@@prestonschumacher1314 don’t think he’s talking about the one he made with a blown UCL- think he means the pitch before. Nolan was absolutely sitting 96-98 that game, which at 46 years old is beyond unheard of 😭
The first major league game I ever attended was Mr. Ryan's fourth no hitter against the Baltimore Orioles.... I was nine years old and it was Little League day June 1st, 1975. I still have the ticket. I had no idea the history I was witnessing, and I remember my dad (who was my LL coach) trying to explain to no avail, but the game did have my two all time favorite players in it, Brooks Robinson and Nolan Ryan.
I was at that game, also. He walked the bases loaded twice and still got the no hit shutout. I went to that game with my late dad, also. I was 13 years old at the time. Fast forward and I was at the Big A with my mother when Nolan Ryan threw his 7th no hitter. Angels radio changed over to the Rangers' broadcast of the final out. Within a minute, Anaheim gave Nolan Ryan another standing ovation, despite the fact that he was in Texas at the time.
In 1991 Jim Palmer tried to come back at the age of 45 after 7 years of retirement (he was inducted into the Hall of Fame the year before). He had a good fastball in his prime and ate up lots of innings, but there would be no comeback. He threw two innings in Spring training, hurt his hamstring, and his fastball topped out at 75 mph. He couldn’t hold back time. Nolan Ryan was 44 in 1991. He still had his high-90s fastball, struck out 200 batters, had a winning record, a sub-3.00 ERA, and threw his seventh no hitter. He was a full-on power pitcher at an age that pretty much saw junkballers and knuckleballers. Old geezers are supposed to be like Jim Palmer, not Nolan Ryan, and that is what I think makes Ryan so special. Oh, and Ryan pitched until he was 46 too!
Rube Walker was one of the NY Mets pitching coaches in 1969 and was instrumental in "bringing up" Ryan, Seaver, Gentry, and Koosman. All benefited from Walker's approach of having them develop compact deliveries (as you described) and had them keep their glove hands close to their bodies throughout from wind-up to release. All benefited, but Ryan most of all since that style of pitching (and his consistency with that approach) saved his throwing arm. The very young Ryan was sometimes "wild" in '69 as I recall, but the rest is his singularly amazing history.
My alltime favorite baseball player. I pitched little league in '76 with his baseball card in my pocket. Watched him throw a no-hitter in '91 at 44yrs old. He didnt change as he got older, threw heat until his arm blew out. A mans man.
My favorite pitcher of all time. I started tallying his strikeouts in 1977. I like that after a strikeout he just quietly and nonchalantly walks off the mound, no show boating or posturing. Just another day at the office.
And how about his 2795 career walks? That won't be broken either. The guy was a .500 pitcher, third all time in losses and fourteenth in wins. Terrifying to face but overrated as a pitcher.
@@howie9751still had a 2:1 ratio of strikeouts to walks and is one of the most dominant pitchers ever. 5,714 strikeouts, but you just want to point out the negative stats
@@timkramer9296 He wasn't a dominant pitcher. A dominant pitcher is one you can count on to win you games. That wasn't Ryan. Third all time in losses, fourteenth in wins. Never won a Cy Young nor won ten games more than he lost in any season. He had a lot of spectaculars like strikeouts and no-hitters, but pitchers are paid to win, and at the end of the day he was little better than a .500 pitcher.
Saw him beat the Reds at Riverfront in September 1988. Cinci was winding down a bad season so good seats were cheap to come by. Paid off an usher and sat with the scouts and their radar guns - the older, “slow” ones. Ryan was 41, and was 94-95 the first few innings, 96-98 midgame. Every fastball he threw in the ninth was 99. Dibble pitched in that game. Touched 97. I don’t think he lost much velo through the years, but I can only imagine what his fastball looked like in 1973-74, because I’ve never seen anyone throw as hard as Ryan did that night. Not Verlander, not Chapman. Nobody.
The cheat on Nolan Ryan was he would grunt on fastballs but not the rest of his pitches! The problem was, by the time you heard the grunt, the ball was past you! 😂
Against Ryan his offspeed was so good it didnt matter. You either had to commit that a fastball was coming next, or commit to offspeed. There was no deciding after the ball was thrown. You had to just hope you could outthink him. That's why so many batters struck out on balls. If they thought a fastball was coming, they just had to commit to swinging for it wherever it was. The same was true for watched pitches, and why you didn't see a lot of swing attempts on watched pitches. They already commited to watching the next pitch no matter what. 😁
Right!! The BASIC push off the rubber, natural stride, uses ENTIRE arm motion and shoulder to throw effortlessly, NOT stopping your arm after you release it--FOOLISHNESS, and NOT standing up vertically as you pitch-- MORE FOOLISHNESS. No wonder today's kiddies throw slow and have short careers!!
