Nolan Ryan pitches last game for Marion… and it’s a stinker
Plus: This Week in Marion Mets History
Marion Mets Newsletter – Issue 19
Have a look at these numbers:
7 1/3 innings pitched
11 hits
10 runs, 7 of those were earned runs
5 walks
1 wild pitch
1 batter plunked
Rough night for the guy on the mound, right?
Those statistics don’t exactly scream future hall of famer. They don’t shout, or even gently whisper, “Hey, this guy will someday be one of the best pitchers in baseball history.”
Reading those last two sentences, and the headline, you know the pitcher I’m referring to. Yep, that ghastly stat line belongs to Nolan Ryan, and it came from the last game the lanky righty ever pitched for the Marion Mets, on August 30, 1965. That was 58 years ago this week!
I found two newspaper stories reporting on the game– one from the Roanoke (Va.) Times and the other from that city’s long-shuttered World-News – and neither mentioned Ryan, or any other Marion Mets player by name. The coverage from those papers was all about Marion’s opponent, the Salem Rebels, a Pittsburgh Pirates rookie league affiliate.
Also, the game was played in Salem on a Tuesday night and ended too late to be included in that week’s Smyth County News.
We know from reading the World-News article that Salem skipper George Detore played mostly reserves in the game since his Rebels had already bagged the Appalachian League pennant.
Right now, you’re likely reading this on your phone and asking: “Chad, do you mean to tell me Nolan Ryan pitched that poorly against a bunch of bench players?”
Yes! Yes, he did.
Guys named Tim Murtaugh and Bob Rice – ever heard of them? – had three hits each for the home-town Rebels, and Wayne Dickerson smacked a triple to score three of his teammates. Salem won, 11-7.
On the bright side, Ryan struck out 14 batters.
After playing a couple more league games against the Red Sox in Harlan, Kentucky, the Marion Mets ended a pretty successful inaugural season, finishing in third place in the Appy League standings, and second in league attendance.
Marion Baseball Inc., treated the players to a going-away breakfast at the First United Methodist Church before they left town in early September. Many were headed back to college while some feared “the possibility of a call from Uncle Sam,” the Smyth County News wrote. One player said he planned to go home to rest before his November 2 wedding date.
A few others like Ryan, Jim Bibby and Steven Renko journeyed south to Florida to play for the New York Mets’ instructional league team there. Ryan’s stats in the Sunshine State were pretty comparable to his season numbers in Marion.
One particular game, however, stood out.
On an early November afternoon, Ryan helped his team secure a close 8-7 victory over the Orioles. He didn’t do it with his pitching – he gave up five earned runs in four innings – but with his bat.
In the bottom of the first, Ryan stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. He waited for a pitch he liked and slammed it — grand slammed it — deep toward the palm trees standing just outside Al Lang Ballpark in St. Petersburg.
His batting line in the box score read:
1 at bat
1 hit
1 run
4 runs batted in
Now, those are nice numbers to look at.
This Week in Marion Mets History
Tim Foli took one for the team during an August 28, 1968, game in Johnson City, Tennessee.
As you can sort of see in the blurry newspaper photo above, the Marion short stop got walloped by a thrown baseball as he ran to first. The Mets won a squeaker, 8-7, against those Tennessee Yankees that night and inched closer to their second Appalachian League title, which they clinched about 24 hours later.
Foli played a big role in the Mets’ second title run. He hit .281 with 10 doubles, three triples, four home runs and 36 RBI in 63 games. After Marion’s ’68 season concluded, the New York Mets, who drafted Foli in the first round of that year’s Major League Baseball June Amateur Draft, sent the Californian to play for the Memphis Blues of the Texas League and later to the Florida Instructional League. He went on to play 16 major league seasons for the New York Mets, Montreal Expos, San Francisco Giants and California Angels.
Foli also was the starting short stop on the 1979 “We Are Family” World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates team that included Willie Stargell, Dave Parker and Marion Mets alumnus Jim Bibby. Dale Berra was on that Pittsburgh team, too. He, of course, is Yogi Berra’s son and the brother of Larry Berra, who played for the ’71 Marion Mets.
Sam Burkett, who grew up attending and working Marion Mets’ games in various capacities as a teenager, had this reflection on Tim Foli’s time in Marion:
“Foli came to our Sunday School class one Sunday and gave a talk. He also had a big temper. He played short stop and someone on the visiting team made him mad. The visitor dugout was on the 1B side, and during warmups between innings, he fired one over the first baseman into the dugout. The visitors were not happy.”
Last Marion Mets game…EVER!
The Bee Gees’ “You Should be Dancing” was the No. 1 song on the U.S. charts on August 31, 1976, and Abba’s “Dancing Queen” sat atop the British charts that same day.
Was everyone just dancing all the time in 1976?
Maybe not the Marion Mets.
The Mets lost 5-0 that day in Pulaski. It was the last game of the season. As it turned out, it was the final game of the Marion Mets existence.
The New York Mets chose not to field a team in Marion after the ’76 season, and instead, sent many players, plus manager Tom Egan, to Wausau, Wisconsin, to compete in the Class A Midwest League the following year.
Marion finished the 1976 season with a dismal 28-42 record, good for last place in the Appalachian League’s North Division.
Eagan, however, had an explanation for his Marion team’s lackluster performance.
“The first month and a half of the season I played everyone to weed out the kids who could play from those who couldn’t,” he told the Wausau Daily Herald in November of ’76. “We were 18 games under .500 going into the last month of the season. By that time, I was able to play one lineup, and we finished the year 10 games under. That means we played eight games over .500 during the final month.”
I think it also means not many people in Marion wanted to see Egan’s experiment. Only 7,198 total fans attended Marion Mets home games in 1976, by far the worst in the league.
Wait…
We can’t end this edition of the newsletter on a downer, so let’s do one more from This Week in Marion Mets history.
On August, 30, 1966, the Marion Mets sent 21 batters to the plate in the third inning and scored a whopping 15 runs. They did all of that in one inning! Can you believe it?!?!
The Mets went on to win the contest 22-9 over the Covington Red Sox. The next night, the Mets won a doubleheader over Salem, 14-0 and 7-5, in Marion Stadium to clinch the team’s first Appalachian League title in only it’s second year of existence.
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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Hey Chad! I am reaching out to invite you to be a guest on the @MetsRewind Podcast to talk about your Substack page. Interested?