Mark Twain taught us that many people make the mistake of working diligently to develop a talent they don’t have while ignoring the ones they do have.
Twain pointed out that genuine talent or genius is rarely discovered by friends. They are too close to it. It often takes an outsider to see the talent objectively.
I thought of these Twainian insights as I was reading the new biography on Nolan Ryan by the great sports journalist Tim Brown.
His book is simply titled “Nolan.” Good enough. In Texas, you just say “Nolan” and everybody knows who you are talking about. And now that the boys of summer are taking over once again, I can recommend it as a fun summer read.
Twain would have approved of the way Nolan Ryan developed his own true talent. Nolan no doubt put in his 10,000 hours or more developing his pitching skills as a young man growing up in Alvin, Texas — sometimes just throwing a tennis ball at an imaginary strike zone on the garage door for hours on end.
Certainly, there were people around Nolan who realized he had a rare gift. But perhaps few were in a position to realize so early that he was ready to be drafted into the major leagues when he was still in high school.
As Tim Brown pointed out himself, “you don’t choose your gift. But with one, some men throw fastballs. Others release beauty. Sometimes both.”
Tim wrote, “He could throw. Man, could he throw. The same way one kid understood chemistry. Another got English. Another could sing. Nolan Ryan could throw.”
I’ve always been fascinated by descriptions of extraordinary talent or genius by those who experience it firsthand and who have the insight to understand the enormity of the gift on display before them. Think Salieri hearing Mozart play for the first time in “Amadeus.”
Nolan recalled, “I didn’t know what I had. No one did. Only Red Murph.”
And who was Red Murph? He was a scout for the New York Mets.
And what did Red Murph see when he first saw Nolan Ryan pitch as just a sophomore in high school? What he first saw was what he believed to be a 100 mph fastball.
Tim described the moment this way: “The seams of the baseball fighting the air around it. A high-pitched scream, a whistle, the ball finding the catcher’s mitt with a sound he thought was that of a muffled rifle shot.” He saw this twice, back-to-back.
“Murph tried not to gasp,” wrote Tim Brown. “That would have been unprofessional. It would also give away his love-at-first-sight giddiness over a once-in-a-lifetime arm, a once-in-a-career find.”
Murph was sitting near another scout. Nolan threw a curveball which was amateurish at best. Murph said to the other scout, “he doesn’t have a very good curveball.”
But that was just Murph throwing a curve of his own. He wanted to get the other scout off the trail.
Two years later, Murph got the Mets, through considerable cajoling, to draft the young Nolan Ryan. He was drafted in the 12th round, the 295th player overall. He signed for $25,000 a year.
I would suppose that was somewhat like getting Google at a dollar a share.
Nolan was, as Murph predicted, a once-in-a-lifetime find.
In his career, which took him to the Astros and finally to the Rangers, he struck out 5,714 batters. No one else has been remotely close to that. He threw seven no-hitters — three more than anyone else. His fastball was regularly clocked at over 100 mph.
But stats aside, the most resounding endorsement of his talent is this quote from Reggie Jackson, the famed power hitter known as Mr. October. He said, “[Nolan] was the only guy who could put fear in me. Not because he could get me out, but because he could kill me.”
Nolan was a force of nature. The poster of Nolan pummeling Robert Ventura in 1993, titled “Fight Night in Texas,” remains a favorite among sports memorabilia collectors.
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