Nolan Ryan
American baseball player (born 1947)
Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr. (born January 31, 1947), nicknamed "the Ryan Express", is an American former professional baseball pitcher and sports executive. Over a record 27-year playing career in Major League Baseball (MLB), Ryan pitched for the New York Mets, California Angels, Houston Astros, and Texas Rangers. After his retirement in 1993, Ryan served as chief executive officer (CEO) of the Texas Rangers and an executive advisor to the Houston Astros. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 in his first year of eligibility, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
Ryan was a right-handed power pitcher who consistently threw pitches that were clocked above 100 miles per hour (161 km/h). He maintained this velocity throughout his pitching career, being known as one of the top pitchers in Major League Baseball into his mid-40s. Ryan was also known to throw a devastating 12–6 curveball at exceptional velocity for a breaking ball.
Ryan had a lifetime win–loss record of 324–292 (.526) and was an eight-time All-Star. He has 5,714 career strikeouts, an MLB record that is 839 more than runner-up Randy Johnson. Similarly, Ryan's 2,795 bases on balls lead second-place Steve Carlton by 962 – walking over 50% more hitters than any other pitcher in MLB history. Ryan's lifetime batting average against of .204 is also a major league record. He recorded 300 strikeouts in a season six different times, a Major League record. Ryan, Pedro Martínez, Randy Johnson, Trevor Hoffman, and Sandy Koufax are the only five pitchers inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame who had more strikeouts than innings pitched. Ryan is one of three players in history to have his number retired by at least three teams, along with Jackie Robinson (whose number was retired by Major League Baseball) and Frank Robinson.
Ryan is the all-time leader in no-hitters with seven, three more than any other pitcher. He is tied with Bob Feller for the most one-hitters, with 12. Ryan also pitched 18 two-hitters. Despite this, he never pitched a perfect game, nor did he ever win a Cy Young Award; both were largely attributed to his high walk rate. Ryan is one of only 31 players in baseball history to have appeared in MLB games in four different decades.
Early life.
Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr. was born on January 31, 1947, in Refugio, Texas, a small town located just south of Victoria in the southern part of the state. Ryan was the youngest of six children born to Martha Lee ("née" Hancock; 1913–1990) and Lynn Nolan Ryan Sr. (1907–1970). The senior Ryan operated a newspaper delivery service for the "Houston Post" that required him to rise in the early morning hours to prepare 1,500 newspapers for delivery over a 55-mile route. The children were expected to help with the daily tasks. Ryan's family lived in nearby Woodsboro, Texas, in Refugio County, until they moved to Alvin, Texas, in Brazoria County, when Nolan was six weeks old. As a young boy, Nolan enjoyed throwing objects at any target. His father thought baseball a better usage for his arm; therefore, he encouraged Nolan to play the game.
Ryan joined Alvin Little League Baseball when he was nine, made the all-star team when he was 11 and 12, and pitched the first no-hitter of his life a few years later. Ryan also played various positions besides pitcher. In junior high school, Ryan could throw a softball over 100 yards. After ninth grade, Ryan quit playing football after a tackle and fumble caused by future NFL running back Norm Bulaich made him decide to focus on baseball.
Ryan played baseball for Coach Jim Watson at Alvin High School for all of his high school career. Ryan held the school's single game strikeout record for 44 years, striking out 21 hitters in a seven-inning game. The record was tied by Alvin High School pitchers Aaron Stewart and Josh Land in the same week in 2009. In 1963, at an Alvin High School game at Clear Creek High School in League City, Texas, Red Murff, a scout for the New York Mets, first noticed sophomore pitcher Ryan. Coach Watson recounted to Murff that some opponents refused to bat against Ryan and how his hard pitches would sometimes break bones in his catchers' hands. In his subsequent report to the Mets, Murff stated that Ryan had "the best arm I've seen in my life." As a senior in 1965, Ryan had a 19–3 record and led the Alvin Yellow Jackets to the Texas high school state finals. Ryan pitched in 27 games, with 20 starts. He had 12 complete games, with 211 strikeouts and 61 walks.
Professional career.
Draft and minor leagues.
After graduating from Alvin, the New York Mets selected Ryan in the 12th round, with the 295th overall pick, of the 1965 Major League Baseball draft. Ryan signed with the Mets and immediately pitched for the Marion Mets in the Appalachian League and for the Mets team in the Florida Instructional League. Overall, he was 6–9 in 1965 with a 4.33 ERA and 150 strikeouts in 120 innings. In 1966, Ryan pitched for the Class A Greenville Mets of the Western Carolinas League, where he went 17–2 with a 2.51 ERA and 272 strikeouts in 183 innings. He was then promoted to the Class AA Williamsport Mets of the Eastern League, where he was 0–2 with a 0.95 ERA, striking out 35 batters in 19 innings. Overall, Ryan had 307 strikeouts in 202 minor league innings in 1966, earning a late-season call-up to the New York Mets. In 1967, Ryan pitched three games in relief for the Class AAA Jacksonville Suns, started one game for the Class A Winter Haven Mets and pitched eight games for the Mets team in the Florida Instructional League. In 34 total innings, Ryan had 54 strikeouts in 1967.
New York Mets (1966, 1968–1971).
When Ryan was called up by the New York Mets in 1966, he was the second-youngest player in the league. Playing in only two games, his first strikeout was Pat Jarvis, and he gave up his first major league home run to Joe Torre.
Ryan missed much of the 1967 season due to illness, an arm injury, and service with the Army Reserve; he pitched only seven innings for the Mets' minor league affiliate in Jacksonville. In the 1968 season, Ryan returned to the major leagues, where he stayed until his retirement in 1993. Ryan was unable to crack into the Mets' pitching rotation, led by Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman. Ryan was used as a reliever and spot starter by the 1969 Mets. Ryan had frequent blisters on his throwing hand and tried several remedies including dipping his fingers in pickle brine.
Ryan pitched well for the Mets in the 1969 postseason. Against the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS, Ryan completed a Mets sweep by throwing seven innings of relief in Game 3, getting his first playoff win (it took him 12 years to get another). Then in the 1969 World Series, Ryan saved Game 3, pitching <templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" />2+1⁄3 shutout innings against the Baltimore Orioles. The Game 3 victory gave the Mets a 2–1 lead in the Series, which they went on to win in five games. It was Ryan's only World Series appearance in his career.
On April 18, 1970, Ryan tied a Mets record by striking out 15 batters in one game. Four days later, Ryan's teammate Seaver topped it with a then-MLB record 19 against the San Diego Padres (Ryan tied this record four years later). Ryan has credited his time with Seaver and the Mets with turning him from just a flamethrower into a pitcher.
Ryan's performance declined sharply in the second half of his final season with the Mets. His earned run average for the first half of the 1971 season was 2.24; in the second half, it was 7.74. As of 2021[ [update]], this was the steepest second half increase in ERA for a starting pitcher in MLB history.
In five seasons with the Mets, 105 games and 74 starts, Ryan had a 29–38 record, with a 3.58 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, with 344 walks and 493 strikeouts in 511 innings.
California Angels (1972–1979).
On December 10, 1971, the 24-year-old Ryan was traded to the California Angels along with pitcher Don Rose, catcher Francisco Estrada, and outfielder Leroy Stanton for shortstop Jim Fregosi (who later managed Ryan in Anaheim). The deal has been cited as one of the worst in Mets history, but was not viewed as unreasonable at the time given Ryan's relatively unremarkable numbers as a Met and Fregosi's good career to that point.
