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Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original
The definitive biography of Nolan Ryan, arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball, from New York Times bestselling sportswriter Tim Brown.
Nolan Ryan was the hero to two of America’s biggest Texas and baseball.
NOLAN is an exploration of God, family, baseball, and America– and a tribute to one of the greatest pitchers ever to step on the mound. He grew up in the small, hard town of Alvin, Texas, was graced with a fastball, and fell in love with a woman named Ruth, then honored all three in his pursuit of hardball perfection. Alongside Nolan’s personal story, renowned sportswriter Tim Brown offers a thoughtful, deeply researched history of baseball in the Lone Star State, and an unforgettable account of three glorious decades in the Major Leagues.
Nolan Ryan’s story is about dominating on the field, then growing old in the game, then just plain growing old. It's about the man who has become a symbol of the game at its best, the way it used to be. It’s about deeds over words. About cattle matching the hat. About fastballs over all else.
NOLAN makes the case that there has never been another like him. And there won’t be again.
Nolan Ryan was the hero to two of America’s biggest Texas and baseball.
NOLAN is an exploration of God, family, baseball, and America– and a tribute to one of the greatest pitchers ever to step on the mound. He grew up in the small, hard town of Alvin, Texas, was graced with a fastball, and fell in love with a woman named Ruth, then honored all three in his pursuit of hardball perfection. Alongside Nolan’s personal story, renowned sportswriter Tim Brown offers a thoughtful, deeply researched history of baseball in the Lone Star State, and an unforgettable account of three glorious decades in the Major Leagues.
Nolan Ryan’s story is about dominating on the field, then growing old in the game, then just plain growing old. It's about the man who has become a symbol of the game at its best, the way it used to be. It’s about deeds over words. About cattle matching the hat. About fastballs over all else.
NOLAN makes the case that there has never been another like him. And there won’t be again.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 19, 2026
About the author
Tim Brown
240 books187 followersTim W. Brown was born and raised in Rockford, Illinois. In 1983 he graduated summa cum laude from Northern Illinois University with a degree in American studies. He is the author of four published novels, Deconstruction Acres (1997), Left of the Loop (2001), Walking Man (2008), and Second Acts (2010). His fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in over two hundred publications, including Another Chicago Magazine, The Bloomsbury Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Chelsea, Chiron Review, Colorado Review, The Fiction Review, The Ledge, Main Street Rag, New Observations, Oyez Review, Pleiades, Poetry Project Newsletter, Rain Taxi, Rockford Review, Slipstream, Small Press Review, and Storyhead. A long-time resident of Chicago, where he was a fixture in that citys literary scene as a writer, performer, and publisher of Tomorrow Magazine (1982-1999), Brown moved to New York in 2003. He currently earns his living as a writer at Bloomberg."
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
June 23, 2026
Love the Rangers and a fan of Ryan. I’m not going to
lie I am a little disappointed in the book. There’s a lot of things in here that’s already known and not enough that’s not. If you know absolutely nothing about him then you’ll enjoy this more.
lie I am a little disappointed in the book. There’s a lot of things in here that’s already known and not enough that’s not. If you know absolutely nothing about him then you’ll enjoy this more.
June 13, 2026
The Express! Not the traditional biography, which keeps the book interesting while still highlighting much of the known and maybe unknown moments that define Nolan Ryan. A great homage to the legendary Texan hurler.
August 9, 2026
I'm not sure why there's a new book out about Nolan Ryan, but I'm glad there is. The book does a tremendous service mainly to the legend, but also to the man. The going thesis of the book is how a small town in southeast Texas, its people, and one family in particular helped create the unrepeatable phenomenon of Nolan Ryan as man and athlete; along with how he's given back to them, to Texas, and to baseball throughout an extraordinary life. All that's missing here is the influence and impact of his faith -- bare lip service is paid to this, which misses a key dimension of the family and the man.
A book for the fans (and, let's be honest, worshippers -- we know who we are), and a great companion volume for the 'Facing Nolan' (2022) documentary.
