A HOLLOW RING

Of all the dramatic sports stories of the past 30 years, few rank as improbable as the 1969 New York Mets. Only two years earlier, the Mets lost 101 games. By 1969, they still hadn't run off many of the culprits. They couldn't hit and they led the league in platoons, which did little more than spread around the blame.

But, by 1969, the Mets could pitch. They won their first World Series title largely because of a starting rotation that included Cy Young Award-winner Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Gary Gentry.

And, to a lesser extent, they won because of a pitcher who, for the only season in what would be a 27-year major league career, showed more promise as a reliever than a starter.

On April 9, 1969, Nolan Ryan recorded the Mets' first official save, a category previously undocumented. He appeared in 25 games that season but started only 10, by far the fewest of his career. He was the winner, in relief, of the pennant-clinching third game of the National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves. He earned a save in Game 3 of the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles.

And he was on the mound, in relief, during one of the Mets' more memorable, if miserable, moments.

"Looking back now, I guess I should have enjoyed it all more," Ryan said in his autobiography, Throwing Heat, of his only Series appearance. "I knew I had contributed to the team's success. The World Series had helped restore some of my confidence in my ability and my desire to play.

"Yet I still felt like a guy on the outside looking in. My role on the Mets was unclear. And I was still concerned about what the future would bring."

The future brought several records that likely will rank among the most enduring in baseball. But Ryan would have had trouble in 1969 predicting he still would be playing in 1970, much less 1993.

Ongoing military commitments regularly interrupted his stints with the team, making his contribution to the rotation minimal. So did problems with a groin pull. He did not enjoy his subsequent role in the bullpen, even though there was some speculation it might be his future.

The 1970 Mets yearbook, downsizing Ryan's once-spectacular promise, read that Ryan "may have found true niche as fireman late in the season."

Arthur Richman, formerly the Mets' promotions director, and Bob Murphy, the team's play-by-play announcer since its inception and the man who gave him his nickname, the Ryan Express, say no serious consideration was given to making Ryan into a reliever. But Whitey Herzog, the Mets' farm director in the late 1960s, said Ryan "could have been the (expletive) relief pitcher in the history of the game."

Herzog, now the Angels' general manager, offered a credible statistic. Ryan struck out 92 batters in 89 1/3 innings in 1969, the only time in his four full seasons with the Mets he would have more strikeouts than innings pitched.

Ryan had at least one other believer, too. Braves general manager Paul Richards once said Ryan was the only pitcher in baseball who could have struck out Rico Carty, who hit .342 that season, when he came in to face him in the third game of the league championship series.

Ryan's teammates were not as confident of the selection.

"All of us looked at each other on the bench," Koosman said, "and asked ourselves, 'How can you bring in Nolan?'"

Ryan's reputation for wildness was documented by the fall of 1969. But Mets manager Gil Hodges, who had come back from a heart attack in September 1968 to manage the team, apparently was willing to risk his health on Ryan.

Trailing 2-0 in the third inning, with runners at first and second and no outs, Hodges called on Ryan to replace Gentry. Even Ryan had doubts about the selection. He was wild in the warmups, wondering if he could throw a strike.

He needed only one for Carty. Ryan, who inherited a 1-2 count on Carty, threw a fastball, low and away, for a called third strike and worked out of the inning without any trouble.

Ryan's teammates were ecstatic. They went over him like clumsy pickpockets after the game, clearly overcome by his performance.

Koosman said Hodges' gamble made believers of the last few dissenters on the team. Ryan's confidence must have received a boost, too. A weak hitter even by pitcher's standards, Ryan's single late in the game preceded the winning home run by Wayne Garrett.

There was some speculation after his seven-inning performance against the Braves that Ryan might work his way back into the rotation during the Series. Hodges didn't budge. Ryan got into a game but, again, it was as a reliever and, again, it was in place of Gentry.

The Mets and heavily favored Orioles had split the first two games of the Series in Baltimore. The Mets were up, 4-0, in the seventh inning of the third game at Shea Stadium when Hodges brought in Ryan with the bases loaded.

Ryan got two strikes on Paul Blair and then made a mistake with a fastball that Blair hit deep to right center.

Tommie Agee, the Mets' center fielder, already had made a fine running catch on a ball hit to left center earlier in the game. He was shading Blair in the same direction, leaving Ryan to think Blair' s shot would be an extra-base hit, possibly even an inside-the-park home run.

"But Tommie went alley-to-alley as well as anyone," Ryan said.

Agee hit the warning track on one knee, skidding under the ball and finishing on his stomach to make one of the most celebrated catches in Series history.

That night, Agee woke up screaming.

"In my dreams," he told a reporter, "I kept missing the catches."

Earl Weaver didn't. Asked after the game if the Mets were a team of destiny, the Orioles manager said, "No, I believe they are a team with some fine defensive outfielders."

The Mets won the next two games and the Series. Ryan had his piece of it with the save in Game 3.

But it was one of his few clear recollections of the season, which he says remains "a blur." He barely remembered one of the season's most memorable moments, the benching of outfielder Cleon Jones, a moment for which Ryan was at least partly responsible.

Jones was the Mets' best player in 1969, a .340 hitter on a team that hit .242 and one of the few that Hodges didn't platoon. He wasn't doing so well on a damp, muddy day late in July at Shea Stadium, however. He was in good company with his teammates.

The day started poorly for the Mets when they lost the first game of a doubleheader with the Houston Astros on grand slams in the ninth inning by Denis Menke and Jimmy Wynn, a major league record. The second game was similarly gaudy when Ryan entered it in the third inning. Before it was over, the Astros would score 10 runs with two outs.

One of the hits Ryan gave up was a run-scoring double down the left-field line by Johnny Edwards, a catcher. Jones, trotting defensively through the muck on a bad hamstring, lobbed the ball to third base, aware that Edwards would not be trying for three.

At that point, Hodges came out of the dugout.

"I thought he was coming out to get me," Ryan said. "Then he walked past me, and Bud Harrelson, our shortstop, thought he was coming out to talk to him. So he ran up a few steps to meet him.

"But Gil kept on walking."

Hodges walked all the way to left field, where he had a short conversation with Jones, culminating with Hodges' invitation to join him on the bench. Jones was stunned. He did not get over it for months, even after he realized Hodges' motive was to shake up the team.

A few of Jones' teammates called his benching a turning point of the season. The Mets, 9 1/2 games out on Aug. 13, won 38 of their last 49 games to overtake the slumping Cubs.

This is how good the Mets were living during their run: the St. Louis Cardinals' Steve Carlton struck out a major league record 19 of them on Sept. 15 and lost on two home runs by Ron Swoboda.

The Mets' miraculous finish would be one of the most famous in baseball history. But it was not so apparent on July 30, when they were at their old, slapstick worst in a doubleheader against the Astros.

"It was the worst day I've seen as a Met," Seaver told a reporter.

The impression left on Ryan, one of the culprits that terrible day in July, was not as lasting and at least proved there was no scarring.

He stared blankly at the mention of the doubleheader and Jones' exit. His eyebrows wrinkled as he tendered a question of his own.

"Did we lose that game?"