this. what what did he see every day? You know, it'd be one thing to read about Alvin or talk to people who'd been through Alvin, but I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to understand, you know, the size of the town, the the relative, you know, warmth of the town, how far you had to go to get to the school, ⁓ in you know, what was the route? And ⁓ just to get a sense of, you know,

also talking to the folks, you know, the my first day there, I ended up in the Alvin Senior Center talking to folks who were 70, 80, 90 years old who had grown up there who could explain to me what life was like here, what it would have been like to have been a little boy growing up in the late 40s, 50s, early 60s. and you know, what values you get from that? What what what it felt like. ⁓ these these were, you know.

These little towns that that sort of balance on the edge of the oil industry and the weather and crops and and all that. That's tough. That's a tough life. And and I just wanted to understand it better. And I I thought it was, you know, I have this great curiosity about things like that. And it it usually serves me pretty well. How ⁓ you know, so so he comes from ⁓ a small town, obviously Alvin's very small.

and he goes to New York City and fish out a water story to a degree, although he he managed it as I'm I'm sure the Mets kept saying, See the Seaver guy over there, pitch like him. ⁓ and that left him alone aside from that. And then he goes to LA, you know, and he pitches for the So this is you know, his first two stops on the circuit were places where it it couldn't have been further away. It's like we talk about Jacob de Grom pitching in New York. Jake didn't want to be in New York, he'd rather be in Florida hunting on his ranch and fishing. And I feel like like like Ryan, Nolan Ryan was of similar ill. Yeah, I think.

Any of us, you try to picture yourself at 18, 19, 20 years old, freshly married, ⁓ suddenly thrown into the big city, ⁓ a New York Mets team that was really impatient with him. also had posted these like fantastic minor league numbers. So the press was equally impatient, wondering.

where the next Tom Seaver was in this guy that they keep reading about and hearing about. and it just wasn't a great fit for all those reasons. Who knows if in his prime it would have played differently if he had signed with the Yankees or something later on and he was a little bit more settled in his life. ⁓ but Texas was always calling, you know, the angel thing worked I think because he found a pitching coach

Who corrected his mechanics, got him more streamlined, got everything moving toward the plate. And that was all, you know, the other part of it is he he just didn't feel like he was getting the coaching ⁓ that was going to lead to him being this person that everyone expected him to be. And so the whole thing got very frustrating. He was in and out of the Army Reserve. So he was leaving the team for weeks at a time. He had blisters, he had little subtle arm trouble.

And the guy, you know, the the guy he really ended up leaning on the most was Seaver. Seaver was very patient and and the you know, they weren't that much different in age. Right. ⁓ but became a bit of a mentor for him about how to conduct yourself. And this isn't this is no longer just a game, this is your career. And and I think you know, some of that some of the stuff we talked about earlier comes from Seaver, that very mature approach to the game and life and

You know, Ruth would go when the team went on the root road, Ruth and Nancy Seaver had ⁓ children about the same age, and Ruth could go to Greenwich and hang out with with Nancy and get a feel for you know how all that worked. And and I I think those were the parts of it that were good for him. But you know, if you're gonna go out there and not pitch well and you're gonna feel like the manager doesn't like you and the team is growing impatient, it gets it gets difficult. And I and I think

you know, as you're talking about it, I remember the pitching coach on those late sixties Mets team. Rube Walker was the Mets pitching coach. So he was an old school guy in nineteen sixty nine. So, you know, it it we think about the way pitching coaches react to to pitchers now. And in nineteen sixty nine it was very different in terms of the way they were coached, ⁓ what the expectations were, and what the capabilities were of the coaches. So he was, I guess, fortunate in that to be, you know, given a a pass out of New York, someplace where somebody was actually willing to try to help him.