It wasn't just Nolan's fastball that was lethal. He also had a curve that would buckle hitter's knees. His changeup was pretty good too. Once he figured out how to pitch there was no stopping The Express. I'm glad I got to see him pitch in person.
In my opinion the best pitcher ever. He never had a lot of run support and didn’t benefit from the expanded strike zone of the last few years either. He threw strikes.
@@silverguard8105 Yeah, Ryan was never the best pitcher in the league. Guys like Seaver, Carlton, and Palmer were routinely better. But Ryan was the best "strikeout pitcher" of all time.
Because they used to measure at the plate and now they measure out of the hand. The ball loses, depending on environmental variables, spin, etc; between 5 - 10 mph by the time it reaches the plate. So his 101.3 mph record still stands since it very well could have been 111 mph by today's standards. And we can literally time it and see how much faster it was.
Love him, I do, and NOBODY is breaking the no-hitter and career strike-out records....the only one I see as even possible is the season record one in front of Koufax......who IMO WAS better than Nolan......same could be said for the all-most forgotten 1940's teenage terror who was Bob Feller-----guy was also clocked at 107 (just a shade behind Ryan at 108), in street clothes racing a police motorcycle... check the great documentary on UA-cam called (what else?) "Fastball". When Teddy Ballgame days you were the best he ever saw or faced.....well that alone says a lot, and he missed four years of his absolute prime due to serving in the war.....pretty incredible human. What separates Ryan from everybody though was his amazing longevity and what he was able to accomplish in his 40s.....the only guy I can think of that did a similar if not more amazing thing is Foreman winning the heavyweight title back in his 40s
Pete Rose said in an interview that Nolan's fastball "disappeared the last 5 feet." Quite a statement from arguably the best hitter of all time. I'm not one of those guys that thinks the old is better than the new, but I honestly think in his prime, Ryan threw harder than any recent pitcher I've seen. I'm no student of baseball, but I think they started using a different speed gun and showing the pitch speed on the scoreboard and TV set to sensationalize the speed of the pitches. The fans would think that was fast then look at the MPH on the scoreboard and cheer for the 105 MPH pitch. Somebody below said that the ball seemed to explode into the catcher's mitt. That seems to be an accurate description from this video and watching him pitch throughout his career.
@@FreedomFighter2112 We all know that the harder the ball is thrown the harder it is to see the ball. It was Pete Rose's way of saying that the ball seemed to accelerate through the strike zone so fast you couldn't see it.
@@MrFuchew I agree with that. The guys throwing 105 now are throwing really hard, but I don't think they are throwing as hard as Nolan was in his prime. That 101+/- MPH fastball was about his 100th pitch of the game. When guys like Gossage were throwing upper 90's and Nolan was throwing around 100 on the old machine, you feared for the life of the batter. I bet the 105-ers would be throwing around 97 or 98 on the old JUGS machine. Maybe somebody will prove me wrong, but it just doesn't seem as fast. Mike Schmidt said he had a post-traumatic moment when he was on the stage with Ryan at the HOF induction. That is how hard he threw and intimidating he was.
@@WilliamMunnyIIIPete Rose was really about ball movement, not so much velocity. Ball Movement and control of your pitches matter far more than velocity. Nolan Ryan just had velocity _and_ ball movement with abysmal control.
I never understand when people try to argue that he wasn't throwing 107-108, but 99-100. Go watch any modern flamethrower hitting 102-105 on modern guns. Then watch Nolan. The difference is noticeable in how the ball just EXPLODES from his hand - and with movement! You can SEE the difference.
@dasfette Movement and Control matter far more than velocity. Even durability and the quality of pitches matter far more than throwing fastballs nonstop. Modern MLB has it backwards.
I always enjoyed his late career no hitters. He didn’t actually have the heat on some those nights, he just had great location and worked around the strike zone and threw in some curves as well. When he was on, man he was on.
I grew up watching Nolan Ryan in the 80's. IMO he is the greatest pitcher of all time, and he whipped Robin Ventura's ass in the process of becoming the GOAT! LOL
I've been an Astros fan all my life I'm 68 I've said in every level of the dome stadium in Houston this man was phenomenal and awesome athlete with tenacity for the game he would not give up you could not beat this man he's one of my heroes
Even by todays standards, unless they moved the mound about two feet closer to the plate, the speed and time it took for that ball to reach the glove is insane! Ive been watching ball for over 32 years and played for 15 and can say with a fair amount of confidence those pitches are exceeding 103 or 104 mph.
I believe the juggs gun had him at 100.8 but the amazing part was that he was throwing 100 mph into the 9th inning and that his career lasted for 27 years! Looking at these highlights it looks like it's 108 mph. He was striking out Hall of Famers in this video and the way the ball exploded into the catcher's mitt it makes you wonder how anyone ever got a hit off of him!