A book for the fans (and, let's be honest, worshippers -- we know who we are), and a great companion volume for the 'Facing Nolan' (2022) documentary.
June 23, 2026
I am enough of a baseball nerd to count as a life’s highlight attending the opening day game of Ryan’s final season. We also got to witness his warm up: he tossed a football. I promise you that is true and I actually saw him do it.
So I’m probably an ideal candidate for this book, but it’s taken awhile to figure out why it fell so flat. Part of it is the theme of the book: Ryan is from Alvin TX and it defines who he is. It doesn’t work because virtually every interview with an Alvin resident is a snooze; virtually no one has an interesting point to make.
It leads to a larger issue: whenever he strays from baseball, you begin to lose interest. Some of that isn’t quite fair; a lot of the baseball material is exciting stuff ( a synopsis of each no hitter, the Robin Ventura battle, developing his curveball). By contrast, the non baseball stuff never comes alive.
Maybe it is this: the author wants to celebrate Ryan because there appear to be no major scandals or skeletons in his closet. That is commendable, but it begs a contrarian question: with his considerable wealth and influence, what has he done with it? The absence of scandal does not translate into a life well lived. With great power comes great responsibility.
I truly love the baseball player, and if the book had served only that up, it would have been much more fun. Unless you are dying for a chapter on the story of each of his siblings, you will frequently wish the author had been more focused. As an aside, he will let a third stringer go on and on about a point that screamed for an editor. It happens so many times in this book.
If you love baseball, you will still enjoy the book. But you probably won’t love it, and it will leave you with an undeniable sense of disappointment.
So I’m probably an ideal candidate for this book, but it’s taken awhile to figure out why it fell so flat. Part of it is the theme of the book: Ryan is from Alvin TX and it defines who he is. It doesn’t work because virtually every interview with an Alvin resident is a snooze; virtually no one has an interesting point to make.
It leads to a larger issue: whenever he strays from baseball, you begin to lose interest. Some of that isn’t quite fair; a lot of the baseball material is exciting stuff ( a synopsis of each no hitter, the Robin Ventura battle, developing his curveball). By contrast, the non baseball stuff never comes alive.
Maybe it is this: the author wants to celebrate Ryan because there appear to be no major scandals or skeletons in his closet. That is commendable, but it begs a contrarian question: with his considerable wealth and influence, what has he done with it? The absence of scandal does not translate into a life well lived. With great power comes great responsibility.
I truly love the baseball player, and if the book had served only that up, it would have been much more fun. Unless you are dying for a chapter on the story of each of his siblings, you will frequently wish the author had been more focused. As an aside, he will let a third stringer go on and on about a point that screamed for an editor. It happens so many times in this book.
If you love baseball, you will still enjoy the book. But you probably won’t love it, and it will leave you with an undeniable sense of disappointment.
May 24, 2026
Being able to watch videos of the baseball heroes of my youth from the 1960s and ’70s makes it hard for me to reconcile that they are now old men, and, by extension, so am I. Some, like 90-year-old Sandy Koufax, look like they still could sneak one by the hitter. But unlike Koufax, who retired at the age of 30 because of arm troubles, Nolan Ryan lasted until he was almost AARP-eligible, retiring in 1993 at the age of 46.
The opening pages of Tim Brown’s biography bring to mind a bygone era in which young men were brought up to respect their elders, stand by their word, and do the best job they could without excuses. Rising early to deliver newspapers or tending to the livestock were a given for Ryan and his contemporaries growing up in Alvin, Texas.
The image of Ryan brings to mind the western movie genre. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and spoke only when he felt it necessary. In other words, he was the prototypical Marlboro Man.