Right. there was a lot of old school there. And you know, Nolan was kind of is you would consider him old school as well, but at the that time of the of his life, he needed a little more love. ⁓ Gil Hodges was old school. With you know, he learned how to manage through Walter Alston, who was old school. ⁓ you know, I was always surprised. I think that had Gil not died ⁓ in that following spring, right after Nolan was traded, those two would have would have come together because Gil

⁓ grew up in a small mining town. His dad was a coal miner who died when Gil was young. and ⁓ you know Nolan had that same sort of his dad was an oil man, you know, worked in the oil fields, died when Nolan was young. ⁓ you know, I think they both put a a high premium on hard work and and ⁓ dignity and how you talk to people, how you treat people. ⁓ I think later on, if if they had given him another five or six years where

Nolan, you know, would have had some success. I think they w probably would have talked it out and said, you know, you know, it worked out, but ⁓ you know, maybe it wasn't gonna work here, but I think we can ⁓ agree to ⁓ you know, maybe the hard feeling shouldn't exist anymore.

You ⁓ you mentioned blisters and Ryan and you know as a kid I remember seeing photo and I and this wasn't in the book and I I and you I don't know if you existed the temptation or if it's apocryphal, and that is the pickle juice. The pickle juice, yeah. You know, so you didn't really talk about that, and of course there were pictures of him with his hand in a jar of pickles because erroneously there was some thought that the acid in the pickle juice was helping the blister had no scientific evidence behind it. Yeah, yeah. I think maybe a passing reference to it.

I I I yeah. ⁓ you know, I just it was just all part of that Mets experience. I I did read a lot about how it was either the the equipment guy or one of the clubhouse guys would just run across the street to, you know, some deli that had it all the brine in a big jug and he would run it back and forth for Nolan. ⁓ and he well, he hated pickles. So we tried olive olive brine or juice or whatever later on.

Yeah, I didn't spend a lot of time there. I thought it was so sort of goofy, actually. and in and when you you know got through the book and you're you you're you're sort of forming it all together and you come away from it and you look back and go, what was the thing that surprised you the most ⁓ about getting stories from people and and learning more deeply about where he comes from and what makes him tick? Yeah, I I see here's the thing. I'm like you, I grew up with him. ⁓ you know, for the first

30 some years of my life, including years covering the game, ⁓ I felt like ⁓ I I knew a lot about him and I had a sense of who he was. I wouldn't say anything surprised me. There were there were little bits and pieces of things where you you dive in a little deeper. One of my favorite tiny little anecdotes was when you talk to hitters, part of the ⁓ part of what they saw.

in in Nolan. You're standing 60 feet away. And you know, he would he would get this something between a sneer and a smile. And they weren't sure if he was like happy because he was about to come inside on them or he was angry with them and sneering at them or trying to intimidate them or something. ⁓ and I remember parts that watching him pitch and and seeing seeing that expression on his face. Well

Talking to his catchers, it turns out, ⁓ you know, Nolan was basically a fastball curveball guy. But every once in a while he'd had this developing changeup he'd want to throw. And that's how he communicated to his catcher he was gonna throw a change up. If you see my teeth, I want to throw a change up. So we're reading it all wrong. Yeah. Nolan just wanted to throw a change up. It was, you know, it was that innocent. ⁓

It was stuff like that. I you know, the parts that I really enjoyed was ⁓ digging in on the Texas element of it. And this is ⁓ you know, I never really got the relationship between Texas and Nolan and Nolan and Texas. And and that surprised me how how deeply people there feel for him, ⁓ the and and understand him, a guy who talked like them and walked like them and grew up alongside them in similar situations.

all of that I thought was was really interesting and how you know the the old time Texas guys will tell you the Mount Rushmore is Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Tom Landry, and Nolan Ryan. Now, every once in a while you'd get like a Willie Nelson or George Strait or something like that. But those were the the basic four. And I I thought that was, you know, I don't think there's been an athlete in my lifetime who's more emblematic.

Of where he's from than Nolan Ryan. There's not a baseball writer who's worked in the last 50 years who couldn't put their finger on Alvin, Texas. It's just something about the the Texas thing that was different. And I thought that was really cool. That is that is cool. And I think when it comes to Texans, there's a a sense of Texas pride that I don't know how you feel about there. There is no other state in the United States where the there the denizens

feel such pride about their state in a way that is collective, right? You mean, you know, there's pride in in other states like it, but the entire state digs itself for being Texan. Yeah. Yeah. It it's ⁓ unusual. I mean, I think it's well unique is a better word for it. And I think it, you know, it's the secession and the the Wild West and the where men were men. And ⁓ I thought somebody I talked to put it interesting. If you're living out

