Nolan Ryan: Grit, Junk Wax, And A Fastball That Wouldn’t Quit

In this episode of the Pine Tar Podcast, Jeff sits down with one of his all-time baseball obsessions: Nolan Ryan. From growing up in the 80s and 90s glued to Ryan’s starts, to finally seeing him pitch in person at the Metrodome, Jeff retraces why the Ryan Express became the ultimate example of how to play the game with grit and love. He walks through the wild numbers – 27 seasons, 5,714 strikeouts, seven no-hitters – but keeps coming back to the stories: the Robin Ventura brawl, the bloody Bo Jackson comebacker, and the way Ryan just kept taking the ball and attacking hitters well into his 40s.

Along the way, Jeff pulls in his baseball card collection, from junk wax-era Score and Upper Deck art cards to a 1971 Topps he hunted down and a reproduction rookie that came with a hard-earned lesson about “autographs” bought online. He talks about visiting Cooperstown, seeing Ryan’s Hall of Fame plaque, and how a kid from Elgin, Texas turned raw velocity into a legacy that still feels larger than life. The episode closes on a personal note – why Nolan Ryan fits perfectly into Pine Tar’s ethos of hustle and heart, and how those old highlights and cardboard pieces still shape the way we love and live baseball today.

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