As he got older, he got more faster. To be able to throw fast is one thing, to able to throw that fast, and even faster, for over 10 years is not human😊
He used his left foot to his advantage really well taking that momentum. The way he swoops it. Lots of pitchers just stomp their kick leg and dont reach full potential because they think its all arm strength. If that were the case you wouldn't see such skinny armed guys firing 100 mph fastballs
Imagine Nolan Ryan played with the Mets in his entire career. Ryan and Seaver would have been the best one-two combo in baseball. Then in the 80s, Ryan and Gooden would have been special to watch. They probably win another championship in the 80s.
No one pitching today looks remotely close to this. He was blowing high fastballs by guys who were completely overpowered and buzzing the low ones by them just as easily. Clock it out of his hand and it's about 8 mph faster than where it was clocked then. The hardest throwing pitcher of all time. He'd be averaging about fifteen K's per nine with guys swinging like they do now. He'd also be finishing them if allowed to.
Seaver, Ryan, Koosman all coached well in the Mets farm system to usr your legs to drive the ball when pitching, all 3 15+ years in the MLB with minimal arm trouble
I was lucky enough to see nolan pitch at Baltimore in 1992. Game was sold out so I had to buy a cheap ticket from a scalper for about 10x f as ce price. Nolan made it worth it!
He was the epitome of full body mechanics. He used every ounce of his body to throw a pitch. Thats why he could throw all day. Pitchers now use a crazy violent arm snap at three quarters to generate velocity. And they simply can't hold up like Ryan did.
I believe that Nolan and Tom Seaver had the best pitching motion of any right handed pitcher in history. They were just smooth with their deliveries. ⚾️⚾️
Ryan, Blyleven, Sutton, Seaver, etc. played long toss and ran. I read an article some years ago concerning Ryan. He would pitch a complete game and ride the clubhouse exe recycle for an hour post game. He had incredible pitching stamina to go with the arm and mechanics. An amazing athlete.
Nolan Ryan racked up all those freakish strikeout records, played for all those years without injury, and then baseball analytics comes in and says a pitcher has to rest longer between games, and has to walk off the mound after 100 pitches? Yeah, I'd say Ryan's strikeout records are pretty Secure.
@@secureyourgainz no, I'm a pitcher and I know better than u. It's the movement and unpredictability that made Ryan hard to hit, not the speed of his FB
Ryan's mechanics were as good as it gets. It they weren't his arm would have died long, long before it did. In fact, his arm never died. He just got old and was tired and sore.
just looking at it, i'd say: 1st pitch, 5 second mark: 107+ mph...i don't know what i'm seeing here; if i put an upper limit to it, i'd say 110 mph. 11 second mark: 104 mph. keep in mind the footage you're seeing may be moving faster than actually happened - i.e. frames per second moving faster than reality...
Just think what his career would have been like if he played on a winner during his time like the Yankees, Dodgers or Reds. In my humble opinion think Ryan is the greatest pitcher certainly of his generation.
I saw him in person on time, pitching for Astros. I did not know now it was Ryan until the 3rd inning, and the strike outs just keep adding up... and then, my friend said, you didn't know it was Ryan? He got 15 strike outs that game before it was over. From my seat, the ball was moving so fast the batter had to make a decision to swing almost from the moment it left his hand.
The worse part of how fast he throws is that is pitching mechanics are so good that his long arms create an abbreviate response time that makes the "closing rate speed" of his pitch even more insane fast because he is so well trained that is more of a detriment...and when he throws a wild pitch it is often a catcher having trouble getting his glove up to the ball and it is tricky to field...there on another note a young girl about 10 years old in as a catcher in softball is amazing that she reaches in and untuitively slides her torso like a pro catcher and traps the pitch low and away and it makes no sense how well this young child has instilled and absorbed disciplines that made this intuitive and whoever paired with her in the coaching engraved gritty and nasty excellence and the girl then goes into calm mode and tapers down and gets the pitcher the ball....this is crazy as it is not even part of the theme of the video and I am thinking to myself who the heck trained this kid..it was the most odd show of intellect, talent, poise, maturity, wildness and innate reaction and don't even want to say who this little kid was because she has to do these drills in her head and it makes no sense and it is like an extension of another situation that again repeated itself and just kind of baffling that they are gonna be something oddly unique and maybe unsung and more bizarre is someone knows that I know in timing maybe how I am gonna react so perfectly and that makes zero sense as whoever this person is has no access to knowing and empowering me and wants to as I am struggling to get the correct dosage of my Rx and are acting like resistors and that is not healthy "resistance" exercise when dealing with Neuro Pons that cannot rebuild and is odd that they would deprive as this is not like muscular refinement that can be redeveloped and is grueling and only painful
Ryan was not the greatest pitcher of all time. He may not even be in the top 10. However, he was certainly the most exciting pitcher to watch in the last 50 years. Heck, he might even be the most exciting pitcher ever; it's either him or Sandy Koufax. A definite Hall of Famer. I had the pleasure to see Ryan pitch half a dozen times over his career. Nobody dug in against him.