Ryan did what he did --- pitched in the Major Leagues --- longer and better than the vast majority of the thousands of men who played the game. Yes, he experienced some adversity. His early years with the New York Mets proved to be a disappointment, a country boy dealing with the big city, which wasn’t exactly to his taste. Whether he would have thrived as he did if he had not been traded, who can say? (Actually, Ryan could; he maintained that he never received adequate coaching while with the Mets). But thrive he did, with the California Angels and later his home-state Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
Known for his amazing fastball, which earned him the nickname “The Ryan Express,” he won an amazing 324 games while striking out 5,714 batters, leading the league in that department 11 times. Yet for all his prowess, Ryan never led in wins or received the coveted Cy Young Award, given each year to the best pitcher. He also lost 256 games (which could be attributed to a lack of offensive support) and walked 2,795 batters (leading the way seven times), a testament to his tendency to be a bit wild.
As is the case in many of these types of sports biographies, Brown interviewed teammates and opponents to get a sense of Ryan not only as an all-time great hurler, but as a man. You find nothing but praise for his work ethic and dedication to his craft.
Brown --- who also wrote THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER and collaborated on the autobiographies of Jim Abbott, a one-armed pitcher who threw a no-hitter as a member of the New York Yankees, and Rick Ankiel, another pitcher with control problems who became an outfielder --- gives major attention to Ruth Ryan, Nolan’s childhood sweetheart whom he married when he was 20 and she was 18. Brown credits Ruth for her unwavering support on the home front.
The cover of NOLAN shows Ryan in his typical pitcher mode: left knee bent high, eyes down, as if he didn’t even need to see the batter to know the likely outcome: a strikeout. To borrow from the Frank Capra classic, it has been a singular life.
Reviewed by Ron Kaplan
The opening pages of Tim Brown’s biography bring to mind a bygone era in which young men were brought up to respect their elders, stand by their word, and do the best job they could without excuses. Rising early to deliver newspapers or tending to the livestock were a given for Ryan and his contemporaries growing up in Alvin, Texas.
The image of Ryan brings to mind the western movie genre. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and spoke only when he felt it necessary. In other words, he was the prototypical Marlboro Man.
Ryan did what he did --- pitched in the Major Leagues --- longer and better than the vast majority of the thousands of men who played the game. Yes, he experienced some adversity. His early years with the New York Mets proved to be a disappointment, a country boy dealing with the big city, which wasn’t exactly to his taste. Whether he would have thrived as he did if he had not been traded, who can say? (Actually, Ryan could; he maintained that he never received adequate coaching while with the Mets). But thrive he did, with the California Angels and later his home-state Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
Known for his amazing fastball, which earned him the nickname “The Ryan Express,” he won an amazing 324 games while striking out 5,714 batters, leading the league in that department 11 times. Yet for all his prowess, Ryan never led in wins or received the coveted Cy Young Award, given each year to the best pitcher. He also lost 256 games (which could be attributed to a lack of offensive support) and walked 2,795 batters (leading the way seven times), a testament to his tendency to be a bit wild.
As is the case in many of these types of sports biographies, Brown interviewed teammates and opponents to get a sense of Ryan not only as an all-time great hurler, but as a man. You find nothing but praise for his work ethic and dedication to his craft.
Brown --- who also wrote THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER and collaborated on the autobiographies of Jim Abbott, a one-armed pitcher who threw a no-hitter as a member of the New York Yankees, and Rick Ankiel, another pitcher with control problems who became an outfielder --- gives major attention to Ruth Ryan, Nolan’s childhood sweetheart whom he married when he was 20 and she was 18. Brown credits Ruth for her unwavering support on the home front.
The cover of NOLAN shows Ryan in his typical pitcher mode: left knee bent high, eyes down, as if he didn’t even need to see the batter to know the likely outcome: a strikeout. To borrow from the Frank Capra classic, it has been a singular life.
Reviewed by Ron Kaplan
July 23, 2026
I was primed for a biography of Nolan Ryan at this time because, quite frankly, I had never read one previously. In a current baseball era where starting pitchers are asked to do the bare minimum (and sometimes even less), Ryan's career stands out even more. While author Tim Brown does a fair job of chronicling Nolan's career and game-changing fastball, the reliance on familial deep-dives and Texas imagery/metaphors wore on me a bit.
