JUST GETTIN' LOOSE...:

Pitch counts once didn't matter (Chris Dufresne, June 13, 2004, Los Angeles Times)

Thirty years ago Monday night, in the cavernous confines of near-empty Anaheim Stadium, Denny Doyle doubled home Mickey Rivers in the bottom of the 15th inning to lift the California Angels to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox.

Barry Raziano pitched two innings of relief to earn what was his only major league victory.

Raziano, who runs a construction company in Louisiana, said recently he has no recollection of the game, which puts him in the overwhelming majority.

You could argue, however, that someone will eclipse Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak before another game is played like the one on June 14, 1974.

Standing at his clubhouse cubicle before a recent game, Angel pitcher Jarrod Washburn eyeballed a copy of the disco-era game log and shook his head.

"No," Washburn said, "it won't happen again."

What happened was this:

Boston starter Luis Tiant pitched 14 1/3 innings and took the loss.

Nolan Ryan of the Angels lasted 13 innings, struck out 19 batters, walked 10 and — hold onto your helmets — threw 235 pitches.

When contacted for this story, Ryan asked that the box score from that game be faxed to his office in Texas.

After reviewing it, Ryan said two memories stood out: striking out Cecil Cooper six times and "not wanting to come out" after heaving his final pitch, which yielded a ground out to second by Carl Yastrzemski.

By today's standards, Tiant and Ryan each pitched more than two "quality starts" — six innings, three earned runs or fewer allowed — on the same night.

"Quality start?" Ryan chuckled over the phone. "In those days, if I had pitched only six innings and gave up three runs I had a bad outing and I was hacked off.

"And I can tell you what: My manager and general manager weren't happy either."

What makes the 1974 game seem remarkable now is how unremarkable it seemed then.

The Los Angeles Times' game account acknowledged "Tiant and Ryan dueled tenaciously," yet there was no mention of Ryan's pitch count in the game story or the following-day notes. Ryan knows he threw 235 only because Tom Morgan, the Angel pitching coach, kept track on a hand-held clicker.

"I think he did it out of, I don't know if it was curiosity or what," Ryan said.

"It obviously ruined his arm because he had to retire 19 years later," said Bill James, a renowned chronicler of baseball facts and figures.

Ryan's mechanics were so good--having come up through a Met organization that actually taught them--that he could probably take the mound and throw a hundred pitches this afternoon.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 20, 2004 10:12 AM