What They Couldn’t Have Known
What They Couldn’t Have Known
By Francois Bereaud
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Like a diamond, baseball has many facets.
There’s the numbers, some iconic: 406. 56, 714. 60. 755. You’re reading this – you know those.
There’s the gladiatorial aspect. Baseball may be a team game, but its great drama comes mano a mano. A pitcher hurls a dangerous ball at speeds up to 100 mph toward a batter who’s holding a bat, a weapon in other contexts.
There’s the cultural significance. The biggest stars transcend the game – in 1944, the New York Times reported that Japanese soldiers yelled, “To hell with Babe Ruth!”
On this day, January 31, three baseball legends share a birthday. Jackie Robinson, the most significant player in baseball history. Ernie Banks, one of the best shortstops and most beloved players ever. And Nolan Ryan, the most prolific strikeout pitcher.
Banks and Ryan had careers that spanned 45 years but only faced each other twice, and just once with the young Ryan as a starting pitcher.
Let’s travel.
Wrigley Field, May 3, 1969
Mets vs Cubs
Saturday afternoon, 80 degrees, perfect baseball weather
23,228 fans
When Ernie Banks strode to the plate against Nolan Ryan in the bottom of the second and the Cubs down 1-0, there were many things he knew and many others he couldn’t have known.
He knew the Cubs were hot, with the best record in baseball after 24 games. He couldn’t have known his team’s starting lineup contained four future Hall of Famers, himself included. He likely didn’t know much about the 22-year-old flame-throwing Ryan, though he’d tagged him in one previous at-bat, a homer to deep left the previous September. He likely didn’t know they shared a birthday, both born in Texas on January 31, with Ryan sixteen years his junior.
There was much Nolan Ryan couldn’t have known as well. He likely knew Banks was a future Hall of Famer, due to hit his 500th home run later this season. He knew the Mets were in the bottom of the newly formed division. But he couldn’t have known he’d pitch for 23 more seasons in the bigs and never face Banks again after today. He couldn’t have known he’d join Banks in the Hall of Fame as the all-time strikeout leader—by several country miles.
Neither man could have known that this season would lead to an epic collapse by the Cubs and that the “Miracle Mets” would erase an eight-game August deficit to win the division and ultimately the World Series (after being the doormat of the league in their first seven years of existence). Ryan couldn’t have known that his first championship would be his last trip to the Series in a career that would last into his mid-forties. Banks must have known that his window was closing. Maybe he even knew in the soreness of his almost forty-year-old joints that 1969 was to be his last full season.
Ernie Banks knew that the country was filled with racial strife. He saw the riots and protests in his city a year before. But he couldn’t have known that more than forty years later, just two years before his death, the first Black president would summon him to the White House and award him the Medal of Freedom. President Obama, a devoted White Sox fan, would describe his ascent from earning $7 a day in the Negro Leagues to becoming an “icon of my hometown,” a man who went to college after baseball and encouraged kids to do the same. And in turn, Banks would give Obama a bat used by Jackie Robinson, his hero. Banks couldn’t have known the Cubs would finally break their curse in 2016, the year following his death.
Nolan Ryan knew he could throw hard. He couldn’t have known how long he would be able to do so, and the records he’d set in the process. He couldn’t have known that despite seven no-hitters—yes seven—he’d be subject to continual criticism and talk of being overrated. He didn’t know he’d become a Texas celebrity and dabble in political endorsements, often on the conservative side of the aisle. He couldn’t have known that in June 2020 he’d record a public service announcement in the middle of a pandemic, urging his fellow Texans not to be “knuckleheads” and ignore safety protocols.
On that May afternoon, with each man concentrating only on the present and task at hand, Ryan got Banks to fly out in the 2nd and set him down on strikes in the 4th. But in the bottom of the 7th, Banks led off with a single, leading the way to the Cub’s first run, Ryan’s exit, and a 3-2 comeback win.
To the fans there, May 3 was probably just another game under the warm sun, the crowd leaving happy with a Cubbies victory. They couldn’t have known it was the last meeting of two men, each to be inscribed in baseball lore: “Mr. Cub” and “The Ryan Express.”
That afternoon, Ernie Banks went 1-for-3 against Nolan Ryan who struck him out once.
I know that feels right.
Francois Bereaud is a husband, dad, full-time community college math professor, retired youth soccer coach, mentor in the Congolese refugee community, and mediocre hockey player. He writes when he can and you can find his work in print and online.