Roger Maris retired in 1968, and Sammy Sosa made his major-league debut in 1989. To K both of them, a pitcher would have had to last at least 22 years in the bigs, and still be striking people out well into his forties. Hmm, this sounds like a job for…Look! Up on the mound! It’s a pitcher, it’s a Southerner, it’s…Strom Thurmond? No! It’s the slightly younger Nolan Ryan! The ageless wonder debuted with the Mets at the very end of Maris’s career, when he was playing for the St. Louis Cardinals. Ryan racked up 133 Ks in just 134 innings his rookie year, one of which was Maris. More than two decades later, Ryan joined young hacker Mark McGwire in the American League. McGwire’s propensity to whiff made him an easy victim. White Sox youngster Sosa, who had been a teammate of Ryan’s in Texas, also was a free swinger. Ryan, still throwing heat well into his 40s, quickly notched a strikeout against him as well.