In his first season with the Angels, Ryan was given a chance to pitch regularly as a starter for the first time in his career, mainly because by then he had fulfilled his military obligation and no longer had to commute to Houston every other week. He had a league-leading 329 strikeouts—nearly a third more than the AL runner-up, and the fourth-highest total of the 20th century to that point. Within five seasons, the season was only Ryan's fourth-highest strikeout total. He also set a still-standing Major League record by allowing only 5.26 hits per nine innings, breaking Luis Tiant's 5.30 in 1968, as well as posting a 2.28 earned run average that year, to date the second-lowest in franchise history, trailing only Dean Chance's 1.65 in 1964. Though Ryan's actual winning percentage hovered only slightly over .500, his strikeouts and no-hitters brought him media attention. Meanwhile, Fregosi failed to produce as a Met, making no significant contribution to the Mets' 1973 pennant-winning campaign; he was sold to the Texas Rangers mid-season.
Although the Angels were a sub-.500 team and remained one for much of Ryan's time with them, he managed to post some winning records, notably 19–16 in 1972, 21–16 in 1973, and 22–16 in 1974 (the 22 wins tied what remains the Angels franchise record, set by Clyde Wright in 1970). He finished second in the Cy Young Award balloting (losing to Jim Palmer 88–62) in 1973. It was the closest he ever came to winning the award. Ryan also led the league in losses in 1976 with a 17–18 record (one short of the franchise record for losses). In the early 1970s, many teams used a four-man rotation and expected the starter to complete the game; thus most of the games Ryan started ended in a decision.
On July 9, 1972, Ryan struck out three batters on nine pitches in the second inning of a 3–0 win over the Boston Red Sox; he became the seventh American League pitcher to accomplish the immaculate inning, and the first pitcher in Major League history to accomplish the feat in both leagues (on April 19, 1968, he had struck out three batters on nine pitches in the second inning of a 2–1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming the eighth National League pitcher and the 14th pitcher in Major League history to accomplish the feat).
Ryan threw a no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals on May 15, 1973. He threw a second no-hitter on July 15 against the Detroit Tigers, he struck out 17 batters – the most in a recorded no-hitter. (This record was later tied by Max Scherzer on October 3, 2015.) Ryan was so dominant in this game, it led to one of baseball's best-remembered pranks. Tigers first baseman and cleanup hitter Norm Cash came to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, having already struck out twice, and was carrying a clubhouse table leg instead of a bat. Plate umpire Ron Luciano ordered Cash to go back and get a regulation bat, to which Cash replied, "Why? I won't hit him anyway!" With a regulation bat in hand, Cash did finally make contact, but popped out to end the game. Cash's teammate Mickey Stanley commented on facing Ryan that day by saying, "Those were the best pitches I ever heard."
In 1973, Ryan set his first major record when he struck out 383 batters in one season, beating Sandy Koufax's old mark by one. Remarking on this feat, Koufax joked, "Yeah, and he also surpassed my total for bases on balls in a single season by 91. I suspect half of those guys he struck out swung rather than get hit." Ryan finished second in balloting for the Cy Young Award, behind Jim Palmer.
Pitching 13 innings against the Boston Red Sox on June 14, 1974, Ryan threw 235 pitches, striking out 19, walking 10 and getting a no-decision.
During a September 7, 1974 game against the Chicago White Sox at Anaheim Stadium, Ryan became the first Major League pitcher to have his pitch speed measured during a game. A primitive radar gun clocked a ninth-inning fastball at when it was in front of home plate. This exceeded an earlier pitch by Bob Feller which was measured at at home plate and previously thought to be the fastest pitch ever recorded.
Ryan added a third no-hitter in 1974 and a fourth in 1975, tying another of Koufax's records. In 1974 he twice struck out 19 batters, tying Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton for the single-game record for a nine-inning game. Roger Clemens became the first pitcher with a 20-strikeout game in 1986.
The Angels finally made the playoffs in Ryan's eighth and final year there in 1979. He started Game 1 of the ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles and threw seven innings against the Orioles' Jim Palmer, but neither man was involved in the decision as Baltimore won in the 10th inning. Ryan was scheduled to pitch Game 5, but the Angels were eliminated in four. The season complete, Ryan became a free agent.
Ryan led the American League in strikeouts seven times during his eight seasons with the Angels, but he also led the league in walks in six of those years, and finished second the other two seasons: 1975 and 1979. Aside from Bob Feller in 1938, Ryan is the only man since 1900 to walk 200 batters in a season, which he did twice: in 1974 and 1977. Emblematic of this, his 1974 no-hitter against the Minnesota Twins included eight walks.
Though Ryan's strikeouts and no-hitters got him considerable media attention, he did not persuade Angels general manager Buzzie Bavasi, who dismissed him as a flashy .500 pitcher (Ryan was 26–27 in the last two years he was with the Angels).
In his eight seasons with the Angels, Ryan was 138–121, a 3.07 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, with 1,302 walks and 2,416 strikeouts in 2181 innings over 288 starts and 156 complete games.
Houston Astros (1980–1988).
On November 19, 1979, Ryan signed a four-year contract worth $4.5 million (equivalent to $ million in 2024) with the Houston Astros, becoming MLB's first million-dollar player. The salary quadrupled what he had been making with the California Angels. In a nationally televised game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 12, 1980, Ryan hit a three-run home run off Don Sutton. It was the first of two homers in Ryan's career and produced half of the six RBIs he got that year. On July 4 at Riverfront Stadium, Ryan recorded his 3,000th career strikeout, the victim being César Gerónimo of the Cincinnati Reds. The Astros made the 1980 MLB postseason. In the 1980 NLCS versus the Philadelphia Phillies, Ryan pitched well in Game 2, leaving the game tied 2–2 in the seventh (having contributed to both Astros runs with a run scored following a walk, and a sacrifice bunt leading to a run) but again got a no-decision in a game that went extra innings. In the fifth and final game of the series, Ryan and the Astros held a 5–2 lead entering the 8th inning. But Ryan allowed three consecutive singles before walking in the third run. The Houston bullpen allowed the Phillies to take a 7–5 lead, and only a game-tying Astro rally permitted Ryan to escape the loss.
On September 26, 1981, Ryan threw his fifth no-hitter, breaking Koufax's mark while becoming the third pitcher to throw a no-hitter in each league. That season, his 1.69 ERA was the best in the National League.
Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1981 NLDS, Ryan threw a complete game two-hitter in the opener, outlasting the Dodgers' rookie sensation Fernando Valenzuela. It was Ryan's second and last career postseason win. In the fifth and final game of the series, Ryan left trailing 3–0 and took the loss.
By the end of the 1982 season, both Ryan and Steve Carlton were approaching Walter Johnson's all-time strikeout record, sometimes passing one another's career totals in successive starts. On April 27, 1983, Ryan won the race with his 3,509th whiff, against Brad Mills of the Montreal Expos. (Carlton reached the same mark two weeks after Ryan, and Gaylord Perry did so later that season.) On July 11, 1985, Ryan struck out Danny Heep for his 4,000th career strikeout.
