GETTING A GRIP ON SUCCESS

Nolan Ryan reduced 1972 to a "transitional year,' an odd bit of understatement for a man of two autobiographies. Among other 1972 transitions, Ryan went from one league and one coast to the other. He went into a season as a father for the first time, didn't have any injuries or military commitments for the first time, and, for the first time, he won.

But, for all the firsts, Ryan's lasting impression of 1972 was a weight room.

The California Angels didn't have a weight room, per se. Baseball, still mired in the myth that muscle cost flexibility, discouraged weight training in the early 1970s and most of the next two decades.

But nobody discouraged Ryan when he found a Universal gym in a cubbyhole in Anaheim Stadium and began pumping away, beginning a regimen for which he attributes his longevity.

He didn't tell anyone.

"I started going down there and monkeying around with it after batting practice," Ryan said. "I felt like I needed to get stronger. It was a lot of trial and error.

"Nobody knew about it. Towards the end of the year, they figured it out. They just told me to keep it quiet.

"As long as you're having some success, they'll let you do anything."

Ryan's success in 1972 was astounding, considering his history. The New York Mets gave up on him, trading him after the 1971 season, because he was wild and hurt most of the time.

But, in Ryan's first season with the Angels, he came within two runs of a 20-victory season.

He led the Angels in 11 of 19 pitching categories and led the American League in shutouts (nine), strikeouts (329), walks (157) and wild pitches (18).

By season's end, when he lost his bid for a 20th victory in a 2-1 loss to Oakland, Ryan had established himself as a dominant pitcher. He had come quite some distance from April, when he had doubts about joining a new league and thought for the last time of quitting the game.

He went to the Angels' Holtville, Calif., training camp with the idea he had to make good the trade. The Los Angeles-area media were not impressed with the quartet acquired from the Mets for shortstop Jim Fregosi, the most popular player in club history.

Ryan responded poorly to the pressure.

"I had a horrible spring," he said.

A number of things contributed. Besides his early problems on the mound, the players went on strike for the first eight games of the season. This meant no pay. For a player who had not been paid the previous six months and was counting on that first April paycheck, the strike was devastating.

The Ryans, including 4-month-old Reid, did not live luxuriously. When in Holtville, they lived in a camper borrowed from one of Ryan' s sisters. After the Angels moved to their Palm Springs headquarters, Ryan made the 90-mile, one-way drive each day from Anaheim, scurrying along in a borrowed Volkswagen Beetle.

Ryan was so broke he had to borrow $1,500 against his income tax return to pay the rent on their Anaheim house.

"If they didn't settle the strike by the time the $1,500 was gone," Ryan said, smiling, "so was Nolan."

Ryan apparently wasn't ready for the strike's end. He lost four of his first six decisions, failing to make it past the fifth inning in four. Manager Del Rice contemplated putting him in the bullpen.

Tom Morgan, the Angels' pitching coach, intervened. He and catchers Jeff Torborg, Art Kusnyer and John Roseboro worked every day with Ryan. Torborg, now the Mets' manager, told him he was overthrowing, something Ryan never heard from Mets coaches.

"If they did say it, I guess it was a different approach," Ryan said, diplomatically.

Morgan made Ryan's delivery compact, whipping some of the wildness out of it. He did so much for Ryan that they remained close even after Morgan left the team in 1974. Ryan served as one of Morgan's pallbearers in 1985.

Beginning the last week of May, Ryan won nine of his next 10 decisions. He threw five complete games in a row, striking out 16 in two of the last three.

In his last victory of the streak, he walked Boston's Tommy Harper to lead off the game and, an out later, gave up a single to Carl Yastrzemski. Ryan didn't allow another baserunner. He struck out eight in a row at one point, a league record. He struck out the side in one inning on nine pitches.

He made the All-Star team and was happy living in California, too. All his apprehensions were gone. He was so comfortable in his new environment he even believed he could experiment, leading to his foray into weight training.

Ryan always was interested in physical fitness, if not always dedicated to it. Whitey Herzog, the Mets' player personnel director in the late 1960s and early '70s, called him lazy. Ruth Ryan said her husband spent his off-seasons hunting early in his career, whereas now he works out in a gym he had built in an old barn.

But Ryan, who was 6-2 and 150 pounds when he signed with the Mets, hardly had cause to worry about his weight. He gained more than 40 pounds with the Mets and still had no weight problem, though he had concerns.

He was shocked at the condition of major league players the first time he saw them in the Mets' clubhouse. "It looked like an old-timer' s game," he said.

He is not sure how he came upon the Universal gym - a weight-training apparatus with weights attached to various levers and pulleys - at Anaheim Stadium. He had no idea who used it; baseball players didn't. Gene Coleman, who would refine Ryan's regimen years later, said only the Cincinnati Reds were using Nautilus equipment when Coleman joined the Astros in 1976. The Universal gym at Anaheim likely was used by a pro soccer team that played in the stadium, Ryan said.

He worked without a plan. Most of it was trial and error, he said, though Coleman said his work was "pretty much on target." Coleman taught Ryan his body was a three-link chain, with power generated by the legs, applied by the hands and transferred with the trunk.

Coleman never has known a professional athlete as dedicated to training.

"We were trying to get our pitchers to lift twice between starts but would settle for once when Nolan got there in 1980," Coleman said. "Kenny Forsch didn't want to do it even once. The first day, Nolan says, "I've got problems with your routine." And I'm thinking, 'Here we go, this multi-million-dollar prima donna.'"

"He says, 'I can only lift twice between starts.'"

Ryan took other steps, too. Lots of them. He had run before. But, with the Angels, he went up to six miles a day before it began to affect his knees.

Weight lifting left him sore and stiff, though it didn't affect his pitching. His arm bounced back more quickly, he said. He even bought a Universal gym for his home.

Few teammates knew he was doing anything. Kusnyer, his roommate, knew only of his swimming and running. No one really suspected weight lifting, Kusnyer said, because Ryan was so limber.

Bobby Valentine was one of the few who found out. Valentine, who used the Universal gym on occasion after he broke his leg in 1973, knew of only one other player who worked out with weights. He opened a door in Anaheim Stadium one day to find Reggie Jackson, bench pressing his weight.

The Universal, however, was Ryan's private domain.

"It was Nolan's room," Valentine said. "I never saw anyone else in there but him."

Weight lifting did not add speed to his fastball. Velocity, Ryan said, has more to do with rhythm and mechanics than strength. The conditioning work, however, enabled him to work an inordinate amount of innings over his eight seasons with the Angels and still last 27 seasons.

He pitched at least 198 innings every year for the Angels. He pitched at least 284 innings four times and more than 300 twice.

"He should be an example to everyone else," said Kusnyer, now a coach for Oakland. "A lot of players finish their careers before they're ready and say, "Well, I wish I'd done this or that, I wish I'd taken better care of myself."

"Nolan will never have to say that."