Nolan Ryan Undeserving of Baseball Hall of Fame

Your rewrite man states that it is nonsense to say Nolan Ryan deserves to be in the Hall of Fame only for his strikeouts and five no-hitters, and that it’s wrong to judge the Houston Astros’ pitcher by his overall won-lost record.

It’s The Times that talks nonsense.

If anything, Ryan doesn’t deserve induction even for those achievements, and even if he had thrown a sixth no-hitter last week against the Philadelphia Phillies, he still wouldn’t be deserving.

A good pitcher does well most of the time, not just occasionally. You don’t single out a dozen games and ignore over a hundred badly pitched ones.

Let’s get rid, once and for all, of this myth about Ryan pitching for nothing but bad teams. He has been a member of a World Series championship team, three divisional winners and a team that was involved in postseason play during the strike-shortened season.

This is unlucky? Tell it to most of today’s players. Yet, during those seasons, Ryan’s records were 6-3, 16-14, 11-10, 11-5 and 12-8. Most of the time, Ryan hasn’t even been the top pitcher on his team.

Why is it no one mentions Ryan’s greatest records, ones he has held for seven years: Most lifetime walks and highest average of walks per nine innings. That’s not a bad team; that’s bad pitching.

RICHARD BLUE

Hollywood