This entire bio is built on the notion of Brown exploring what Texas meant to Ryan--and what Ryan meant to Texas. In a sense, this can be a fun approach because it is essentially myth-building. At the same time, it is slippery in that Nolan isn't all Texas and Texas isn't all Nolan. I will admit that the continued "going to the well" of the Texas lore ended up being a bit of a deterrent for me as the pages continued to turn.
Brown also takes the approach of doing fairly significant deep-dives (especially in the early pages) on Nolan's family and his wife's family. Sort of the "her parents were born in X and did X...and their parents were born in X and did X" biographical philosophy. Good for posterity's sake, but how much does that really add to the proceedings when the subject is Ryan himself?
All that said, the parts of "Nolan" that focus on his exploits between the white lines (his pitching philosophy, relationship with teammates, importance to the sport overall, etc.) I found to be quite enjoyable.
So, I settled on a 3/5 ranking for this tome. If you enjoy the mythic Texas imagery more than I, you'll likely bump it higher. But whereas that approach felt interesting to me at the very beginning, by the end I grew weary of the constant TX waxing-poetic.
This entire bio is built on the notion of Brown exploring what Texas meant to Ryan--and what Ryan meant to Texas. In a sense, this can be a fun approach because it is essentially myth-building. At the same time, it is slippery in that Nolan isn't all Texas and Texas isn't all Nolan. I will admit that the continued "going to the well" of the Texas lore ended up being a bit of a deterrent for me as the pages continued to turn.
Brown also takes the approach of doing fairly significant deep-dives (especially in the early pages) on Nolan's family and his wife's family. Sort of the "her parents were born in X and did X...and their parents were born in X and did X" biographical philosophy. Good for posterity's sake, but how much does that really add to the proceedings when the subject is Ryan himself?
All that said, the parts of "Nolan" that focus on his exploits between the white lines (his pitching philosophy, relationship with teammates, importance to the sport overall, etc.) I found to be quite enjoyable.
So, I settled on a 3/5 ranking for this tome. If you enjoy the mythic Texas imagery more than I, you'll likely bump it higher. But whereas that approach felt interesting to me at the very beginning, by the end I grew weary of the constant TX waxing-poetic.
July 9, 2026
Tim Brown has covered baseball for three decades. His latest work, 𝑁𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑛, delves into the “Singular Life of an American Original.” Nolan Ryan, the legend, the icon, the MYTH! (the writer is especially fond of this word) starts out like this biography, kind of slow, and building up to the much-hyped stature amid the pantheon of gods enshrined in Cooperstown.
Tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I’d get past the first two chapters of this self-promoting sports writer. It was Ernest Hemingway meets Grantland Rice meets Harlequin Romance. There are lots of sentence fragments buried in nonsensical metaphors: “his laugh sounds like an old pickup idling in a barn”; “it comes out the color of fried peas and smelling of bluebonnets and goes down like a milk bottle off a fence post.”
Shaking your head? There’s worse. Nolan’s first no-hitter of the 70s “was thrown with an LSD tab tucked under its tongue.” Huh?
Once Brown gets on base, he seems more likely to make his way home, but not without some close calls attempting to advance to second, then third. On his way home – thanks to a merciful line drive to the outfield over the first-base fielder’s head – Brown provides the essential stats: seven no-hitters, 12 one-hitters, 18 two hitters. By the time Nolan Ryan threw down the rosin bag one last time, he had made 51 records.
Unfortunately, the book ends the same way it begins, in the weeds. The last chapter, “Where Have You Gone, Nolan Ryan,” is the most pointless ending to a book since, well, pick a Harlequin Romance book. Anyway, he lived happily ever after. Or words to that effect.
Tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I’d get past the first two chapters of this self-promoting sports writer. It was Ernest Hemingway meets Grantland Rice meets Harlequin Romance. There are lots of sentence fragments buried in nonsensical metaphors: “his laugh sounds like an old pickup idling in a barn”; “it comes out the color of fried peas and smelling of bluebonnets and goes down like a milk bottle off a fence post.”
