TROUBLE WITH ANGELS

Nolan Ryan made a 27-year career of pitching for teams that couldn't hit, for the most part. Some were good, most were bad. Nearly all were about as dangerous as a field of daisies. Only the Rangers bucked the trend, though a case could be made of late that they are more dangerous on defense.

A teammate once explained Ryan's typically weak support by contending teammates, awestruck by his pitching, were distracted.

Or maybe they just couldn't hit.

Ryan always found them, wherever he went, hiding behind their bats. He made the big leagues in the late 1960s with the New York Mets, regarded as the quintessential good-pitch, no-hit team. He played nine seasons for the Houston Astros, another member of the genre.

But neither organization was as bad as the California Angels.

"We were horrible," Ryan said.

The Angels were so bad coming off the 1976 season that Bobby Bonds had had one of the worst years of his career (.265 batting average, 10 home runs, 54 runs batted in) and still won the Angels' Triple Crown. California hit .235 in 1976 with 63 home runs, and the latter was up 12 percent from the previous season.

The Angels' pathetic offense inspired some of the boldest and most controversial free-agent signings of the late 1970s. Don Baylor, Bobby Grich and Joe Rudi collected $5.4 million in contracts from Angels owner Gene Autry, who received little in return in 1977. Ryan said at the time it was the best team he had played on. Only later did he consider the relatively slight heft to the statement.

The Angels, as bad as they were, drew a lot of attention in 1977, most of it around the All-Star break. One reason was the firing of manager Norm Sherry, a victim of the free-agent bust. The other item was Ryan's refusal to play for another manager, Billy Martin.

Ryan, making a comeback from two mediocre seasons, was having one of his best by the All-Star break in 1977. He was 13-8 with a 2.64 earned run average, 16 complete games and 234 strikeouts, more than a dozen ahead of his record pace of 1973.

Martin, the AL manager, took Ryan's teammates, 12-game winner Frank Tanana and reliever Dave LaRoche, instead.

"I wanted to spread it around the league as much as possible," Martin told reporters at the time, explaining Ryan's exclusion. "It seemed to me that Tanana was having a better season."

Some thought the snub was personal, that Martin thought of Ryan as a fastball-throwing freak.

"Hell, I'd pitch Hitler if I thought he'd win," Martin said. "I like Ryan personally, and I think he's one of the best pitchers I've seen in years."

He just thought Tanana and LaRoche were better. His choice might have been curious but hardly controversial had it not been for Tanana' s arm ailment, which eventually would take away his fastball. Tanana couldn't pitch in the All-Star Game. Neither could Detroit's Mark Fidrych, a 19-game winner the year before as a rookie.

"I just need rest," Fidrych told reporters, complaining of a "tired arm . . . I'm not worried."

He should have been. Over the next three years, he won four games. He was out of baseball by 1980, at 26.

Martin, needing replacements, decided on Ryan. He would have given Martin a third starter on a staff of relievers, the only other starters being Baltimore's Jim Palmer and Oakland's Vida Blue.

"I heard there was a possibility I might start," Ryan told reporters. "Well, that might be difficult since I'm going to be lying on the beach at Laguna. If I can't go on my merits, I'm not going.

"I just don't want to be a fill-in. If Martin didn't have enough confidence in me to put me on the original list, then I have no interest in going as a substitute."

No one expected Ryan to take such a vehement stand. He had been left off before. Dick Williams overlooked him in 1973 despite his two no-hitters, though commissioner Bowie Kuhn stepped in and added Ryan to the team. Baseball officials had no power over the situation in 1977. American League president Lee McPhail talked to Ryan, as did Angels president Red Patterson and general manager Harry Dalton. Ryan held his stance.

Ryan's teammates came down on his side. They put a beachball in his locker before the next night and scheduled a volleyball game.

Martin, who said he didn't "feel any need to apologize" to Ryan, named Boston's Dennis Eckersley as a replacement. Palmer started the game at Yankee Stadium and took the loss, 7-5.

More than a dozen years later, Ryan said his decision not to play in the 1977 game was nothing personal. He declined invitations to play in other All-Star Games when he was with the Astros, he said, preferring the vacation and time with his family.

"It had nothing to do with being picked as an alternate or Billy Martin or anything else," Ryan said, his attitude softening with the years. "But he (Martin) took offense to it, which really didn't matter to me because I felt like I did what was in the best interests of me and my family. Those were the plans we made, and I really didn' t want to change them.

"My attitude about the All-Star Game is that it's an honor to be selected and it's an honor to pitch in it. But, at that point in time, I'd rather them pick someone else who was deserving of it and maybe hadn't had the opportunity to go."

The Angels took a public-relations beating because of Ryan's decision, which only added to the general misery.

The season started with great promise, built on the team that Autry bought. Dalton, alarmed by Boston's signing of free-agent reliever Bill Campbell, met with Autry to form an offensive.

"Once we saw the gates were going to open wide for free agents," Dalton said, "I told Mr. Autry we had to get in."

Autry, one of the wealthiest owners in baseball, got in deep. He signed Grich, Baltimore's fine second baseman; Oakland's Baylor, a proven power hitter; and Rudi, an outfielder and three-time All- Star.

"I was excited about it," Ryan said. "After all those frustrating years, we were finally bringing in some legitimate players. Gosh, those three guys were great talents."

They didn't show much of it in 1977. Grich hurt his back in the off-season, lifting an air conditioner. He played in 52 games. Rudi, his finger broken by a pitch, played in 64 games. Baylor, unprotected in the lineup without Grich and Rudi hitting around him, hit .251 with 25 homers and 75 RBIs.

Sherry paid for the futility. Dalton fired him after a three-game sweep by the Rangers, just before the All-Star break. That firing, along with the long-range ramifications of the money spent on free agents, made the Angels a focus of derision.

Dalton said he felt "some vindication" later, after the money Autry spent seemed almost paltry. Baylor hit 36 home runs and was the AL's Most Valuable Player in 1979, the same year Grich hit 30 home runs.

But, by the time Baylor and Grich earned their money, Dalton was long gone, having left for the Milwaukee Brewers after the disappointment of 1977.

No one was as disappointed as Ryan. Since joining the Angels in 1971, the closest California had come to being in a pennant race was finishing 14 games out in '76.

"I thought we might be a legitimate contender," he said. "It just showed what a weak team we were, even bringing in three guys of that magnitude."