NO-HIT PARADE

Bobby Valentine and a California Angels teammate walked down the tunnel from the visitors' clubhouse at Royals Stadium, neither saying much. Valentine, who had briefly led the league in hitting after being acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers, was in an 0-for- 26 slump. His friend wasn't so hot, either. He had lost three of four starts and didn't make it out of the first inning of his last outing.

They got to the end of the tunnel, the twilight beckoning, and Nolan Ryan turned to Valentine.

"Why don't we break out of our slumps tonight?" he asked.

Valentine did, briefly, anyway. He beat out an infield hit. The next game, as a shortstop playing center field for the second game in a row, he ran into the fence at Anaheim Stadium and shattered his leg and dreams.

His friend's fortunes were much greater. Ryan's small slump ended May 15, 1973 in Kansas City, too. But his luck held a little longer than Valentine's and others who played bit parts in Ryan's small dramas. Ryan's May performance was a portent of what was to come, the first of his seven no-hitters, the first of two that season.

Valentine, on rehabilitation, was not in Detroit on July 15 for Ryan's second no-hitter. It would be almost 20 years before he would see another first-hand.

"I had a little to do with the first one," said Valentine, now a scout for the Cincinnati Reds since his dismissal as Rangers manager last year. "I caught a couple of pop flies. In his last two, I just put his name in the lineup."

The duty was a simple one for Bobby Winkles, the Angels' new manager in 1973. He put Ryan in the lineup and left him.

Ryan pitched 26 complete games in 1973, or more than he has in the last eight seasons combined. He worked 326 innings. He worked them. He had 383 strikeouts, breaking Sandy Koufax's major league record, and gave up 162 walks, which also led the league, and a career-high 238 hits.

He was 11-12 by the All-Star break, which would be a season for most pitchers. It would have been a pretty fair one, considering the two no-hitters.

"And Dick Williams didn't pick me for the All-Star team," Ryan said, eyebrows up.

Only through the intervention of commissioner Bowie Kuhn did Ryan become an All-Star for the second time. Kuhn named Ryan and Willie Mays, whose majestic career played out pitifully that season with the New York Mets.

Williams' omission drew no challenge from Ryan in his 1977 autobiography. But, over the years, Ryan's opinions or memories apparently have changed on a number of matters. He didn't belabor the point. He offered only the statement of fact, leaving the editorial comment to his eyebrows. But, a month after bringing it up in conversation, he resurrected the point, unsolicited.

Most of his memories of 1973 are good ones, peopled with the characters he liked. He thought it was good that he pitched so many innings, which allowed him to work out his problems. He still was learning under the tutelage of pitching coach Tom Morgan and his catchers, Jeff Torborg and Art Kusnyer.

Torborg caught the first no-hitter and said Ryan's stuff was no better than usual, a point on which Ryan concurred.

The Royals begged to differ.

"He was throwing the ball harder than any man I ever saw in my life," said John Mayberry, who was leading the league in runs batted in.

"If they had a higher league," said Hal McRae, now manager of the Royals, "he could be in it. As a matter of fact, he could be it."

The only tough play came in the eighth, when Rudy Meoli left his ground at shortstop and went far into left-center for an over-the- shoulder catch. Meoli also made a nice catch two months later on the closest the Detroit Tigers came to a hit, a line drive by Gates Brown.

Ryan was more proud of his no-hitter against the Tigers than his first against the Royals. The Tigers were a better team, with Brown and Norm Cash, and Ryan was at his best.

"He had very good control that night," said Kusnyer, now a coach with Oakland. "He had an excellent curveball, too. He'd throw the curve 88 to 90 mph. Guys would swing straight down at it. I couldn't believe it.

"I thought, 'The Caveman has got a chance to catch a no-hitter.'"

The Caveman - so named for his appearance behind the plate and so ingrained some former players do not recall Kusnyer by his given name - was one of Ryan's favorites. They were roommates on the road in 1972. They were introduced at an intra-squad game, when a mix-up in signals prompted a mound conference. Ryan, in his 1988 autobiography, said Kusnyer approached him on the mound with the salutation, "Hey, Huck-face."

Kusnyer, disagreeing, said it only sounded like that.

"I liked to keep a pitcher loose," the Caveman said, explaining the expletive.

At least one of the Tigers was loose on July 15, 1973. Norm Cash didn't become anxious even when Ryan struck out 17 of them. Cash, of Justiceburg, Texas and Sul Ross College, generally became more relaxed as the day, and his inevitable night, wore on.

Ryan considered Cash the funniest man he knew in baseball, even when Cash was trying to put one over on him. Ryan once caught Cash with a corked bat.

Another time, Ryan hit Cash on the elbow "as hard as I hit anybody in my life." Cash was in so much pain he crawled back to the dugout, said Ryan, who tried to apologize after the game.

"Kid," said Cash, waving him off, "after a fifth of Jack Daniels and two greenies, I don't feel anything."

Cash, who fell off a pier and drowned in Lake Michigan in 1986, may have been similarly clouded when he came to bat late in Ryan' s no-hitter.

He was carrying a table leg.

Ron Luciano, the plate umpire, hadn't even noticed. Ryan, who had seen Cash laughing, looking back at the dugout, called for Luciano to check the bat. A Vaudevillian routine ensued. Cash said it would do no good no matter what he used for a bat. He probably was right. He popped out to left, preserving Ryan's no-hitter.

Ryan struck out 17 Tigers and was disappointed he didn't get 20, which would have broken Steve Carlton's major league record of 19. He told reporters "it will be easier for me to strike out 20 than pitch another no-hitter."

He nearly disspelled his theory on his next start. He had a no-hitter against Baltimore before losing it in the eighth inning. He threw a one-hitter against the New York Yankees at the end of August, the hit coming in the first inning. Thurman Munson lobbed a ball just over the infield in left center, easily within range of Meoli and second baseman Sandy Alomar.

Meoli and Alomar looked up at the ball, then at each other and concluded simultaneously the other was going to take it.

Ryan has found it best to laugh about such matters, which is why he is so much more comfortable talking about characters than his records. His favorite Cash story revolved around a hunting trip taken by Cash, an old friend and another baseball player.

The weekend began with Cash apologizing to the baseball player for being late to pick him up, explaining it took longer than expected to check his friend out of the hospital.

They made it to the hunting lease, where, after a few rounds of cards and drinks, a series of hoarse, gasping sounds emanated from Cash's friend.

"If you die on me out here," Cash bellowed, "I'll kick your (expletive)."

"Hit me right here," the friend said, motioning to his still-scarred chest. "I'll be all right in a minute."

He was. All slept peacefully the rest of the night, everyone but the baseball player.