ORANGE COUNTY HALL OF FAME : A Living Legend : Nolan Ryan Tries, Without Success, to Live the Quiet Life as a Banker in Texas

The telephone relentlessly rings at The Express Bank in Alvin, Tex. Folks will sometimes call about their checking account. There are the occasional inquiries about the prime rate of interest.

Yet, most of the calls pertain to one man, leaving secretary Jill Bick scrambling each day just to uncover the mountain of messages on her desk.

You see, the owner of The Express Bank is Texas’ own living legend, Nolan Ryan.

“It’s unbelievable around here,” Bick said. “It’s busier in the office now than when Nolan was still pitching. As soon as he walks in the office, the phone rings off the hook.”

It doesn’t matter to anyone that Ryan hasn’t thrown a pitch in 15 months. It doesn’t matter that he never will throw another no-hitter. It doesn’t matter that the only time Ryan appears on television these days is pitching medication for headaches.

“He’ll always be a hero to us folks,” Bick said. “That will never change.”

The requests are so numerous for Ryan’s time that mail arrives in tubs from the Alvin post office. He does not give out autographs. He does not give speeches for money. He does not put on baseball fantasy camps.

He is simply a good ol’ boy, who still tends to the cattle on his three ranches, who is still married to his high school sweetheart, who still dances the two-step with friends at the local country ballroom, and goes to Baskin-Robbins for those really big nights on the town.

“Why would I ever change?”

Ryan said. “This is me. This is my life. And believe me, I’ve been blessed with a good one.”

So it shouldn’t surprise a soul that Ryan actually considers his induction on Sunday into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame as an honor, although the magical one in Cooperstown, N.Y., still awaits.

“I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the Angel organization and their fans,” Ryan said. “I’ll never forget them.

“People tend to remember what I did at the end of my career, but a lot of what I’ve accomplished is because of what I did in my eight years with the Angels. I look at Anaheim as the place where I established my career.”

Undoubtedly, the Angels and Orange County will never forget Ryan, either.

“He became the legend after the fact, but he always was an icon to the fans,” Angel assistant general manager Tim Mead said. “He was what Angel fans could latch onto when Angel fans didn’t have anything else to latch onto.

“When you watched Nolan Ryan, you were watching history, not just Nolan Ryan pitching a ball game.”

Ryan was with the Angels from 1972-1979, a period that was measured by the speed gun and the record book. He still holds or shares 20 club records, some that might never be broken.

He won at least 16 games six times with the Angels, and at least 19 games four times. He once won 22 games during a season in which the Angels went 68-94.

Then, of course, there were the strikeouts. He struck out 19 in a game four times as an Angel, 18 once, and 17 three times. He struck out 383 batters alone in 1973, a major league record that still stands.

The Angels once invited scientists from Rockwell International to time Ryan’s pitches during a game against the Chicago White Sox. Ryan struck out Bee Bee Richard with a high fastball clocked at 100.9 m.p.h. . . . in the ninth inning . . . after having thrown more than 140 pitches.

It’s the fastest recorded speed in history, although Bob Feller insists he threw faster. Then again, Ryan also believes he has thrown faster on several occasions.

It was the stuff of legends, but he became a folk hero in Texas.

Pitching at an age when he could have begun receiving his pension benefits, Ryan pitched his sixth and seventh no-hitters with the Texas Rangers, won his 300th game, and struck out his 5,000th batter.

‘You know how the media can make more of someone than is really there,” former Ranger pitching coach Tom House said. “Well, Nolan was one of those superstars who was everything he appeared to be.”

Said Ryan: “I never anticipated staying around as long as I did, considering the style of pitcher I was. I expected my career to take the same course as most power pitchers--somewhere in my 30s lose enough velocity that I would get out of the game.”

Instead, Ryan kept pitching and pitching and pitching and pitching. He wound up with a major league-record 5,714 strikeouts, seven no-hitters, and became the first to play 27 seasons.

This is the reason, of course, why former Angel General Manager Buzzie Bavasi forever has been haunted by the decision to allow Ryan to leave the Angels as a free agent in 1979. Bavasi blames no one but himself, but he simply was unwilling to become the first general manager to pay a player $1 million a season.

“He’s a Hall of Famer now,” Bavasi said, “but I had to look at wins and losses, whether we were winning pennants with a pitcher who wanted $1 million, and it wasn’t happening.”

When Ryan left the Angels for the Houston Astros at the end of the 1979 season, Bavasi looked at his 16-14 record, and uttered those infamous words: “All we have to do is find two 8-and-7 pitchers.”

Ryan never forgot those words, but when he pitched his sixth no-hitter in 1990 against Oakland, even he had to laugh upon receiving the following telegram from Bavasi:

“Nolan, some time ago I made it public that I made a mistake.

“You don’t have to rub it in.”

“No doubt about it,” Bavasi said, “we should have kept him and I take full responsibility. But what people forget is that it was his option to leave, not ours. He could have still stayed.

“I just couldn’t give him that kind of money, not to a .500 pitcher. Listen, there’s no doubt he’s a Hall of Famer, but when he was with me, Nolan was a .500 pitcher.

“People love this guy, but please, (Sandy) Koufax is still the best I ever saw. Ryan might belong in the same class as Donald (Drysdale), but he isn’t a Koufax.

“Nobody is.”

Then again, who could imagine there ever will be another Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr.?

Hall Class of ’94

THE NEW MEMBERS

Profiling the 1994 Orange County Sports Hall of Fame inductees this week:

Sunday--Josephine Cruickshank

Monday--Brian Downing

Tuesday--George Latka

Today--Nolan Ryan

Thursday--Rich Saul

Friday--Steve Scott

Saturday--Mary Decker Slaney

INDUCTION FACTS

What: The Orange County Sports Hall of Fame inducts the class of 1994 and awards special honors to Dennis Murphy, Donald Kennedy, Ashley Bethel and Frank Bryant.

Day: Sunday.

Time: Gathering for Rams-Bears on television, 10 a.m.; snacks, noon; induction ceremonies, 1 p.m.

Where: Hall of Fame Patio, Anaheim Stadium.

Tickets: $20, seating limited to the first 300.

For reservations: (714) 254-3050.