You saw jumpers?

Saw them, saw the results of that, heard them.

It's...

Profoundly sad the choice they had to make If you ever want to talk about someone being terrorized it was those people who had to make that choice and lobby of the south tower was filling up with people who were exhausted injured immobile and so chief burns asked me to go find the paramedics normally the paramedics would wait outside in a safe place to do triage but um now all the cops and firemen were going up the stairs so we had to move the paramedics into the lobby of the south tower And that's why I left the South Tower to go find the paramedics.

And I found them, actually some guys I knew on West Street, they were under the South Pedestrian Walkway.

And it was Captain Charlie Wells from EMS, Special Operations Command, a very good friend of mine.

And I said, Charlie, we need to move you guys inside to triage inside.

Where'd you go?

to go deep into games those seem to be the two big things with nolan ryan right him being that bulldog number one and the want to be that the compete to be that and nolan and texas joined at the hip am i right

yeah you know for me uh you see what nolan did and i wanted to understand why That was the big thing for me.

My fear was writing a biography about Nolan Ryan and not having anything new.

Someone looks at a Nolan Ryan book on the shelf and said, well, what can you possibly tell me about Nolan Ryan that I don't already know? And for me, the real curiosity came in not what he did, but why he did it, how he was able to do it.

And so I thought those answers were back somewhere in his past where there was somewhere along the line, there came this expectation of finishing what you started.

And when I looked at his career numbers, What I came to understand that this was a real workmanlike career, right? And you mentioned it.

He won a lot of games.

It's just impossible that he could throw that hard for that long and really not get ever hurt badly.

to go deep into games those seem to be the two big things with nolan ryan right him being that bulldog number one and the want to be that the compete to be that and nolan and texas joined at the hip am i right

yeah you know for me uh you see what nolan did and i wanted to understand why That was the big thing for me.

My fear was writing a biography about Nolan Ryan and not having anything new.

Someone looks at a Nolan Ryan book on the shelf and said, well, what can you possibly tell me about Nolan Ryan that I don't already know? And for me, the real curiosity came in not what he did, but why he did it, how he was able to do it.

I thought those answers were back somewhere in his past where there was somewhere along the line, there came this expectation of finishing what you started.

When I looked at his career numbers, what i came to understand that this was a real workman-like career right and you mentioned it he he won a lot of games he lost a lot of games you struck out a lot of batters he walked a lot of batters his statistics are sort of all over the place and uh you know nobody gave up fewer hits per nine than he did very few um struck out more than nine uh per nine than he did And so I just was very curious about it.

So I literally got in my car, I live in North Carolina, and drove to Texas to Alvin to find out more about the upbringing of this kid who decided that whatever he started, he had to finish.

Explain to us, if you can, through what you learned, how this was possible i mean did this guy have a bionic arm attached to his it's just impossible that he could throw that hard for that long and really not get ever hurt badly

Tell us about how great a scout Red Murph was.

So Red Murph was one of those old school guys who he had three or four states and he had for four periods of time worked for the Braves.

At this point, he was working for the Mets.

In fact, when he wrote up his very first little report on Nolan Ryan, when Nolan was a sophomore in high school, It was on Braves stationary, and he just crossed out Braves and wrote Mets.

He was a baseball guy, and he grew up in Texas, and his parents were sharecroppers, and he had tons of brothers and sisters, and then he went off to the war, and then he came back, and in his early 30s became a major league pitcher and faced the likes.

He didn't last for particularly long, but He did pitch to Jackie Robinson.

I mean, this was a guy.

pretty slim.

point.

There's a lot of people in New York who like to read about baseball and buy books about baseball.

You know, I think that the Met era of his life, and I say era, it wasn't very long, was important in that it sort of tended to shape who he was going forward because of the failure in New York.

You know, he drafted in 65. and made his debut in 66 and his his time with the mets was sort of all over the place he had a hard time staying in the rotation his mechanics were fouled up he was a young a very young man from a small town in texas who suddenly was cast into this huge town in New York, and trying to find himself, trying to find his command.

He got married.

There was so much going on for him, and it was very difficult in terms of his life, in terms of his career.

He was back and forth with the Army Reserve.

back up, please, and just tell our listeners here who Red Murph is and who he is in the Nolan Ryan story.

Yeah, the Jets.

And that was the New York Jets, so I've been lugging that around as well.

But that was my...

And, and I, I felt like as I was, uh, thinking about Nolan as a subject, it occurred to me that for half of my life he was a pitcher, and I was aware of him as a pitcher.

I, I grew up with Nolan Ryan.

And you're right, this mystique, this guy who was there every year, uh, this guy who was a power pitcher into, well into what we would consi- we would've considered middle age at the time.

And I just thought, you know, uh, he was unique when he pitched, and the further we get from that, it becomes almost unfathomable what he did.

Wow

Listen, how much of your success do you attribute to your physical gifts, your God-given talent, and then how much of it was about your mental strength and your mindset?

Look, I, I really believe, man, you know, the physical thing, a lot of guys have the phy- physical talent to, to play this game and play it at a high level, but mentally, how can you fight through it, you know? When I tore my knee up my second year, the doctors pretty much told me, not pretty much, they told me, "Tim, you got three to five years with this knee, because what we did with your knee, it's not gonna be your knee, it's gonna be your hamstring, 'cause we wrapped your hamstring around your posterior cruciate and your MCL.

So, um, you know, so there's no way that's gonna last more than three to five years." And I was able to play 15 years because mentally, I knew what I had to do to keep my body in shape, to keep my leg in shape, and I did those things.

Look, the, I...

Romy, I tell people that in my, after my injury, in the 15 years that I had, uh, after my injury, I did not miss...