In 1986, Ryan's Astros faced the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series. Ryan had a shaky start in Game 2, taking the loss. He returned in Game 5, throwing 9 innings of 2-hit, 1-run, 12-strikeout ball, but one of those hits was a Darryl Strawberry home run that tied the game at 1, as Dwight Gooden matched Ryan pitch for pitch. Ryan got a no-decision as his Astros lost in 12 innings.
In 1987, Ryan led the major leagues in both ERA (2.76) and strikeouts (270) at the age of 40, but finished 8–16 as the result of extremely poor run support; the Astros scored a total of 27 runs in his 16 losses–an average of 1.69 runs per game. Despite his .333 winning percentage, Ryan tied for 5th place in the 1987 Cy Young voting. Ryan hit his second and final career home run in a 12–3 win on May 1, 1987, against the Atlanta Braves.
In nine seasons as a pitcher with the Astros (his longest tenure with any team), Ryan compiled a 106–94 record in 282 starts, a 3.13 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, with 796 walks and 1,866 strikeouts in 1,854 innings.
Texas Rangers (1989–1993).
Ryan left Houston after a contract dispute following the 1988 season and signed with the Texas Rangers at age 42. He became the first player to play for all four MLB original expansion teams: the Mets, Angels, Houston Colt .45s/ Astros and Washington Senators/Texas Rangers. (Ryan was joined in this category by Darren Oliver, who made his major league debut as Ryan's teammate in September 1993. Oliver's father Bob had also been a teammate of Ryan's, with the Angels from 1972 to 1974.) In 1989, he went 16–10 and led the league with 301 strikeouts. Against the Oakland Athletics on August 22, Ryan struck out Rickey Henderson, becoming the only pitcher to record 5,000 career strikeouts. Following the game, Henderson was quoted as saying, "If he ain't struck you out, then you ain't nobody." His 4,999th and 5,001st strikeouts were against the same man, Athletics catcher Ron Hassey. Two years later, at 44, Ryan finished fifth in the league in ERA (2.91) and third in strikeouts (203).
In 1990, Ryan threw his sixth no-hitter on June 11 against the Athletics, and earned his 300th win on July 31 against the Milwaukee Brewers. On May 1, 1991, at age 44, Ryan extended his record by throwing the seventh no-hitter of his career, striking out Roberto Alomar of the Toronto Blue Jays for the final out. On August 6, 1992, Ryan had the only ejection of his career after engaging in a shouting match with Oakland Athletics outfielder Willie Wilson with two outs in the eighth inning.
Before the 1993 season began, Ryan announced that he would retire as a player at the end of that season. On August 4, Ryan hit Robin Ventura of the Chicago White Sox with a pitch, and Ventura charged the mound in order to fight Ryan, who was 20 years his senior. Ryan secured the 26-year-old Ventura in a headlock with his left arm, while pummeling Ventura's head with his right fist six times before catcher Iván Rodríguez was able to pull Ventura away from Ryan. Ryan stated afterwards that it was the same maneuver he used on steers he had to brand on his Texas ranch. Videos of the incident were played that evening throughout the country. While Ventura was ejected, Ryan–who had barely moved from his spot on the mound in the fracas–was allowed to remain in the game. White Sox manager Gene Lamont vehemently argued this, leading to his own ejection. Ryan pitched a hitless game the rest of the way. He had been determined to be more aggressive after coming out on the wrong side of an altercation with Dave Winfield in 1980.
Ryan tore a ligament in his pitching arm in Seattle on September 22, 1993. The injury ended his career two starts earlier than planned, at age 46. Ryan briefly attempted to pitch past the injury, and he threw one additional pitch after tearing his ligament. Ryan's last start was his career-worst; he allowed a single, four walks, and a grand slam in the top of the first without recording an out. It was his record-setting 10th grand slam given up of his career. (Ryan left trailing 5–0, and the fourth walk was completed by a reliever after Ryan's injury, but credited to Ryan.) Greg Myers of the California Angels was the last strikeout victim of Nolan Ryan's career, on September 17, 1993.
Ryan finished his career having played in the major leagues a record of 27 seasons. He was the final active player from the 1960s to retire from Major League Baseball, outlasting Carlton Fisk (the final active position player) by three months.
In five seasons with the Rangers, Ryan had a 51–39 record, a 3.43 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, with 353 walks and 939 strikeouts in 840 innings over 129 starts.
Seven no-hitters.
Ryan threw a record seven no-hitters during his major league career, three more than any other pitcher. The no-hitters spanned three decades of pitching. In those seven games, Ryan accumulated a total of 94 strikeouts and 26 walks; a ratio of 3.6 strikeouts per walk (his career K:BB was 2.0). Ryan struck out 17 in his no-hitter on July 15, 1973, versus Detroit and walked eight in his subsequent no-hitter against Minnesota, both respective highs for his no-hitters.
MLB records.
Ryan holds 51 total MLB records, including:
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Later activity.
Nolan Ryan's post-retirement business interests include being the principal owner of Ryan Sanders Sports and Entertainment, which is the ownership group for the Round Rock Express, the Triple-A Affiliate of the Texas Rangers.
Ryan threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the 2005 World Series between the Astros and the White Sox, the first World Series game played in Texas. That game went 14 innings, equaling the longest in innings in World Series history (at 5 hours and 41 minutes, it was the longest in time). ESPN suggested the Astros might have needed to pull the 58-year-old Ryan out of retirement if the game had gone much longer.
Ryan has co-written six books: autobiographies "Miracle Man" (with Jerry Jenkins, 1992), "Throwing Heat" (with Harvey Frommer, 1988) and "The Road to Cooperstown" (with Mickey Herskowitz and T.R. Sullivan, 1999); "Kings of the Hill" (with Mickey Herskowitz, 1992), about contemporary pitchers; and instructional books "Pitching and Hitting" (with Joe Torre and Joel Cohen, 1977), and "Nolan Ryan's Pitcher's Bible" (with Tom House, 1991).
In addition to his baseball activities, Ryan was majority owner and chairman of Express Bank of Alvin but sold his interest in 2005. He also owned a restaurant in Three Rivers, Texas. He served on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission from 1995 to 2001. He appeared as a TV spokesman for Advil for several years. He also has appeared in various television commercials shown in the Texas market.
After retiring from baseball, Ryan teamed up with the federal government to promote physical fitness. His likeness was used in the "Nolan Ryan Fitness Guide", published by The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in 1994. Ryan suffered a heart attack on April 25, 2000, and had to receive a double coronary bypass.
Texas Rangers president and CEO (2008–2013).
In February 2008, the Rangers hired Ryan as team president. After the 2009 season, Ryan and Chuck Greenberg submitted a bid to purchase the Rangers from owner Tom Hicks. At midnight on August 5, 2010, the Ryan/Greenberg group, Rangers Baseball Express, was announced the winners of the final auction to purchase the Rangers, after final approval from Major League Baseball. The final cash bid to purchase the franchise was $385 million. The opposing high bidder was Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Greenberg became managing general partner and CEO, while Ryan remained as team president.
Greenberg left the group in March 2011, reportedly due to a philosophical clash with Ryan. Ryan was immediately named as CEO while keeping the title of president. Although Texas oil magnates Ray Davis and Bob Simpson served as co-chairmen and held larger stakes, Ryan became the undisputed head of the franchise, with Davis and Simpson serving mostly as senior consultants.