Another thing that made Ryan right to hit is besides the speed of the pitch, of you look carefully the ball also has tail on it almost like a cut fastball before pitchers were throwing cut fastballs. The added tail makes it almost impossible to hit. And even if you get a hit or worse a home run, you know that you gonna get drilled 😟 next time at bat
I don’t know the difference between radar guns now and then but you look at these pitches and compare them to those of say Bobby Miller who pitched today for the Dodgers. Miller was consistently clocked at 100mph and most of Ryan’s pitches here look much faster than Miller’s
Holy shit. That first pitch was some high ass heat. My man Nolan Ryan was cold-blooded.
Nolans last pitch before his career-ending injury was 98mph. Insane
Nolan was going to retire anyway...But he was an absolute rarefied bird...He was the greatest pitcher I ever saw...
If you watch the video of the pitch it looks like it’s 70 mph. I’m skeptical
@@prestonschumacher1314 Actually the last pitch of his entire career was around 95mph in the 7th inning...
@@ICU2B4UDO ua-cam.com/video/KgrvLn7lHl4/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
Fast forward to 1:06
@@prestonschumacher1314 don’t think he’s talking about the one he made with a blown UCL- think he means the pitch before. Nolan was absolutely sitting 96-98 that game, which at 46 years old is beyond unheard of 😭
The first major league game I ever attended was Mr. Ryan's fourth no hitter against the Baltimore Orioles.... I was nine years old and it was Little League day June 1st, 1975. I still have the ticket. I had no idea the history I was witnessing, and I remember my dad (who was my LL coach) trying to explain to no avail, but the game did have my two all time favorite players in it, Brooks Robinson and Nolan Ryan.
Thanks the story TheSlow... great comment!
I was at that game, also. He walked the bases loaded twice and still got the no hit shutout. I went to that game with my late dad, also. I was 13 years old at the time. Fast forward and I was at the Big A with my mother when Nolan Ryan threw his 7th no hitter. Angels radio changed over to the Rangers' broadcast of the final out. Within a minute, Anaheim gave Nolan Ryan another standing ovation, despite the fact that he was in Texas at the time.
I remember this on tv i was watching with my dad
what an unbelievable happenstance
❤nolan ryan my hero
In 1991 Jim Palmer tried to come back at the age of 45 after 7 years of retirement (he was inducted into the Hall of Fame the year before). He had a good fastball in his prime and ate up lots of innings, but there would be no comeback. He threw two innings in Spring training, hurt his hamstring, and his fastball topped out at 75 mph. He couldn’t hold back time.
Nolan Ryan was 44 in 1991. He still had his high-90s fastball, struck out 200 batters, had a winning record, a sub-3.00 ERA, and threw his seventh no hitter. He was a full-on power pitcher at an age that pretty much saw junkballers and knuckleballers. Old geezers are supposed to be like Jim Palmer, not Nolan Ryan, and that is what I think makes Ryan so special. Oh, and Ryan pitched until he was 46 too!
Nolan Ryan the greatest pitcher ever,not even Cy young
Comes close
Also when he threw a first pitch one time I think it came out to like 85-ish
... and no steroids for Ryan.
No fastballer even came close in terms of longevity! Amazing!!
I turned 44 this week and everyday past 40 I am more impressed with Nolan Ryan.
Perfect mechanics. Power gathered, contained and released. A tight windup and sling.
Rube Walker was one of the NY Mets pitching coaches in 1969 and was instrumental in "bringing up" Ryan, Seaver, Gentry, and Koosman. All benefited from Walker's approach of having them develop compact deliveries (as you described) and had them keep their glove hands close to their bodies throughout from wind-up to release. All benefited, but Ryan most of all since that style of pitching (and his consistency with that approach) saved his throwing arm. The very young Ryan was sometimes "wild" in '69 as I recall, but the rest is his singularly amazing history.
@@hlcepeda Excellent analysis!
As as Met fan I remember Walker!
Thanks
@@drebaselius9160 👍⚾
My alltime favorite baseball player. I pitched little league in '76 with his baseball card in my pocket. Watched him throw a no-hitter in '91 at 44yrs old. He didnt change as he got older, threw heat until his arm blew out. A mans man.
Wait. You were pitching Little League at 29 years old in '76?
@@mattrinck7503 lol. He was 44 in '91. I was 10 in the summer of '76.
@@JeffreyGlover65 Sorry. I read that wrong. I was picturing you mowing the kids down with straight gas like Nolan.
@@mattrinck7503 lol. I had no gas at 10, but I could paint the corners😎
Um the math is not adding up. Lol
My favorite pitcher of all time. I started tallying his strikeouts in 1977. I like that after a strikeout he just quietly and nonchalantly walks off the mound, no show boating or posturing. Just another day at the office.