Shaking your head? There’s worse. Nolan’s first no-hitter of the 70s “was thrown with an LSD tab tucked under its tongue.” Huh?
Once Brown gets on base, he seems more likely to make his way home, but not without some close calls attempting to advance to second, then third. On his way home – thanks to a merciful line drive to the outfield over the first-base fielder’s head – Brown provides the essential stats: seven no-hitters, 12 one-hitters, 18 two hitters. By the time Nolan Ryan threw down the rosin bag one last time, he had made 51 records.
Unfortunately, the book ends the same way it begins, in the weeds. The last chapter, “Where Have You Gone, Nolan Ryan,” is the most pointless ending to a book since, well, pick a Harlequin Romance book. Anyway, he lived happily ever after. Or words to that effect.
March 5, 2026
Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original
Tim Brown
Advanced Reader copy from Net Galley. Thanks Grand Central Publishing
I absolutely loved this deep dive into the man, the myth, the legend: Nolan Ryan. What you see is what you get with Nolan. A fierce competitor, a student of the game of baseball, and a staunch supporter of family and good old fashioned American values. From his upbringing in Alvin, Texas through a 27 year major league career, Brown does a great job of capturing the essence of Nolan through the years.
Nolan Ryan was the hardest throwing pitcher the league had ever seen when he broke in in 1968. Wild, sure, but absolute heat permeating from his right arm. The best pitcher to never win a Cy Young award, and the record holder for strikeouts thrown and no hitters thrown, among many others. Fascinating man and a guy you can’t help but pull for, unless your in the box facing him.
Having never read a biography of Nolan, I came into this book knowing little about this pitcher whom I saw pitch in my childhood when he was in the last couple of years of his career. I learned a ton and came away with a deep appreciation for what he accomplished and how he accomplished it. Complete games, pitch counts in the high hundreds, and a deep grit that intimidated nearly everyone that faced him make Nolan Ryan a true legend. Tim Brown did some excellent work pulling this story together and I’m grateful to have been able to read it!!
Tim Brown
Advanced Reader copy from Net Galley. Thanks Grand Central Publishing
I absolutely loved this deep dive into the man, the myth, the legend: Nolan Ryan. What you see is what you get with Nolan. A fierce competitor, a student of the game of baseball, and a staunch supporter of family and good old fashioned American values. From his upbringing in Alvin, Texas through a 27 year major league career, Brown does a great job of capturing the essence of Nolan through the years.
Nolan Ryan was the hardest throwing pitcher the league had ever seen when he broke in in 1968. Wild, sure, but absolute heat permeating from his right arm. The best pitcher to never win a Cy Young award, and the record holder for strikeouts thrown and no hitters thrown, among many others. Fascinating man and a guy you can’t help but pull for, unless your in the box facing him.
Having never read a biography of Nolan, I came into this book knowing little about this pitcher whom I saw pitch in my childhood when he was in the last couple of years of his career. I learned a ton and came away with a deep appreciation for what he accomplished and how he accomplished it. Complete games, pitch counts in the high hundreds, and a deep grit that intimidated nearly everyone that faced him make Nolan Ryan a true legend. Tim Brown did some excellent work pulling this story together and I’m grateful to have been able to read it!!
June 10, 2026
First things first: my arm hurts like hell just reading this book.
I enjoyed it quite a bit, but old-timey baseball books & stories have a high floor for me. I'm just so interested in how it's the same sport but a different game, as the book mentions a few times.
Really liked Tim Brown's writing here. If I own a copy of the book I'm reading I'll usually bend the corner slightly if there's a specific piece of writing I liked. This book has a lot of folds but the quote above I'll remember forever because it's really funny
Another thing I won't forget is the story of Ryan throwing 100+ at a guy's chest because he bunted on him the at bat before. There are elements of the older game that I disagree with but still see the reasoning for, like throwing at someone when the other team threw at one of your guys, but doing that for a bunt is baffling to me and it goes against everything the older generation of players (and men in general) would describe themselves as. It is so weak and lame. Idk
I enjoyed it quite a bit, but old-timey baseball books & stories have a high floor for me. I'm just so interested in how it's the same sport but a different game, as the book mentions a few times.