Ryan was named the Dallas–Fort Worth's 2012 CEO of the Year by Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business.
During the baseball owners' meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona, on March 1, 2013, the Rangers announced that general manager Jon Daniels would add president of baseball operations to his title. Rick George was promoted to president of business operations. Ryan's title was changed simply to CEO, but he remained operating head of the franchise; both Daniels and George reported to him. On October 17, 2013, Ryan announced that he was stepping down as Rangers CEO effective October 31, 2013.
Houston Astros special assistant (2014–2019).
On February 11, 2014, Ryan accepted a position as an executive adviser for the Houston Astros under owner Jim Crane. Ryan's son, Reid Ryan, was hired the previous year as president of business operations for the Astros. The Astros won the 2017 World Series and won the 2019 American League pennant. Reid Ryan was demoted by the Astros after the 2019 World Series, and shortly thereafter Nolan Ryan sent a text message to a reporter indicating that he would not return to the Astros front office for the 2020 season.
Legacy.
Ryan played in more seasons (27) than any other major league player since 1900. (For all-time he is tied with Cap Anson for #1). Ryan ranks first for all-time in strikeouts (5,714), fewest hits allowed per nine innings (6.56), and no-hitters (7). He is also fifth in innings pitched (5,386), second in games started (773), seventh in shutouts (61), is tied for 14th in wins (324), and is third in losses (292).
Opposing hitters hit only .204 against Ryan during his career, although they had a .309 on-base percentage against him. He also limited hitters to a .298 slugging percentage. Ryan had 15 or more strikeouts in a game 26 times, second only to Randy Johnson, who had 28. Ryan's lengthy career spanned generations as he struck out seven pairs of fathers and sons (for example, Bobby Bonds and Barry Bonds), another major league record. Ryan also played during the administrations of seven U.S. Presidents—Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton—equaling a 20th-century record that had been set by Jim Kaat.
Ryan also ranks high on the list for four "negative" records; he ranks first all-time in walks allowed (2,795), first in wild pitches (277), third in losses (292 – most in the post-1920 live-ball era), and ninth in batters hit (158). Ryan was the first pitcher in MLB history to give up ten grand slam home runs, including one to Dann Howitt, the next-to-last batter Ryan faced in his career; that record has since been surpassed.
Bill James focused on this dichotomy between Ryan's positive and negative statistics. While ranking him as the 24th best pitcher of all time, he noted, "Ryan has been retired almost ten years [as of 2001], in another ten perhaps we will begin to get a little bit of perspective on him. Ryan's log of spectacular accomplishments is as thick as Bill Clinton's little black book; his list of flaws and failures is lengthy but dry, and will never make for good reading."
Other writers have delved more into the specifics of James' general concerns. ESPN writer Rob Neyer stated in a 2003 column that while Ryan was among the 20 best pitchers since World War II, he "often had trouble throwing strikes, [and] he wasn't any good at fielding his position". In another column, Neyer, while stating that Ryan belonged in the Hall of Fame, pointed to Ryan's record-breaking walks total and noted that his .309 on-base percentage against "wasn't even close to being in the top 100".
Ryan and Frank Robinson are the only two major league players to have their number retired by three teams on which they played. The California Angels retired the number 30 on June 16, 1992; the Texas Rangers retired his number 34 on September 15, 1996; and the Houston Astros retired number 34 on September 29, 1996. His number was the first retired by the Rangers.
Ryan was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 in his first year of eligibility with 98.79% of the vote (491 out of 497 possible), six votes short of a unanimous election and the sixth-highest percentage in history, behind Mariano Rivera (100%, 425 out of 425 possible), Derek Jeter (99.75%, 396 out of 397 possible), Ichiro Suzuki (99.75%, 393 out of 394 possible), Ken Griffey Jr. (99.32%, 437 out of 440 possible), and Tom Seaver (98.84%, 425 out of 430 possible). He chose to wear a Rangers cap for his HOF plaque to reflect his Texas heritage, as well as the fact that his 300th win, 5000th strikeout, and last two no-hitters came as a Ranger. He was the first Hall of Famer inducted as a Ranger. However, the Hall of Fame recognizes the Los Angeles Angels as his primary team.
In 1999, he ranked 41st on "The Sporting News" list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was inducted into the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame in 2003, and named the Rangers', and Astros' Hometown Hero in 2006—the only player to be so named by two franchises. In 2020, "The Athletic" ranked Ryan at number 50 on its "Baseball 100" list, complied by sportswriter Joe Posnanski.
In 2011, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 1992, the United States Mint produced a $1 commemorative coin honoring Olympic baseball depicting a pitcher in a USA Baseball uniform in a pose nearly identical to Ryan's photo on his 1991 Fleer baseball card. The numismatic community subsequently referred to the coin as the "Nolan Ryan dollar."
In 1995 the Texas State Legislature declared State Highway 288, which passes near Alvin, as the Nolan Ryan Expressway.
The Alvin Independent School District opened Nolan Ryan Junior High School, located at 11500 Shadow Creek Parkway (FM 2234) in Pearland, Texas, just a few hundred yards away from the Nolan Ryan Expressway.
The Nolan Ryan Foundation is a Texas nonprofit organization that supports youth, education, and community development and is headquartered in Round Rock, Texas.
The Texas Trail of Fame inducted Ryan in 2009. The Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame inducted Ryan in 2010.
A documentary, "Facing Nolan", was released in 2022.
Personal life.
Ryan married his high school sweetheart, Ruth Holdorff, on June 26, 1967. Nolan and Ruth attended Alvin High School together. Ruth was a high school state tennis champion. They have three children: Reid, Reese, and Wendy. Reid and Reese were both pitchers for the TCU Horned Frogs. Reid also pitched briefly in the minor leagues. On May 17, 2013, Reid was announced as president of the Houston Astros.
Nolan frequently pitched in the off-seasons, with Ruth often donning catching gear and serving as his catcher. Ruth Ryan also coached their sons' little league teams for a few summers.
Nolan Ryan resides in the Cimarron Hills community in Georgetown, Texas.
Political activity.
Ryan wrote in his 1992 autobiography "Miracle Man" that he voted for Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford in 1976, but since then has generally identified as a Republican, though he does not automatically vote this way and looks at individual candidates, mentioning disgust at one particular election in which the two major parties were forcing a choice between "the racist or the criminal." He also crossed party lines in 2002 to headline a group of Republicans and Independents supporting a Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Texas. He has maintained a decades-long friendship with the Bush family, partially due to George W. Bush being a part-owner of the Rangers while Ryan played there. However, in his 1992 book Ryan expressed some criticisms of the elder Bush's (George H.W. Bush) management of domestic issues and said he wasn't "locked in" to voting for Bush that fall. In 1996 Ryan campaigned on behalf of Ron Paul in the election for Texas's 14th congressional district; his hometown of Alvin was located in the district.
On April 7, 2011, Todd Staples announced that Nolan Ryan would be his statewide chairman for his exploratory committee for lieutenant governor. Ryan is quoted as saying, "Todd Staples is the top prospect for the Texas Republican Party in 2014." Staples, however, lost that race to current Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Houston.
References.
