‘I’ll never forget that first pitch. It knocked the catcher’s glove off’
Plus: The catcher’s connection to a former speaker of the House
Marion Mets Newsletter – Issue 28
If you know a thing or two about the Marion Mets, you’ve likely heard this story.
Team president Bob Garnett used to tell it all the time. It was one of the first stories he told me when we chatted for a newspaper story about the Mets way back in the summer of 1996.
It’s even engraved on a sidewalk plaque downtown.
It’s a short story, really, about Nolan Ryan’s very first pitch as a member of the Marion Mets.
Ryan arrived in Marion in early July 1965 and spent several days with the team before getting a chance to pitch in a game. It took a few days to get him on the mound because the team didn’t have a uniform for him. There were more players than jerseys and pants.
“I had to wait around until they released somebody to get a uniform,” Ryan told me on the phone back in January 2021.[i]
Wow, if the Mets knew they had a future hall of famer killing time throwing bullpen sessions, THE NOLAN RYAN – they likely would have paid someone to custom-make him a uniform.
Anyway, Ryan made his first appearance, I’m pretty sure, for Marion on July 10, 1965, in Salem, Virginia. He entered the game in the bottom of the sixth relieving Marion starter Jim Jenkins in a 2-2 ball game. Jenkins pitched well, striking out 10 Salem batters.[ii]
If things happened the way Garnett remembered, Ryan toed the rubber, stared in at his catcher, folded into his windup, and then violently – and perhaps wildly given his reputation back then – and unleashed a fastball with so much velocity that it separated the catcher’s mitt from his hand.
There’s no mention in the Roanoke Times story of Ryan, uh, de-mitting (is that a word?) his catcher, but maybe the reporter missed it or deemed it unworthy to mention in the few newspaper inches he had for his game story.
I asked Ryan if he remembered blasting off the catcher’s mitt. “No, I don’t remember that,” he said.
You’d initially think a person would recall doing something that extraordinary, but when you think of Ryan’s accomplished, hall-of-fame career – seven no-hitters, 5,714 major league strikeouts, repeatedly pounding Robin Ventura’s face – you realize how easy it could be to forget your first minor league pitch, even if it did nearly put a hole in the catcher’s hand.
It would have been great if Ryan remembered, but really, it’s the catcher’s side of the story we want to hear, especially if he said, “Oh sure, I remember that pitch… and I still can’t feel my fingers.”
The first challenge in this quest was learning when Ryan threw his first Marion pitch. But, that was fairly easy once I located all the Marion Mets box scores from early July 1965. When you scroll down the Mets’ batting order on that July 10 box score against Salem, you’ll find listed near the end, “Williams c.”
That’s Louis Williams, one of the many catchers on the ‘65 Mets roster.
The New York Mets drafted Williams in the ninth round, 166th overall, in the 1965 Major League Baseball amateur draft. (Keep in mind, Ryan was selected three rounds later in the 12th round.) Williams, born July 10, 1947, was a star player at Patterson Park High School in Baltimore, Maryland, and played a few years with one of the best amateur teams in the city.
A week after Williams signed with New York, Mets announcer Lindsay Nelson mentioned the news during a radio broadcast of a game between the Metropolitans and Reds at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.[iii]
“Speaking of events and people,” Nelson said, “two players, both from Baltimore, and both drafted by Auburn (he meant the New York Mets) in last week’s draft, have been signed by the Mets organization. Gerald Bark[iv], a left-handed pitcher from the University of Maryland will report to Auburn immediately, while Louis Williams, a right-handed hitting catcher, will report to the Mets’ Marion, Virginia, farm club in the Appalachian rookie league.”[v]
Williams was among the first players to arrive in Marion for the Baby Mets’ inaugural season in the summer of 1965. The Smyth County News, which kept the excited new fan base informed about each new player that walked into the locker room, included this tidbit about the catcher:
“Louis Williams, 17, carries 170 pounds and favors the Baltimore Orioles in the American League – Mets, of course, in the National.” Above the story was a team photo featuring Williams standing in the back row.
Williams played in 36 games for Marion. His defense was solid, but he hit only .141 and struck out way too much – 28 times – against rookie league pitchers. His lack of quality performance at the plate didn’t grant him another year in the minors; New York released him in April 1966. With baseball in the rearview mirror, Williams set aside his catcher’s mitt and enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 8 that year, according to his obituary.