I probably can count on two fingers the, the workouts I missed during off-season.

You know, I was that dedicated to, to making sure that, um, that I was gonna be in the best shape that I could possibly be in.

How did your faith help you to dominate in such a violent game?

Listen, how much of your success do you attribute to your physical gifts, your God-given talent, and then how much of it was about your mental strength and your mindset?

Look, I, I really believe, man, you know, the physical thing, a lot of guys have the phil- physical talent to, to play this game and play it at a high level.

But mentally, how can you fight through it, you know? When I tore my knee up my second year, the doctors pretty much told me, not pretty much, they told me, "Tim, you got three to five years with this knee, because what we did with your knee, it's not gonna be your knee, it's gonna be your hamstring, 'cause we wrapped your hamstring around your posterior cruciate and your MCL.

So, um, you know, so there's no way that's gonna last more than three to five years." And I was able to play 15 years because mentally I knew what I had to do to keep my body in shape, to keep my leg in shape, and I did those things.

Look, the, I, Rome, I tell people that in my, after my injury, in the 15 years that I had, uh, after my injury, I did not miss, I probably can count on two fingers the, the workouts I missed during off-season.

You know, I was that dedicated to, to making sure that, um, that I was gonna be in the best shape that I could possibly be in.

And, um, so, you know, I, I think the mental part plays a much bigger part than the physical part, because you're not gonna be in the NFL if you're not physically talented

How did your faith help you to dominate in such a violent game?

So when you went on your journey to Texas to find Nolan Ryan, I'll bet it wasn't easy.

Right.

You're absolutely right.

So honestly, the journey was to find the idea of Nolan Ryan, the notion of Nolan Ryan.

So I went to this little town 40 miles south of Houston called Alvin, and I spent three weeks there.

learning about the how and the why.

That was what was important to me, was what sort of place produces a man, a pitcher, an athlete, a ballplayer like Nolan Ryan? What were the values there? What did it feel like here? Why did he commit himself to this craft like no one else in the history of the game? Who was this person? And I feel like it had to start in this little town where you learn who are your role models? What are your values? What's important to you? How hard are you going to work for this? And I did find that.

So what was his issue beyond the control thing? Why didn't the Mets management, even though they drafted him? There seemed to be, based on the book, Tim, a lot of naysayers within the organization who weren't really buying into what Nolan Ryan's true potential was.

Agee had a game with a home run, which people forget with the two catches that he also home run just lead it on.

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.

with him.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I think that, that a lot of what I was thinking about with this book was Nolan's relationship with Texas, and the kind of man, uh, he is, the kind of player he was, and how the people of Texas really came to believe that he was a reflection of them, with his life, the way he dressed, the way he talked.

Uh, and he, he remains that guy today.

I, you know, we- I was just in a room with him a little over a year ago, and he is, he remains sort of, uh, you know, he, a man of few words.

He, he remains a tough guy.

Uh, he represents something that existed at a time, and still does exist in pockets of the world.

I, I really wanted to dig in on that, because I don't think in my lifetime, and, and you guys can perhaps speak to this, that there is, there is not a, an athlete who is more emblematic of where he's from, uh, than Nolan Ryan.

But one of the bigger things, what did Nolan say about that? Because I don't think that Nolan Ryan was expecting Robin Ventura to charge the mound.

Ryan.So, um, w- what would you say as you look back on that long career are m- moments, th- uh, elements, things that, that you quite literally did not know about Nolan Ryan prior to this book?

Well, I mean, I, I, I sort of grew up with Nolan Ryan.

I, I, I was, I was born and raised in New York.

Uh, he ...

I was seven years old when the Mets won the World Series in 1969.

Nolan was on that team.

Um, and then I, [laughs] I became a sports writer covering Major League Baseball, and he was still pitching.

Uh, briefly, did you talk to Ryan about the changes in baseball since his retirement? What, what his attitudes are about it?

[laughs]

... what- whatever science figures that stuff out.

Uh, what I came to believe is, I don't know.

Did he throw harder than Mierkowski? Did he throw harder than Feller? Um, did he have the best fastball of all time by velocity readings? Maybe.

But what, what I really believe is that his fastball was about the attitude with which it was thrown.

Um, his, his fastball had a personality.

It was, like, alive in that sense, and that, uh, it was how he used it, it was how mean it was, it was about, um, the approach that batters had to take and how they...

... you have thought through that element of it as well.

Yeah.

[laughs] You know? They would drive through, and I thought it was gonna be really important, um, what I, what I, what I thought was, a- and it didn't take me long after I got there, was it is towns like this who make men like that.

Um, uh, particularly, you know, and I'm there, you know, 60-plus years after Nolan was growing up there.

Uh, but you could still see little pieces, little vestiges of, of, of the sort of things that were imp- were, were very important to Nolan at a young age and resulted in this career, this adherence to the day, right? The, the start, the inning, the pitch.

Um, because of, um, and this I, I still felt it in Alvin, man, it, it, it's hard.

It's hard living in places like Alvin.

The weather is difficult.

A really fun story

I'm curious, the time that you spent, and he wasn't there very long, did you try to help him navigate his way through challenges? Or maybe as a vet who had been around, were you a little bit leery and skeptical of the wild child? What was that time like?

Look, man, um, I did everything I could possibly do besides sleeping with him at night, right? You know, uh, the conversations and, you know, just talking to him and all that.

I, I, I, I wasn't going out with him and, and ... 'cause that wasn't me.

I wasn't a hang out guy.

I didn't do that.

But, uh, at that time I believe he was living with Chester McGlockton.

And, uh, Chester was, you know, Chester was out there at that time.

What memories have stayed with you from playing for Lou at Notre Dame?