If he'd been a house painter, he'd have dropped a thousand gallons of paint from a hundred feet up and, sure, the house would be white, and so would the windows and the patio and the driveway and the dog.
Really liked Tim Brown's writing here. If I own a copy of the book I'm reading I'll usually bend the corner slightly if there's a specific piece of writing I liked. This book has a lot of folds but the quote above I'll remember forever because it's really funny
Another thing I won't forget is the story of Ryan throwing 100+ at a guy's chest because he bunted on him the at bat before. There are elements of the older game that I disagree with but still see the reasoning for, like throwing at someone when the other team threw at one of your guys, but doing that for a bunt is baffling to me and it goes against everything the older generation of players (and men in general) would describe themselves as. It is so weak and lame. Idk
June 19, 2026
A biography of Texas native and Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.
I would have preferred giving this three and a half stars. Not a typical biography. Rather, Tim Brown tells Nolan Ryan's story as a series of vignettes and conversations with people who lived with, grew up with or played against Nolan Ryan.
The great strength of the book were the stories shared by Ryan's former teammates, opponents and friends. These were enlightening and helped paint a complete portrait of Ryan. No story was more compelling than Ryan's relationship with his former teammate Dickie Thon. After being seriously injured when a pitch hit him in his face, Thon was offered guidance and a place to work and heal on Ryan's Texas ranch. This relationship and many more like it gave me a fuller understanding of not just Ryan the baseball player, but Ryan the man.
I will admit that portions of the book, where Brown waxes poetic about the Texas landscape and its grip on a man, grew a bit tiresome. During these moments, I wished the story was told in a more linear fashion. Overall an informative and enjoyable read that offered a complete portrait of one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history.
I would have preferred giving this three and a half stars. Not a typical biography. Rather, Tim Brown tells Nolan Ryan's story as a series of vignettes and conversations with people who lived with, grew up with or played against Nolan Ryan.
The great strength of the book were the stories shared by Ryan's former teammates, opponents and friends. These were enlightening and helped paint a complete portrait of Ryan. No story was more compelling than Ryan's relationship with his former teammate Dickie Thon. After being seriously injured when a pitch hit him in his face, Thon was offered guidance and a place to work and heal on Ryan's Texas ranch. This relationship and many more like it gave me a fuller understanding of not just Ryan the baseball player, but Ryan the man.
I will admit that portions of the book, where Brown waxes poetic about the Texas landscape and its grip on a man, grew a bit tiresome. During these moments, I wished the story was told in a more linear fashion. Overall an informative and enjoyable read that offered a complete portrait of one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is a good biography of pitching legend, Nolan Ryan. The author is a gifted writer, and he delves into Ryan’s character and the people and places that either shaped that character or demonstrates it. While it is filled with baseball statistics and stories, it also gives a strong sense of who the man beneath the uniform is. Most of the emphasis is on his early career. One chapter is dedicated to his no hitters, but the ones he threw in his forties barely get mentioned. His 5000th strikeout isn’t mentioned at all - and yet the author felt the need to mention Ted Cruz twice. But his sense of what it means to be from Texas is spot on.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to baseball fans.
Not family friendly due to profanity.
Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to baseball fans.
Not family friendly due to profanity.
Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
May 20, 2026
A baseball biography the way it should be written... rather than a season-by-season recitation of Nolan Ryan's career, it's an effort to understand the lasting impact of one of the most unique talents in the sport's history. There is an effort to offer Ryan up as one of those manly men from a time when baseball wasn't ruled by analytics weasels, but it doesn’t register that much. What we have instead are a variety of folks attempting to describe the singular person in their midst. There are tons of great stories here, stretching from his youth to his years after retirement. You end up wishing you could meet the guy, just to shake his hand and say thanks.