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List of Major League Baseball career strikeout leaders
"This list is for pitchers. For career strikeouts by batters, see List of Major League Baseball career strikeouts by batters leaders"
The following list is of the top 100 pitchers in career strikeouts in Major League Baseball. In baseball, a strikeout occurs when the batter receives three strikes during his time at bat. Strikeouts are associated with dominance on the part of the pitcher and failure on the part of the batter.
Nolan Ryan has the most career strikeouts in Major League Baseball. During a record 27-year career, he struck out 5,714 batters. The American League record is held by Roger Clemens (4,167 strikeouts), while in the National League, the record is 4,000 by Steve Carlton.
The parentheses adjacent to an active player denote the number of strikeouts in the current season. The last change in the cutoff for the top 100 occurred on June 22, 2024, when Charlie Morton struck out his 1,957th batter, displacing Whitey Ford.
List.
A player is considered "inactive" if he has not played baseball for one year or has announced his retirement.
References.
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Dayton Project
The Dayton Project was a research and development project to produce polonium during World War II, as part of the larger Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs. Work took place at several sites in and around Dayton, Ohio. Those working on the project were ultimately responsible for creating the polonium-based modulated neutron initiators that were used to begin the chain reactions in the atomic bombs.
The Dayton Project began in 1943 when Monsanto's Charles Allen Thomas was recruited by the Manhattan Project to coordinate the plutonium purification and production work being carried out at various sites. Scientists at the Los Alamos Laboratory calculated that a plutonium bomb would require a neutron initiator. The best-known neutron sources used radioactive polonium and beryllium, so Thomas undertook to produce polonium at Monsanto's laboratories in Dayton. While most Manhattan Project activity took place at remote locations, the Dayton Project was located in a populated, urban area. It ran from 1943 to 1949, when the Mound Laboratories were completed in nearby Miamisburg, Ohio, and the work moved there.
The Dayton Project developed techniques for extracting polonium from the lead dioxide ore in which it occurs naturally, and from bismuth targets that had been bombarded by neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Ultimately, polonium-based neutron initiators were used in both the gun-type Little Boy and the implosion-type Fat Man used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The fact that polonium was used as an initiator was classified until the 1960s, but George Koval, a technician with the Manhattan Project's Special Engineer Detachment, penetrated the Dayton Project as a spy for the Soviet Union.
Background.
In December 1942, during World War II, Charles Allen Thomas, a chemist and director of research at Monsanto in St. Louis, joined the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) as the deputy chief of its Division 8, which was responsible for propellants, explosives and the like. Early in 1943, he traveled to the east with Richard C. Tolman, a member of the NDRC, and James B. Conant, the president of Harvard University and the chairman of the NDRC, to witness a demonstration of a new underwater explosive. Conant and Tolman took the opportunity to quietly investigate Thomas' background. He was then invited to a meeting in Washington D.C., with Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., the director of the wartime Manhattan Project responsible for building an atomic bomb. When he got there, Thomas found Conant was also present.
Groves and Conant were hoping to harness Thomas's industrial expertise. They offered him a post as a deputy to Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, but he did not wish to move his family or give up his responsibilities at Monsanto. Instead, he accepted the role of coordinating the plutonium purification and production work being carried out at Los Alamos, the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, and Ames Laboratory in Iowa. Chemistry and metallurgy at Los Alamos would be led by the youthful Joseph W. Kennedy.
At Los Alamos, physicist Robert Serber proposed that instead of relying on spontaneous fission, the chain reaction inside the atomic bomb should be triggered by a neutron initiator. The best-known neutron sources were radium-beryllium and polonium-beryllium. The latter was chosen, as polonium has a 138-day half-life, which made it intense enough to be useful but not long-lived enough to be stockpiled. Thomas took charge of the development of techniques to industrially refine polonium for use with beryllium in the "urchin" internal neutron initiators. This effort became the Dayton Project.
Organization.
Thomas brought in key personnel from Monsanto's Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories in Dayton, Ohio, including Caroll Hochwalt, James Lum and Nicholas Samaras. Thomas became Director of the Dayton Project, with Hochwalt as Assistant Project Director and Lum as Laboratory Director. They decided that about twelve chemists would be required, and Lum set about recruiting professors, graduate students and industrial chemists from universities and laboratories in the area. The first of these recruits commenced in August 1943, but few had any experience with radiochemistry. Numbers increased from 46 full-time employees at the end of 1943 to 101 at the end of 1944, 201 at the end of 1945, and 334 at the end of 1946, including 34 members of the Army's Special Engineer Detachment.
Locations.
Office space was initially found in the Monsanto offices at 1515 Nicholas Rd, which became known as Unit I. Unit II was the Monsanto Rocket Propellant works off Betty Lane near Ohio State Route 741. While it was administered by Monsanto, it was not used by the Dayton Project. The site handled explosives including ammonium nitrate and ammonium picrate, but no radioactive materials were handled there. Work at Unit II ceased in the fall of 1945. Consideration was given to using it in December 1946, but this proposal was rejected in favor of erecting a Quonset hut at Unit III.
A laboratory site was found at 1601 W. First Street that had originally been constructed to house the Bonebrake Seminary. It was a three-story brick building built in 1879, and owned by the Dayton Board of Education, which used it as a warehouse. Monsanto leased the site on 15 October 1943, and began converting it into a laboratory known as Unit III. The building was in poor shape when the Dayton Project took it over, with many broken windows, and the staircase between the second and third floors was missing. New heating and lighting were installed, windows were replaced, new flooring was laid, and some rooms were re-plastered. A pair of guard houses known as buildings J and K were added, as was a chemical storage shed known as building F, and a wire fence. Laboratory activities were transferred there from Unit I on 25 September. Initially only the bottom two floors were occupied, providing of laboratory space. Later, the third floor was taken over as well, providing another . In May 1945, five additional temporary buildings were constructed on land leased from the Board of Education that housed offices, a cafeteria, locker rooms, a physics laboratory and a laundry. A new guardhouse was also built. To this was added two portable buildings in 1946.
By 1944, space was running short, and Monsanto began negotiations to acquire the Runnymede Playhouse in the wealthy residential Dayton suburb of Oakwood. Built in 1927, the Playhouse was a leisure facility that included an outdoor swimming pool, a ballroom, a squash court, a tennis court with a cork floor and a stage for community theater. It had showers with Italian marble and a <templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" />1+1⁄2-story garage. The estate was owned by the Talbott Realty Company, which was controlled by Thomas's wife's family. The Talbotts were among the heirs of the Delco company, which was by then a part of General Motors. The Oakwood City Council wanted the Playhouse as a community center. Thomas appeared before the council and assured them that it would not be damaged, although he could not disclose what he was intending to use it for. When Talbott Realty proved reluctant to sell, the United States Army Corps of Engineers condemned the property, which became Unit IV on 15 February 1944. A lease was signed on 10 March 1944, under which the Talbott Realty was paid $4,266.72 per annum for the property. The lease was initially up to 30 June 1944, but was then extended annually until 30 June 1949. The lease specified that the property would be returned in its original condition. Talbott Realty were told that the property would be used to produce training films.
Remodeling began on 17 March 1944. The tennis courts were subdivided into multiple rooms. The ceiling was lowered, and heating, air conditioning and air filtration systems were added. One of the greenhouses was converted into a loading dock. The property was enclosed in a barbed wire fence that was floodlit by night, and patrolled around the clock by armed guards; there were 43 guards at Units III and IV. The Production Group began moving in on 1 June. Three guard houses were added, along with a wire fence. Changes to the site were minimized in order to make it easier to restore later. Because it was located in a residential area, efforts were also made to minimize noise and other disruptions.