7! 7 NO HITTERS!!!!!!! A record that will NEVER EVER be broken! Damn!
🔥 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I believe he threw 8 one hitters. Unbelievable.
I was lucky enough to have seen him pitch when he was with the Houston Astros.
And how about his 2795 career walks? That won't be broken either. The guy was a .500 pitcher, third all time in losses and fourteenth in wins. Terrifying to face but overrated as a pitcher.
@@howie9751still had a 2:1 ratio of strikeouts to walks and is one of the most dominant pitchers ever. 5,714 strikeouts, but you just want to point out the negative stats
@@timkramer9296 He wasn't a dominant pitcher. A dominant pitcher is one you can count on to win you games. That wasn't Ryan. Third all time in losses, fourteenth in wins. Never won a Cy Young nor won ten games more than he lost in any season. He had a lot of spectaculars like strikeouts and no-hitters, but pitchers are paid to win, and at the end of the day he was little better than a .500 pitcher.
@@howie9751that couldn't have anything to do with the teams he played for, could it? Yes, I do think Win/Losses should be looked at contextually.
Saw him beat the Reds at Riverfront in September 1988. Cinci was winding down a bad season so good seats were cheap to come by. Paid off an usher and sat with the scouts and their radar guns - the older, “slow” ones. Ryan was 41, and was 94-95 the first few innings, 96-98 midgame. Every fastball he threw in the ninth was 99. Dibble pitched in that game. Touched 97. I don’t think he lost much velo through the years, but I can only imagine what his fastball looked like in 1973-74, because I’ve never seen anyone throw as hard as Ryan did that night. Not Verlander, not Chapman. Nobody.
The cheat on Nolan Ryan was he would grunt on fastballs but not the rest of his pitches! The problem was, by the time you heard the grunt, the ball was past you! 😂
Koufax gave away his curveball too .
They still couldn’t hit it
Against Ryan his offspeed was so good it didnt matter. You either had to commit that a fastball was coming next, or commit to offspeed. There was no deciding after the ball was thrown. You had to just hope you could outthink him. That's why so many batters struck out on balls. If they thought a fastball was coming, they just had to commit to swinging for it wherever it was. The same was true for watched pitches, and why you didn't see a lot of swing attempts on watched pitches. They already commited to watching the next pitch no matter what. 😁
Salute to all the Catcher's taken the heat of that fast ball.🙏
Wow!!! His fast ball just disappears at the last 5 to 10 feet
the way he wound up; and used all his body power to throw the pitch is what made him so effective !
You got that right. It's all in the mechanics.
Right!! The BASIC push off the rubber, natural stride, uses ENTIRE arm motion and shoulder to throw effortlessly, NOT stopping your arm after you release it--FOOLISHNESS, and NOT standing up vertically as you pitch-- MORE FOOLISHNESS. No wonder today's kiddies throw slow and have short careers!!
UA-cam CENSORING others, AGAIN!!
It wasn't just Nolan's fastball that was lethal. He also had a curve that would buckle hitter's knees. His changeup was pretty good too. Once he figured out how to pitch there was no stopping The Express. I'm glad I got to see him pitch in person.
In my opinion the best pitcher ever. He never had a lot of run support and didn’t benefit from the expanded strike zone of the last few years either. He threw strikes.
You have every right to be wrong.
The pitcher....by which ALL OTHERS are measured...plan and simple...this man was a MONSTER TALENT....Nobody can touch him
Nah. Monsters are alive. Monsters are terrestrial. Nolan Ryan is neither. He is superalive and extraterrestrial
The best pitcher forever
Um no. Maybe the fastball by which all others are measured. But he was far from the best pitcher ever.
@@silverguard8105 Yeah, Ryan was never the best pitcher in the league. Guys like Seaver, Carlton, and Palmer were routinely better. But Ryan was the best "strikeout pitcher" of all time.
@@bunpeishiratori5849which makes him the best. The goal is to strike everyone out
Some of these sure look faster than the 98-100mph pitches that seem routine these days. Ball just explodes into the catchers mitt. Wow.
Because they used to measure at the plate and now they measure out of the hand. The ball loses, depending on environmental variables, spin, etc; between 5 - 10 mph by the time it reaches the plate. So his 101.3 mph record still stands since it very well could have been 111 mph by today's standards. And we can literally time it and see how much faster it was.