You know, in the late eighteen hundreds and you got Indians and you have Mexican armies and you have snakes and scorpions and hurricanes, tornadoes, what whatever was going through there and cold, cold winters and hot, hot summers, and you're just trying to you're out there with your family just trying to survive on huge tracts of land where there isn't anyone else around. That sort of life doesn't wash out of a f of a family tree in a generation or two. That sort of

drive or toughness or whatever it took to sort of survive out there, ⁓ still exists somewhere inside the people who are still in Texas today. And I think that in part ⁓ is why they fell so hard for Nolan, because they they viewed him, you know, anymore. We don't fight those battles on our, you know, i in our country. So we we turn to sports for that for that buzz, for that hit.

And that's where you get Nolan Ryan, this big tough Texan dude who wasn't afraid. And if you cross the line, he'd whoop you good. ⁓ and and he never backed down. And I I think Texas folks relate to that. And that was like a sense where it's like when he came back to Texas to pitch for Houston.

How I I think it was almost like I I I almost got the sense that he was almost a little caught off guard by how much it meant to everybody and how b how big it became at that point. Like I don't think he in some ways ever expect or even cared necessarily ⁓ how much of a folk hero he became in a sense to the people of Texas. Yeah, I think it dawned on him pretty well. I certainly the Houston experience, he was there, you know, through you know, sort of the late stages of his what

what most people would consider a prime for for almost that whole decade. ⁓ but the the Texas Rangers element, that last chapter of his career, I think is where it really sort of settled in. ⁓ he saved that franchise. You know, baseball in Texas, ⁓ in in the Dallas area was was fading hard. that the owner was going bankrupt. There was talk about moving the team. They were in a

substandard facility. ⁓ it was bad. And and yet he he signed on. and you know there are old time Rangers folks who will draw a line from the day he signed ⁓ for that 89 season. You get a ballpark, you get another ballpark, you go to he's now president of the team, you go to two World Series, you lose them both, but you're now really relevant again.

and then you win a world series in twenty three. ⁓ you know, he also won his 300th game there, he struck out his five thousandth hitter there, he threw two no hitters there. ⁓ he beat up Robin Ventura there. He got hit with a comebacker in the mouth there. ⁓ you know, he he saved that franchise. And and I think that's I I think he gets a lot of satisfaction out of that. And I and I think that's

really where you know a a legend had existed, but it really he became something bigger than that, almost godlike, ⁓ by through that Ranger's experience. I wouldn't have thought after his playing career that he would have

taken to being an executive in his post-playing career the way that he did. It didn't seem like it meshed with his personality, you know, and and and yet he he did embrace it and obviously his work ethic served him there like it did everywhere else in his life because he embraced the task and went after it as hard as he did everything else. Did you come away with that that sense that you know he enjoyed his post career his postplaying career? Very much. And and I think it speaks to what anyone who's ever played

we'll let's we'll keep it a baseball. Anyone who's ever played baseball, I don't care how old you're you know, if you get cut from your high school team, you mourn the fact that there will be no more baseball. And somewhere along the line, we all give it up. And then, you know, obviously if you're good enough, you have a a major league career. And when it's over, it is devastating, absolutely devastating. There are no more you've lived your entire life by a scoreboard, ⁓ boy by a stat sheet, by

people you're around by by going to the ballpark and having those experiences and challenging yourself. And when it's gone, I you know, I don't care if you're me who like ran aground in high school or him who ran aground at 46, ⁓ that's a devastating experience. And so I think that he he also became very involved. He he saw where this drift was going and starting pitching and tried to reel it back. Right. He was trying to push starters, you know

go deeper into games and and that was a challenge. And I think the wins and the losses every day, I think the the excitement around that franchise as it grew out of that you know, that Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez, Raphael Palmero stage into Josh Hamilton's and and all that group, I I think I think he loved it. ⁓ and I think when that was over, it was like reliving

having to walk away from baseball again, which was, you know, when he left as a player, it was that was a kind of a dark period for him. And and it was dark again when things didn't go well with the Rangers when he was team president. The great the great ones oftentimes don't you know make it happen for them in in their coaching. I always think of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, both of them, you know, just because they didn't have Magic Johnson and Larry Bird on the court when they were coaching and to say, well just do what I did and it'll it'll work.