In May 1945, Monsanto rented three floors of a warehouse at 601 East Third Street from General Electric. Initially it was used to receive and store equipment used by the Project. Later the fourth floor was used as office space, and a laboratory was established on the fifth floor where studies were carried out on the effects of polonium on laboratory animals. Analysis of bioassay samples was carried out there to minimize the danger of polonium contamination of the samples.
Research.
Few people had seen polonium before. It was a silvery metal. In a dark room, it gave off an eerie, purple glow. Polonium occurs naturally in various ores, and the lead dioxide residues from the refinery in Port Hope, Ontario, left over after the removal of uranium and radium, were estimated to contain of polonium per metric ton. A curie of polonium weighs about . Port Hope was already under contract from the Manhattan Project for the supply and refining of uranium ore. The first of radioactive lead dioxide was delivered to the Dayton Project on 10 November 1943. The first batch was processed by 8 December, which made of polonium available for experiments a week later.
Three processes were investigated for extracting the polonium from the ore. J. H. Dillon of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company had patented a process in which the lead oxide was dissolved in hydrochloric acid:
PbO2 + 4 HCl → PbCl2 + Cl2 + 2H2O
The polonium could then be deposited on copper or nickel sheets. This required large-scale glass-lined equipment not available in Dayton, but available at the Monsanto B plant in Monsanto, Illinois. After small-scale tests at Unit III revealed that the process was practical, some three tons of lead dioxide were sent to the B plant, and were recovered. Getting the polonium off the copper and nickel sheets proved more problematic.
A second method attempted was a kiln process. The idea was to simply roast the lead dioxide and vaporize the polonium. The problem was that lead dioxide slagged at , which was too low for the process to work. So lead orthophosphate was tried, which slagged at . This was made by mixing the lead dioxide with phosphoric acid. Experiments showed that the polonium vaporized well when the lead orthophosphate was heated to for four hours. Unfortunately, the process then ran into problems with dust and other foreign matter, and with contamination of the personnel and equipment involved.
The third method involved dissolving the lead dioxide in a mixture of concentrated nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide:
PbO2 + 2HNO3 + H2O2 → 2 + O2 + 2H2O
This proved to be the best way to separate the polonium from the lead dioxide, although there were problems with the precipitation of various contaminants, including iron and aluminum. Although about of lead dioxide were treated with nitric acid, and about of polonium were produced, the process did not proceed beyond the pilot stage because a better source of polonium became available. The lead dioxide was not purchased by the Manhattan Project, and early in the war had been acquired by the Canadian government. In June 1945, the lead was precipitated as a lead carbonate slurry, and shipped to the Manhattan District's Madison Square area to be dried and returned to Canada.
Production.
Polonium could also be produced by neutron irradiation of bismuth. In 1943 the only polonium produced in this manner was in cyclotrons, but the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear reactors offered the prospect of producing large amounts of polonium in this manner:
Bi + → Bi → Po +
A metric ton of bismuth irradiated in the Manhattan Project's X-10 Graphite Reactor at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, contained of polonium, a vast improvement over the yields from Port Hope's lead dioxide. Irradiated bismuth came from Clinton in the form of bricks that weighed about . They were shipped to Dayton by rail in wooden boxes, which were stored in a tile-lined cavity in the floor at Unit IV.
These procedures were adequate because the quantity of polonium in the bismuth was still fairly low, but starting in June 1945, the Dayton Project began receiving bismuth irradiated in the more powerful reactors at the Hanford Site in Washington, which now became the major source of supply. Even at Clinton, unprotected bismuth proved problematic when a brick broke apart and chips fell into containers of uranium slugs, and had to be hazardously separated by hand by project personnel. Bismuth slugs irradiated in the reactors at Hanford were therefore canned in aluminium. The canned slugs were in diameter, and long. The problem was that the aluminium contained impurities such as iron, manganese, copper, lead, tin, zinc, silicon, titanium, nickel, magnesium, chromium, vanadium, bismuth and gallium, and when irradiated, these could form radioactive isotopes. Most were of little concern for the Dayton Project, as they had short half-lives, and would become harmless during the slugs' cooling off period in water at Hanford; but iron could form iron-59, which had a half-life of 45 days, and produced gamma radiation. The slugs were therefore shipped in casks, each of which contained several tubes which held the slugs. The spaces between the tubes was filled with lead. At Dayton, the slugs were stored in a lead-lined safe with doors on both sides containing tubes. They were also stored underwater on racks, and could be removed with tongs. A periscope allowed the identification markings on the slugs to be checked without removing them from the pool.
By the end of 1946 Hanford was shipping material that contained up to per metric ton of bismuth. Bismuth was purchased from the American Smelting and Refining Company of the highest purity that it could produce. It was sent to Hanford, where it was canned, and placed inside a reactor for 100 days. The irradiated slugs were then shipped by road to Unit IV, where they were bathed in hydrochloric acid, which dissolved the aluminum. This formed an aluminum chloride solution that was disposed of, as it was highly radioactive due to the iron impurities in the aluminum. The bismuth slugs were then dissolved in aqua regia. This was too weak for electroplating the polonium, so the nitric acid was removed, and then the polonium deposited on bismuth by adding powdered bismuth. This resulted in a 100–1 concentration. This could then be repeated by dissolving in aqua regia again to achieve a 1000–1 concentration. This was again dissolved, and the polonium electroplated on platinum foils. The main problem with the process was that it required glass-lined containers due to the aqua regia, and mechanisms for safe handling of the radioactive material. The Dayton Project explored alternative purification methods that were found to be workable, but less efficient or safe.
The first consignment of polonium left for Los Alamos on 15 March 1944 in a lead-lined suitcase carried by a military courier. Regular shipments were made thereafter. Initiator testing at Los Alamos required more polonium than anticipated, and in December 1944, Oppenheimer was forced to ask Thomas if he could ship per month. The Dayton Project was able to do so. In February 1945, Thomas agreed to increase shipments to per month by June, and 500 per month by December.
The total cost of the Dayton Project up to the end of 1946 was $3,666,507 ($ in today's dollars).
Health and safety.
Dayton Project employees were not allowed to eat or smoke in processing areas, and had to scrub their hands before leaving these areas. The chemists wore protective gear, with surgical, cloth and rubber gloves worn in three layers. When leaving for lunch or at the end of the shift, they had to wash their hands with dilute hydrochloric acid, dilute Clorox, and soap. The radioactive residue on their hands was measured with a special Geiger counter designed for the purpose by physicist John J. Sopka. No more than one thousand counts per minute per hand was permissible. They had to shower at the end of each day's work, and were subjected to weekly urine tests. Employees with elevated levels of polonium were not allowed in the processing areas. Working with polonium without spreading contamination proved to be almost impossible. Fortunately, it is not a bone seeker like radium or plutonium, and is thus readily excreted in urine. Detection methods had already been developed, making it easy to track. The employee at Unit IV with the highest levels of polonium in her urine had contaminated her hair, and often held bobby pins in her mouth.
Espionage.