June 29, 2026
(3 1/2). Sure, I knew some about Nolan Ryan. I was a kid in NYC when he came up with the Mets and have followed him pretty much since. This book gives a real interesting perspective on the man. A warrior, a man who marches to his own drummer, a man who tries to always do things the way he considers the right way, with no compromises. A family man, and even a smart businessman. It is almost too good to be true, but as a real baseball fan, I know many of his records will never be broken, so we have to put him up on that pedestal and give him his due. Lots of really solid information presented here in a well written way. Good stuff.
July 16, 2026
An epic ode to one of the greatest. I must admit, I am biased tho. I’m a Texan.. an Alvin resident to boot! This book was tremendously well written. Almost like a love letter bore of respect for Baseball, Texas and Nolan. The story is balanced and real and authentic. I really enjoyed the side stories involving places and people of Alvin. People Ive met in town and described so well.
Great book about small town Texas baseball and one of the greatest to ever come from it.
Great book about small town Texas baseball and one of the greatest to ever come from it.
August 16, 2026
During my late teens and adult years I followed Nolan Ryan’s career. How the Mets ever let him go I’ll never fully understand. But that’s the Mets. What a fabulous career and his stats were off the charts. If he pitched for better rostered teams his record would be far more impressive. But I guess that’s what made him so great. Great person as well. Totally enjoyed the book. Well done Tim Brown.
July 16, 2026
It’s an entertaining read, but really only paints a glowing portrait of Ryan and Texas. I enjoyed the stories and learning more about his life, but I found it a bit too rosy. I’m not looking for a tear-down of a legend or anything like that, but anything remotely negative in Ryan’s story is either left out or treated in the most superficial way.
July 30, 2026
2.5-3 stars. There isn't that much there. Great baseball player, one of the greatest, but not a compelling story or biography. Much of it wasn't about Nolan directly. I struggled in the last 50 pages to finish because it seemed as if the author was pushing hard for that magical 325 page number for featured hardcovers. There was also this weird racial vibe I started to pick up midway through the book, as it the author was keeping a count on the players he name dropped, whether they were relevant much to the point or not. It was just...there.
June 13, 2026
Delightful look into the man, the myth. Highly recommend to anyone who loves baseball, especially stats and lore. Fun antidotes and behind the scenes moments, quips and confessions from some of baseball's greatest players. Very enjoyable read!
June 20, 2026
A little disappointing. This book didn’t tell me much that was new or unknown and at times it went into way too much detail on extraneous characters. Also, why no pictures. A few never before seen pics would have been great.
July 15, 2026
A great read! If you are a fan of the history of baseball, you will enjoy this book about one of the All time greats of the game. This book doesn't just give you stories of Nolan as a baseball player, but also the family man and other roles he played off the field.
August 22, 2026
4 1/2 stars. This was more than just a baseball biography. Nolan Ryan symbolized a different era of baseball and both represented Texas and what it means to be a Texan. I was also captivated by how the author would from time to time wax poetic about baseball and Nolan Ryan
June 1, 2026
A spectacular read…moving, evocative, instructive. As good as it gets in the genre.
July 18, 2026
Any baseball enthusiast should read this book! Nolan Ryan is an absolute legend.
July 24, 2026
Would have given it a 4 rating but author went into so many tangent stories that it interrupted my thoughts on Ryan. Like baseball and statistics so concentration interrupted.
July 27, 2026
Good book. Really liked learning more about Nolan Ryan than what scratches the surface. He is a true legend. Everything in life used to be better, including baseball
August 3, 2026
Good book on Nolan Ryan. Was not always chronological and did take some thought to keep moving back and forth between times. Did seem to capture the baseball player and man.
August 20, 2026
Good book - a little hard to follow at some points and some points seem repetitive. Well written and the way he breaks up the chapters makes it easy to read.
August 10, 2026
I like the book because it took the life of great man and so positive about him. I would say that it is a must read for any big baseball fan. You can make the argument that Nolan Ryan who won the top five pictures in history of the game.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews