Nolan Ryan wins 300th game!!

[tdarko]

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My point in the whole post was merely that Nolan was awesome because he was fun to watch. He has a mix of awesome stats, and crappy stats, but he's an all-time great in my book because he was an exciting player to see pitch.

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another thing: there are guys with as much courage and/or heart on the hill as nolan but never any with more and that isn't on a stat sheet.

one of the greatest memories of my short life so far is when i played in the big 12 tournament (we lost to texas in the championship, then 2 and Q in the world series--texas won it all that year FWIW) and before the tourny started nolan spoke at our formal dinner...then afterwards he hung out with us and talked with anyone that wanted to chat. he told some great stories and he is a class act...i love guys that will out work you to death (left the game throwing a mere 145 pitches!!!).

Awesome post.

Another part of Ryan I remember was him getting his 5000th K off or Rickey Henderson on an outside corner fastball in which Rickey bangs his bat against homeplate after the swing and miss.

Guess he didn't want to be remembered for this. Sorry Richard.

[PhatTBoll]

Agree with the rest, awesome post. Even though I'm a Reds fan, Nolan was my favorite player as a kid. I kept score of this game while watching on television, and I made a tape of it that I think my dad still has. I even remember the Kevin Maas hype, though not necessarily from that game.

Man, I just remembered that I used to be a huge day-to-day fan of baseball, memorizing stats off my Topps and Donruss cards, following the standings in the newspaper, watching all the Cubs and Braves games I could just because they were on.

It's too bad that the Strike killed that part of me and left just another bandwagoning casual fan doofus.