George Koval was drafted into the United States Army in 1943, and was inducted into the Manhattan Project's Special Engineer Detachment. He was initially assigned to the Clinton Engineer Works, where his job as a health physics officer gave him access to much of the site. He began passing secrets relating to the production of polonium at Oak Ridge to the Soviet Union through his GRU (Soviet military intelligence) handler code-named "Clyde". In 1945 Koval was transferred to Dayton. Again, his job as a health physics officer gave him wide access to the secret installation. In 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Koval a gold star, making him a hero of the Russian Federation for his work as the GRU spy "Delmar". Russian officials stated that the initiator for their Joe-1 bomb had been "prepared to the recipe provided by Delmar". The fact that polonium was used as an initiator remained classified until the 1960s.
Initiators.
After Leonard I. Schiff calculated that an initiator might improve the efficiency of a gun-type fission weapon, Oppenheimer gave approval on 15 March 1945 for initiators to be included in the Little Boy design. The initiators were tested to ensure they were rugged enough to handle being transported in an airplane and being accidentally dropped. Eventually, about forty initiators were dispatched to Tinian, where four were inserted into the bomb that was used in the bombing of Hiroshima.
The initiator used in the implosion design of the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was code-named "urchin". In order to increase the efficiency of the explosion, the initiator had to emit a large number of neutrons in a few microseconds while the plutonium core was fully compressed. At the heart of the urchin was a solid beryllium sphere in diameter. This was gold-plated and coated with of polonium. The gold kept the polonium's alpha particles from striking the beryllium. This fitted inside two beryllium hemispheres with 15 parallel grooves cut into the inner surface. These grooves converted the shock wave of the implosion into jets that shattered the spheres and caused the beryllium and polonium to mix and emit neutrons. The hemispheres were nickel-plated and the outer surface was coated in gold and of polonium. The initiator, which was hot to the touch, fitted neatly inside the hole in the center of the plutonium pit.
Mound Laboratories.
By 1945, the Dayton Project had assumed such importance that the Manhattan Project decided to make it into a permanent facility. The original intention was to move operations to Oak Ridge, but it was decided that a site near Dayton was preferable. Few of the scientific and technical staff wanted to move to Tennessee, and there were concerns about the dangers of polonium contamination at a plutonium processing site. A search for a suitable site began in early 1946, and one was found in Miamisburg, about from Dayton. The site was next to a state park containing a large prehistoric Indian burial mound, which ultimately gave the Mound Laboratories its name. It was initially known as Unit V. Monsanto began construction in May 1946, using the Detroit firm of Giffels and Vallet as architects, while the plant was built by the Maxon Construction of Dayton. The design called for an underground complex that could withstand a direct hit from a bomb, with protection against biological and chemical weapons, at a cost of $17,900,000.
Responsibility for nuclear weapons production was transferred from the Manhattan Project to the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947, but work continued on the Mound Laboratories. The first building was completed in May 1948, and polonium processing commenced at the Mound Laboratories in February 1949. Altogether, 14 major buildings were constructed with a total floor space of at a cost of $25.5 million. Due to fear of attack or sabotage, the former Scioto Laboratory Complex in Marion, Ohio, was acquired by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948. It was maintained as a cold standby site until it was no longer needed in 1953.
Site cleanup.
Unit I continued to be used by Monsanto as an administrative facility until 1988, when it was demolished. The land was sold to Quality Chemicals in 1992, and then to DuPont in 2002. Unit III, the former Bonebrake Theological Seminary, was decontaminated in 1950 and returned to the Dayton Board of Education. The original seminary building was subsequently demolished, but several structures remain from the Dayton Project. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 10 May 2006. Although the lease on Unit IV, the former Runnymede Playhouse, specified that it was to be returned, it was deemed to be too contaminated. The building was demolished in February 1950. The cobblestones in the driveway were removed and taken away, along with of earth from under the house. The excavation was filled in, and the site was returned to the Talbott family, who were paid $138,750 in compensation. As of 2017[ [update]], all that remains of the original playhouse is a brass doorknob and part of the greenhouse roof, which are part of the collection of the Mound Science and Energy Museum. Private residences now occupy the site. The Dayton Warehouse was decontaminated in 1950 and returned to its owners. The Mound Laboratories continued to produce polonium initiators until 1969. Polonium continued to be produced there for commercial sales and use in satellites until 1972. The laboratories were decommissioned in 1993, and the area was decontaminated. As of 2017[ [update]], it houses the Mound Advanced Technology Center.
In 1996, the Department of Energy, which had succeeded the Atomic Energy Commission, decided that since the Dayton sites already had been decontaminated, they did not warrant inclusion in the Army Corps of Engineers' Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). The local community in Dayton was concerned that the cleanup did not meet 21st-century environmental standards. Therefore, the state of Ohio asked the United States Congress to have the Army Corps of Engineers conduct a review. This was carried out in 2004 and 2005. The review concluded that no radioactive contaminants were found that would warrant inclusion in FUSRAP.
Notes.
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References.
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Robert Serber
American physicist (1909–1997)
Robert Serber (March 14, 1909 – June 1, 1997) was an American physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project. Serber's lectures explaining the basic principles and goals of the project were printed and supplied to all incoming scientific staff, and became known as "The Los Alamos Primer". The "New York Times" called him "the intellectual midwife at the birth of the atomic bomb."
Early life and education.
He was born in Philadelphia, the eldest son of Rose (Frankel) and David Serber. His family was Jewish. His mother died in 1922 and his father married her cousin Frances Leof in 1928. Robert Serber earned his BS in engineering physics from Lehigh University in 1930 and earned his PhD in physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with John Van Vleck in 1934. He married Charlotte Leof (26 Jul 1911 – 1967), the daughter of his stepmother's uncle, in 1933.
Shortly before receiving his doctorate, Serber was selected for a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship and planned on conducting research at Princeton University with Eugene Wigner. However, after spontaneously enrolling at the University of Michigan's physics summer school, he changed his plans and went to work with J. Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley. For the next four years, he shuttled with Oppenheimer between Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology, where Oppenheimer held a secondary faculty appointment. In 1938, he took one of the era's few tenure-track professorships in physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where he stayed until he was recruited for the Manhattan Project.
Manhattan Project.
He was recruited for the Manhattan Project in 1941, and was in Project Alberta on the dropping of the bomb. When the Los Alamos National Laboratory was first organized, Oppenheimer decided not to compartmentalize the technical information among different departments. This boosted the technical workers' effectiveness in problem-solving and underscored the project's urgency, as they now understood its significance. Consequently, Serber was tasked with delivering a series of lectures to explain the basic principles and objectives of the project. These lectures were printed and supplied to all incoming scientific staff, and became known as "The Los Alamos Primer", LA-1. It was declassified in 1965. Serber developed the first good theory of bomb assembly hydrodynamics.
Serber's wife Charlotte Serber was appointed by Oppenheimer to head the technical library at Los Alamos, where she was the only wartime female section leader.
Serber created the code-names for all three design projects, the "Little Boy" (uranium gun), "Thin Man" (plutonium gun), and "Fat Man" (plutonium implosion), according to his reminiscences (1998). The names were based on their design shapes; the "Thin Man" would be a very long device, and the name came from the Dashiell Hammett detective novel and series of movies of the same name; the "Fat Man" bomb would be round and fat and was named after Sydney Greenstreet's character in "The Maltese Falcon" (from Hammett's novel). "Little Boy" would come last and be named only to contrast to the "Thin Man" bomb. This differs from the unsupported, abandoned theory that "Fat Man" was named after Churchill and "Thin Man" after Roosevelt.