And and no one he wasn't a playing ⁓ a manager on the field, which I I don't know that he would have made a very good on-the-field manager, but as an executive, ⁓ you know, he he ended up being a very good one. And like you said, he cared about the franchise and did everything he could to to you know from that standpoint, which general managers and and presidents of teams don't normally do. Yeah. I again I think it goes back to the the relationship he had with the the people in Texas and the people in that area. you know, I I th I

I didn't ask him which of his seven no-hitters was his favorite, but I I would bet it was his last one because he threw it at Arlington Stadium. And it was this I I I love it because it's the one of those sort of legendary stories of the stadium is half full when the game starts. And it was only half full because Nolan Ryan was pitching. It wasn't half full most nights. and as this no-hitter goes on, and he's

44 at this point, the stadium gets fuller and fuller and fuller. And by the last inning, it's packed, you know, people rushing out of their houses and and running over to the ballpark just to get a chance to see him throw a few pitches of a no-hitter. You know, it it was worth the, you know, you're you're taking the chance that there's some silly blue pit when you're halfway there or running across the parking lot, but it was worth it to those folks. And I so I think it speaks to

the feeling of responsibility he felt toward the community and toward baseball in that area. He's he's such a humble hero. So but I'll I'll ask you, if there were to be a movie made about Ro Nolan Ryan's life, ⁓ do you know who he would want to have play Nolan Ryan or do you have an idea like who who would who would play Nolan Ryan? Well

Okay. So this is the name I heard over and over and over again. And and you're gonna have to exume the body and all that stuff. But it could only be John Wayne. ⁓ he he would ⁓ everybody called him the John Wayne in baseball was the way he, you know, even the way he walked, he had that pitcher's lean that that his right arm hung a little bit lower than his left arm, just like an old ⁓ you know, ⁓ old shoot up dude, you know, yeah. An old cowboy. Yeah. ⁓

So yeah, it would have to be somebody like that. I don't know who like the who's the Western guy now. That's stoic. Yeah, do they even have them anymore, right? Perfect. Who would be able to make project that level of of like you know, you'd almost he almost was that out there as you know, you you would almost have to cast somebody who could play the last cowboy in baseball in a sense. Right. ⁓ yeah, and and the chances of him that person also being able to throw like an athlete is probably pretty minimal.

Yeah, yeah, it would be it would be really terrible. I don't know that it's true if John Rain were left-handed too, because I wouldn't that wouldn't have worked at all. I don't know that it's true though. Well, you know, so I don't know if you've ever this is so totally off topic, but I don't know if you've ever read ⁓ the movie Robert Redford was in. ⁓ the Allen what's that? no, I thought I was talking about the Al the the Malamud, Bernard Malamud book. Yeah, yeah. Natural. The natural. ⁓

So in the book, the the the protagonist is not left-handed. He's right-handed. And I I went, I went back and read the book after I saw the movie, and that just screwed me up totally. I was like, no, I now and now I'm not seeing Robert Redford anymore. I had heard that after the fact, and I did read the book and I did see that, but I didn't notice it either until somebody made the point. Yeah, the ⁓ early on in the book, he fouls, you know, he pulls a pitch foul down the left field line. And I thought, no, he didn't, no, he did not.

He can't do that. He's left handed. Yeah, that can't be true. ⁓ so. well it's it's a hell of a project, Tim, and and and we both love the book. ⁓ love your writing style. ⁓ I I I I it took years for you to do this, so I won't ask you, you know, because right now you're in the middle of going around and talking to people about the book. And you know, another project probably seems like I just don't want to do that right now. But any thoughts on what you might do down the road? ⁓ there'll be another book. ⁓

Not quite. I've got a list. How about that? I've got a list of potentials and ⁓ I'm hoping something strikes me in the next few weeks and I'll get to work on that. Maybe get my car and drive to some other little town and start all over again. And as a as a Substack writer, I I I read and subscribe to your Substack and I encourage people to take a look at what Tim writes ⁓ there as well. ⁓ and more than anything, Gordon and I want to recommend that you go ⁓ to Amazon or wherever you get your books.

And you get a copy of Nolan, The Singular Life of an American Original by Tim Brown. Tim, thanks for joining our podcast. Mark, Gordon, appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you.