Love him, I do, and NOBODY is breaking the no-hitter and career strike-out records....the only one I see as even possible is the season record one in front of Koufax......who IMO WAS better than Nolan......same could be said for the all-most forgotten 1940's teenage terror who was Bob Feller-----guy was also clocked at 107 (just a shade behind Ryan at 108), in street clothes racing a police motorcycle... check the great documentary on UA-cam called (what else?) "Fastball". When Teddy Ballgame days you were the best he ever saw or faced.....well that alone says a lot, and he missed four years of his absolute prime due to serving in the war.....pretty incredible human. What separates Ryan from everybody though was his amazing longevity and what he was able to accomplish in his 40s.....the only guy I can think of that did a similar if not more amazing thing is Foreman winning the heavyweight title back in his 40s
Wow!!! His fast ball just disappears at the last 5 to 10 feet
People in the Astrodome knew when Nolan was throwing a Bullpen Session...........Without even seen who it was!!!
Halfway to the plate the ball launches like a rocket booster turned on
Some of the movement on those pitches, especially with their velocity, is just amazing!
He was a joy to watch. Saw most of his career
Pete Rose said in an interview that Nolan's fastball "disappeared the last 5 feet." Quite a statement from arguably the best hitter of all time. I'm not one of those guys that thinks the old is better than the new, but I honestly think in his prime, Ryan threw harder than any recent pitcher I've seen. I'm no student of baseball, but I think they started using a different speed gun and showing the pitch speed on the scoreboard and TV set to sensationalize the speed of the pitches. The fans would think that was fast then look at the MPH on the scoreboard and cheer for the 105 MPH pitch. Somebody below said that the ball seemed to explode into the catcher's mitt. That seems to be an accurate description from this video and watching him pitch throughout his career.
Wow!!! His fast ball just disappears at the last 5 to 10 feet
Well they say adjusting for speed from the hand as measured today his fastest was 108mph
@@FreedomFighter2112 We all know that the harder the ball is thrown the harder it is to see the ball. It was Pete Rose's way of saying that the ball seemed to accelerate through the strike zone so fast you couldn't see it.
@@MrFuchew I agree with that. The guys throwing 105 now are throwing really hard, but I don't think they are throwing as hard as Nolan was in his prime. That 101+/- MPH fastball was about his 100th pitch of the game. When guys like Gossage were throwing upper 90's and Nolan was throwing around 100 on the old machine, you feared for the life of the batter. I bet the 105-ers would be throwing around 97 or 98 on the old JUGS machine. Maybe somebody will prove me wrong, but it just doesn't seem as fast. Mike Schmidt said he had a post-traumatic moment when he was on the stage with Ryan at the HOF induction. That is how hard he threw and intimidating he was.
@@WilliamMunnyIIIPete Rose was really about ball movement, not so much velocity. Ball Movement and control of your pitches matter far more than velocity.
Nolan Ryan just had velocity _and_ ball movement with abysmal control.
Nolan Ryan was poetry in motion. I doubt we will see his equal.
I never understand when people try to argue that he wasn't throwing 107-108, but 99-100.
Go watch any modern flamethrower hitting 102-105 on modern guns. Then watch Nolan. The difference is noticeable in how the ball just EXPLODES from his hand - and with movement! You can SEE the difference.
Movement and Velocity but no control.
@@rustyshackelford4224 Can't disagree with that.
@dasfette Movement and Control matter far more than velocity. Even durability and the quality of pitches matter far more than throwing fastballs nonstop. Modern MLB has it backwards.
Negligible means not noticable
@@shanezenmusicThanks
I always enjoyed his late career no hitters. He didn’t actually have the heat on some those nights, he just had great location and worked around the strike zone and threw in some curves as well. When he was on, man he was on.
I was very fortunate to see him pitch live on TV right now fastest baseball pitcher ever.
@tb1109, he still holds the record for fastest pitch ever.
I grew up watching Nolan Ryan in the 80's. IMO he is the greatest pitcher of all time, and he whipped Robin Ventura's ass in the process of becoming the GOAT! LOL
I've been an Astros fan all my life I'm 68 I've said in every level of the dome stadium in Houston this man was phenomenal and awesome athlete with tenacity for the game he would not give up you could not beat this man he's one of my heroes
Even by todays standards, unless they moved the mound about two feet closer to the plate, the speed and time it took for that ball to reach the glove is insane!
Ive been watching ball for over 32 years and played for 15 and can say with a fair amount of confidence those pitches are exceeding 103 or 104 mph.
I have to agree. Nothing else ever looked like that.
I mean, look at that pitch he blows by Dawson at 0:28...
I swear a few gotta be 110...just so much different than any other fastball I've ever seen, it's truly insane
I believe the juggs gun had him at 100.8 but the amazing part was that he was throwing 100 mph into the 9th inning and that his career lasted for 27 years!
Looking at these highlights it looks like it's 108 mph. He was striking out Hall of Famers in this video and the way the ball exploded into the catcher's mitt it makes you wonder how anyone ever got a hit off of him!
Back then, pitches were being gunned at the plate. Now they are gunned within 3 feet of leaving the pitchers hand.
