Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120422
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: OAKLAND, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium

RYAN SHOWS HE'S STILL GOT IT

The Oakland Athletics, baseball's world champions, called the 43-year-old Texan simply awesome after Ryan made more pitching history Monday night by recording the sixth no-hitter of his 23-year major-league career.

Ryan, who came off the Texas Rangers' disabled list last week after resting a sore back, struck out 14 batters and walked only two in posting the 5-0 victory.

No one else has more than four no-hitters, and Ryan now stands as the oldest pitcher ever to throw one. Cy Young was the previous oldest, 41 when he achieved the feat in 1908.

"The air was cool tonight, and the ball was heavy. The ball Willie Randolph hit in the fourth, I thought would be a home run," Ryan said. "I think if we had been in our ballpark, the way the ball travels there, it probably would have been."

Pete Incaviglia ran down Randolph's drive in deep left field, and there were only a few scares after that. Shortstop Jeff Huson made a tough play for the next-to-last out of the game, charging a slow grounder by Rickey Henderson and throwing him out.

When Randolph flied out to right fielder Ruben Sierra in foul territory to end the game, Texas players mobbed Ryan and carried him from the field. Ryan's wife, Ruth, and two of his children were also on hand to congratulate him.

Ryan's 14-year-old son, Reese, was in the dugout, and it's "not that often" that he is, Rangers manager Bobby Valentine said. "We might make it a different policy.

"I looked down there after the seventh, and there was his son, rubbing his back, talking to him," Valentine said. "It was some sight, one wonderful sight."

"Amazing is the only way to describe him," said Carney Lansford, who pinch-hit in the eighth inning and returned to the A's bench as one of Ryan's strikeout victims. "Forty-three years old and he's throwing 93 and 94 mile-an-hour fastballs - in the eighth and ninth innings."

Ryan said: "The key to the game, I think, was that I had good command of the fastball and made good pitches with it, and I had a good changeup. Oakland is a free-swinging ballclub, and because of that they were swinging at changeups even when they were out of the strike zone."

The A's top two power hitters, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, were out of the lineup.

But Ryan was throwing to a catcher, John Russell, he'd never worked with before, and his back was still giving him some trouble.

The Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the first on Julio Franco's two-run homer off Scott Sanderson (7-3). Russell homered in the second and Franco hit another two-run homer in the fifth.

It was Ryan's first no-hitter since 1981, when with the Houston Astros, he turned the trick in a 5-0 win over Los Angeles.

"It certainly has a special place, up there with the fifth one, because it comes so late in my career," Ryan added.

The hard-throwing right-hander is 5-3 this season and 294-266 for his career with 59 shutouts and 5,152 strikeouts.