After receiving an identification card noting that his civilian noncombatant duties were commensurate in profile to the Army of the United States rank of colonel (an administrative designation only ostensibly valid if he were captured as a prisoner of war under the 1929 Geneva Convention, although he was frequently afforded salutations and other perquisites of the rank in practice by military personnel while traveling), Serber was to go on "Big Stink", the camera plane for the Nagasaki mission, as a technical advisor; however, it left without him when group operations officer Major James I. Hopkins ordered him off the plane because he had forgotten his parachute, reportedly after the B-29 had already taxied onto the runway. Since Serber was the only crew member who knew how to operate the high-speed camera, Hopkins had to be instructed by radio from Tinian on its use. Serber was with the first American team to enter Hiroshima and Nagasaki to assess the results of the atomic bombing of the two cities.
Post-war work and personal life.
Although Oppenheimer sought an appointment for Serber in the Berkeley physics department following the end of the war, this was soon forestalled, possibly because of the anti-Semitism of department chair Raymond Thayer Birge. Birge had previously refused to offer a tenure-track appointment to Serber after he received his University of Illinois offer, opining that "one Jew in the department is enough." Oppenheimer prevailed in placing him as head of the theoretical division of the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory under Ernest Lawrence; however, as his mentor segued into policy consultancies and the presidency of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1947, Serber frequently took over his courses, ultimately resulting in his appointment to the Berkeley faculty.
In 1948, Serber had to defend himself against anonymous accusations of disloyalty, mostly because his wife Charlotte's family were Jewish intellectuals with socialist leanings, and also because he tried to remove politics from discussions of the feasibility of the fusion bomb, leading to arguments with Edward Teller. There was some speculation that Serber was a member of the Communist Party. Oppenheimer said it was possible he was member, but did not know, whereas the FBI concluded that "no definite evidence is known" for his membership. Although he had been cleared of any potential wrongdoing at a subsequent hearing that year, he was denied a prerequisite security clearance for a Japanese physics conference in 1952, precipitating his refusal to join a Teller-chaired Department of Defense advisory group.
While he reluctantly signed the loyalty oath stipulated by the Levering Act for Berkeley personnel in 1950, growing antagonism between Oppenheimer and the more conservative Lawrence eventually spurred his departure. In 1951, he became a professor of physics at Columbia University at the behest of Manhattan Project colleague I. I. Rabi. He served as chair of the department from 1975 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1978.
At Columbia, Serber served as doctoral advisor to future Nobelist Leon Cooper. He also collaborated with Abraham Pais on meson studies and developed the Serber-Dancoff method, a refined technique for analyzing strong coupling. He also consulted numerous labs, businesses, and commissions, including Brookhaven National Laboratory (where he worked one day a week during the academic year and occasional summers for twenty years) and Fermilab, as a specialist in the proton–proton chain reaction and the focusing properties of particle accelerators. Although largely bereft of any ideology, he refused to join the Defense Department-affiliated JASON consulting group because of his previous clearance issues and opposition to the Vietnam War.
After being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Charlotte Serber suffered from depression and took her own life with an overdose of sleeping pills on May 22, 1967. Serber then entered a relationship with Kitty Oppenheimer, who had been widowed in February 1967. She talked him into buying a yawl, which they sailed from New York to Grenada. In 1972, they purchased a ketch, with the intention of sailing through the Panama Canal and to Japan via the Galapagos Islands and Tahiti during Serber's sabbatical. They set out, but Kitty became ill, and was taken to Gorgas Hospital, where she died of an embolism on October 27, 1972. Serber and Toni Oppenheimer scattered her cremains near the Oppenheimers' longtime vacation home in Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands, which he continued to use.
Following his retirement, he married Fiona St. Clair, a fabric designer from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1979. He adopted her son Zachariah, and they had another son, William, in November 1980.
He served as president of the American Physical Society in 1971. A year later, Serber was awarded the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize.
Serber appears in the Oscar-nominated documentary "The Day After Trinity" (1980).
Serber died June 1, 1997, at his home in Manhattan from complications of surgery for brain cancer.
In popular culture.
He was portrayed by Michael Angarano in Christopher Nolan's 2023 film "Oppenheimer".
References.
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William H. Blanchard
United States Air Force general
William Hugh Blanchard (February 6, 1916 – May 31, 1966) was a United States Air Force officer who attained the rank of four-star general and served as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force from 1965 to 1966.
Early life and education.
A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Blanchard received his high school education in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in June 1934 before entering the United States Military Academy in July 1934. He graduated and received his commission in June 1938.
Career.
After completing pilot training at Randolph and Kelly Fields, Texas, in 1939, he held assignments as a flight instructor and as chief of advanced pilot training in the Flying Training Command, before his selection in 1943 for duty with the initial B-29 bomber wing then being formed in Salina, Kansas.
In 1944, Blanchard, as deputy commander of the 58th Bomb Wing, flew the first B-29 into China to begin his participation in strategic bombing operations against the Japanese mainland. Later, assigned as commander of the 40th Bomb Group (B-29) and subsequently as operations officer of the 21st Bomber Command in the Marianas, he planned and flew low-level fire raids against major Japanese targets.
In the climaxing phase of World War II, then-colonel Blanchard was directed to prepare and supervise the detailed operations order for the delivery of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He was the backup pilot for the Hiroshima A-bomb drop, which was ultimately delivered by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Commanding Officer of the 509th Atomic Bombardment Group or Wing.
After the war, on January 20, 1946, Blanchard became Commanding Officer of the 509th, succeeding Tibbetts. By this time, post-war demobilization had reduced the 509th to a skeleton crew. But Blanchard and the 509th were immediately ordered to commence operations for the "Operation Crossroads" atomic tests at Bikini atoll. With highest priorities, crews were assembled and in March the 509th was transferred to Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, for the Bikini atomic bomb tests, that ultimately took place that July.
At the conclusion of the Crossroads tests, on August 23, 1946, then-colonel Blanchard assumed the duties of commanding officer of Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico (renamed Walker Air Force Base in 1948), which became the permanent home of the 509th, though now again reduced to skeleton operations after the Crossroad tests. However, in September 1946, they received orders to remain at Roswell and train and equip a very heavy bomber air force with nuclear strike capability, which became fully operational in February 1947.
On July 8, 1947, then-colonel Blanchard issued an official Army Air Force press release stating that the base intelligence office had recovered a so-called "flying disc" or "flying saucer" from a nearby ranch, it had been found "sometime last week," and they were flying it to "higher headquarters". The press release and the media feeding frenzy that followed it triggered the so-called Roswell UFO incident. Brigadier General Roger Ramey, head of the Eighth Army Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas, quickly pronounced it a misidentified weather balloon. Ironically, Blanchard's press release and the Roswell incident it triggered are perhaps what Blanchard became best known for by the public at large decades later when the event was reopened and investigated, with many books written. (see also Walter Haut, Blanchard's public information officer, who put out the press release)
A year later, in 1948, Blanchard was assigned to Strategic Air Command's Eighth Air Force Headquarters in Fort Worth as director of operations. Blanchard helped direct the atomic training of crews for B-36s, the