@@bwink23 Yeah, wind resistance knocks several miles per hour off the velocity in just the distance from the mound to the plate.
As he got older, he got more faster. To be able to throw fast is one thing, to able to throw that fast, and even faster, for over 10 years is not human😊
He used his left foot to his advantage really well taking that momentum. The way he swoops it. Lots of pitchers just stomp their kick leg and dont reach full potential because they think its all arm strength. If that were the case you wouldn't see such skinny armed guys firing 100 mph fastballs
I got to see his 5th no hitter in person. I actually went back to another game to get the record they handed out of that game and still have it
Imagine Nolan Ryan played with the Mets in his entire career. Ryan and Seaver would have been the best one-two combo in baseball. Then in the 80s, Ryan and Gooden would have been special to watch. They probably win another championship in the 80s.
His fastball would best be described as "Violent"
Yep... In today's environment it would be "canceled"
he was the best pitcher I ever saw. best mechanics was the key to his amazing speed.and why he was able to pitch for 27 amazing years.
His elbow and shoulder flexibility is amazing
No one pitching today looks remotely close to this. He was blowing high fastballs by guys who were completely overpowered and buzzing the low ones by them just as easily. Clock it out of his hand and it's about 8 mph faster than where it was clocked then. The hardest throwing pitcher of all time. He'd be averaging about fifteen K's per nine with guys swinging like they do now. He'd also be finishing them if allowed to.
Seaver, Ryan, Koosman all coached well in the Mets farm system to usr your legs to drive the ball when pitching, all 3 15+ years in the MLB with minimal arm trouble
Thanks
I was lucky enough to see nolan pitch at Baltimore in 1992. Game was sold out so I had to buy a cheap ticket from a scalper for about 10x f as ce price. Nolan made it worth it!
A mullet and a long black beard would have been icing on the cake. Nolan was the absolute MAN.
Sometimes you just feel like watching highlights of a guy who spent a quarter century throwing absolute s-tier GAS.
He was the epitome of full body mechanics. He used every ounce of his body to throw a pitch. Thats why he could throw all day. Pitchers now use a crazy violent arm snap at three quarters to generate velocity. And they simply can't hold up like Ryan did.
I believe that Nolan and Tom Seaver had the best pitching motion of any right handed pitcher in history. They were just smooth with their deliveries. ⚾️⚾️
Look at those fast balls! they look like they are rising now thats a nice looking fastball.
Ryan, Blyleven, Sutton, Seaver, etc. played long toss and ran. I read an article some years ago concerning Ryan. He would pitch a complete game and ride the clubhouse exe recycle for an hour post game. He had incredible pitching stamina to go with the arm and mechanics. An amazing athlete.
Nolan Ryan racked up all those freakish strikeout records, played for all those years without injury, and then baseball analytics comes in and says a pitcher has to rest longer between games, and has to walk off the mound after 100 pitches? Yeah, I'd say Ryan's strikeout records are pretty Secure.
Nolan Ryan was just built different...
The movement on the fastball is what made it hard to hit
I think it was the speed buddy
@@secureyourgainz no, I'm a pitcher and I know better than u. It's the movement and unpredictability that made Ryan hard to hit, not the speed of his FB
@@knightrider693 Nasty curve ball.. and change up as well ⚾
@@PapaEli-pz8ff Yup. Plus u didn't know if it'd be over the plate or at your chin. He struggled with control for most of his career
Nolan was Bad Ass!😂❤
Two different generations got to watch this dude pitch!
Were these clips pulled from a documentary or something? I’d like to watch it
There's a brand new documentary called "Facing Nolan"
GOAT
The deadliest man ever on the pitchers mound my idol !
Ryan's mechanics were as good as it gets. It they weren't his arm would have died long, long before it did. In fact, his arm never died. He just got old and was tired and sore.
terrible mechanics with men on base who could easily steal off ryan
Boog Powell bailed out on an outside fastball, can't much blame him after that chin music.
High Octane Fastball! Damn!
God did give him the ability to be the best pitcher ever
Nyan Ryan's far from being the best pitcher of all-time.
The best pitcher of all time
just looking at it, i'd say: 1st pitch, 5 second mark: 107+ mph...i don't know what i'm seeing here; if i put an upper limit to it, i'd say 110 mph. 11 second mark: 104 mph. keep in mind the footage you're seeing may be moving faster than actually happened - i.e. frames per second moving faster than reality...
Nolan had numerous games where he pitched over 200 pitches. Insane!!
because he could not master control
Some things we develop with training and practice and somethings we are just born genetically gifted to do.
That is some SERIOUS heat
Him and skenes have a very similar motion
Nolan, a humble man.
The Ryan Express from Rufugio, Tx, Headed down there tomorrow to do some deer hunting.