Yes, his obituary.
Army Pvt. Louis Anthony Williams was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, when he was one of seven people killed in April 1967 in a two-car accident east of the south Texas town of Taft. Williams, who was 19, was traveling with four people, their ages ranging from 18-20, in a car that collided with another vehicle that had crashed in front of them. Police officers were unable to determine who was driving the car Williams was in.
His obituary appeared three days later in his hometown newspaper, the Baltimore Sun – it incorrectly stated that Williams had played minor league baseball in Auburn, New York. A few days later, the paper published a letter to the editor asking for the community to remember Williams, a terrific ballplayer and model citizen.
The letter, penned by Sheridan F. Smith of Baltimore, suggested that all the city’s amateur baseball teams hold a memorial for “Private Louis A. Williams of the United States Army.
“In my book, Lou Williams was one of the best catchers in Baltimore and a great American,” Smith continued. “My son Don and I saw Lou play in Little League (14 to 16); we figured he was some catcher... Yes, Lou could have been one of the best.”
Here’s hoping that each time we see the Nolan Ryan plaque on Main Street, and read Garnett’s quote, we not only think fondly of the great pitcher who started his hall-of-fame career in our town, but also remember his catcher whose life was cut way too short.
One more thing about that first pitch Nolan Ryan threw. I think it’s safe to assume Garnett was referring to the first pitch Ryan threw in a game, not his first practice pitch with the team. In 2019, Larry Wallin, another Marion Mets catcher from the ‘65 team, told me he was the first to catch Ryan when the pitcher joined the team. It was a bullpen session in Bluefield. Ryan didn’t knock off Wallin’s mitt, but he did force the strong Minnesota catcher to adjust to his fastball. “I was sitting there 60 feet, 6 inches behind home plate,” Wallin recalled, “and I ended up moving back because I had a heck of a time catching him at that distance.”
Williams’s connection to a former speaker of the house
November 22, 1959, was a joyful day, I suspect, for 12-year-old Louis Williams and his family. His older sister Mary Louise, married Nicholas Marco D’Alesandro at the Church of St. Leo the Great in Baltimore. The groom was the son of former Baltimore mayor Thomas D’Alesandro. Louis was an usher in his sister’s wedding, and serving as a bridesmaid was “Miss Nancy D’Alesandro, the groom’s sister,” the wedding announcement said. We know that bridesmaid today as former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
[i] It was a cool moment — almost like I was getting a scoop, a small scoop — when Ryan said this during our brief phone conversation. Not too long after the call, I read his 1988 autobiography “Throwing Heat,” where on page 33, Ryan told me the same story. “Our team didn’t have enough uniforms to go around,” he wrote, “and I was in Marion a few days before I was even issued one.” I’m guessing Ryan has told that story a bazillion times, and I wasn’t so special after all.
[ii] The Roanoke Times, the newspaper reporting on the game, focused most of its game coverage on the local team, Salem, and didn’t report on why Jenkins was pulled from the game.
[iii] Chuck Hiller played second base for the New York Mets in this game against the Reds. Hiller later managed the Marion Mets in 1971, ‘72, 74, and part of the ‘75 season.
[iv] Jerry Bark also played for Marion in 1965 and struck out 17 batters for the Mets in a 7-0 win over Bluefield on Aug. 20, 1965. It was one of the many booster nights Marion Baseball held throughout the season and the lure of big prizes attracted more than 1,400 fans to cozy Marion Stadium to see the Friday night contest. I’m sure fans were happy to witness Bark’s 17 Ks, but no one was happier, I’m guessing, than local barber Arthur Henderson, who won a 1954 four-door sedan given away by Smyth County Motor Company. Also winning big was Marion policeman Elmer Blevins, who was given a “second honeymoon by the Holiday Inn,” The Smyth County News reported.
[v] The radio broadcast of the New York Mets playing against Cincinnati is available on YouTube. You can hear Lindsay Nelson talking about Louis Williams at the 24-minute mark.
That’s all for now. If you have a story to share about the Marion Mets, I’d love to talk with you. You can reach me at chadoz97@gmail.com. Also, if you see something I missed or simply got wrong, send me a note.
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