Dude threw serious heat but ya sure didn’t see him striking out T.G💪💪💪💪💪💪
LEGEND
Just think what his career would have been like if he played on a winner during his time like the Yankees, Dodgers or Reds. In my humble opinion think Ryan is the greatest pitcher certainly of his generation.
I saw him in person on time, pitching for Astros. I did not know now it was Ryan until the 3rd inning, and the strike outs just keep adding up... and then, my friend said, you didn't know it was Ryan? He got 15 strike outs that game before it was over. From my seat, the ball was moving so fast the batter had to make a decision to swing almost from the moment it left his hand.
Ryan's delivery was kind of like a Right-Handed Koufax
The two pitches starting at 0:28 to Andre Dawson. My god!!!!
Chin music supreme⚾😱
Actually think his most dominant years were with Angels.
Sometimes it appears they swing after the ball is already in the catcher’s mitt. No shade - I couldn’t do any of what they do. Phenomenal athletes.
There never will other like the Blue Express Ryan! ⚾🇺🇲⚾🇺🇲⚾🇺🇲⚾🇺🇲⚾🇺🇲⚾🇺🇲
He drilled a kid in HS and broke the hitters arm. The on deck hitter didn't want to step up to the plate and I can't say I blame him.
Greatest pitcher ever no one come close!!!!!
El mejor de la historia Nolan Ryan,no cabe dudas
The worse part of how fast he throws is that is pitching mechanics are so good that his long arms create an abbreviate response time that makes the "closing rate speed" of his pitch even more insane fast because he is so well trained that is more of a detriment...and when he throws a wild pitch it is often a catcher having trouble getting his glove up to the ball and it is tricky to field...there on another note a young girl about 10 years old in as a catcher in softball is amazing that she reaches in and untuitively slides her torso like a pro catcher and traps the pitch low and away and it makes no sense how well this young child has instilled and absorbed disciplines that made this intuitive and whoever paired with her in the coaching engraved gritty and nasty excellence and the girl then goes into calm mode and tapers down and gets the pitcher the ball....this is crazy as it is not even part of the theme of the video and I am thinking to myself who the heck trained this kid..it was the most odd show of intellect, talent, poise, maturity, wildness and innate reaction and don't even want to say who this little kid was because she has to do these drills in her head and it makes no sense and it is like an extension of another situation that again repeated itself and just kind of baffling that they are gonna be something oddly unique and maybe unsung and more bizarre is someone knows that I know in timing maybe how I am gonna react so perfectly and that makes zero sense as whoever this person is has no access to knowing and empowering me and wants to as I am struggling to get the correct dosage of my Rx and are acting like resistors and that is not healthy "resistance" exercise when dealing with Neuro Pons that cannot rebuild and is odd that they would deprive as this is not like muscular refinement that can be redeveloped and is grueling and only painful
Ryan was not the greatest pitcher of all time. He may not even be in the top 10. However, he was certainly the most exciting pitcher to watch in the last 50 years. Heck, he might even be the most exciting pitcher ever; it's either him or Sandy Koufax. A definite Hall of Famer. I had the pleasure to see Ryan pitch half a dozen times over his career. Nobody dug in against him.
and 1 in 2 hitters and 1 in three hitters. not to mention strikeouts
Goat
Who would you take between Nolan Ryan or Tom Seaver?
All that power and still he finishes his delivery in position to field the ball
Plus he gives his autograph money to charity! MILLIONS! ❤ 😊
Wow!!! His fast ball just disappears at the last 5 to 10 feet
Pete Rose was the one who said that and it did.
I watched the game when he threw an officially recorded 104 MPH fastball. At that time it was the fastest recorded.
Anybody who does not agree that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports is a little on the slow side.
Ryan and Tom Seaver. The best high-rise fastballs ever
The real GOAT!
The Texas Flamethrower!
The Express! ⚾️
1:04 Did Ryan have his own personal strike zone? That pitch was a foot outside.
If Nolan were pitching today he could probably pitch until he was 55 yo
He was incredible, but holy
Cow his command sometimes was the worst. Which makes his numbers even more incredible.
God speed!
Thank you
Beautiful 🤩
Sencillamente,un fuera de serie.
That's the Easy Cheese 🧀
Straight Gas baby
Another thing that made Ryan right to hit is besides the speed of the pitch, of you look carefully the ball also has tail on it almost like a cut fastball before pitchers were throwing cut fastballs. The added tail makes it almost impossible to hit. And even if you get a hit or worse a home run, you know that you gonna get drilled 😟 next time at bat
🐐
I don’t know the difference between radar guns now and then but you look at these pitches and compare them to those of say Bobby Miller who pitched today for the Dodgers. Miller was consistently clocked at 100mph and most of Ryan’s pitches here look much faster than Miller’s
Are you sure about that?
I heard that the stadiums he pitched in had to be oriented North to South because his push off on the mound would disrupt the rotation of the earth.
Nolan and his superman arm