On a warm Friday night in Anaheim, September 17, 1993, Nolan Ryan took the mound for the Texas Rangers against the California Angels — the franchise where he’d first become a legend two decades earlier. Pitching at forty-six years old, Ryan battled through pain in his right arm but still showed flashes of the power that defined his career. In the bottom of the fifth inning, he faced catcher Greg Myers, and with a trademark breaking ball on the outside corner, recorded the 5,714th and final strikeout of his record-shattering career.

The Angels went on to win the game 4–1, and Ryan left after five innings — his arm finally giving out just days later in Seattle. But that moment in Anaheim, a single swing and miss by Myers, became the symbolic close of a 27-year odyssey. It wasn’t just another strikeout; it was the last chapter in a story that stretched across four decades, seven no-hitters, and generations of hitters who never quite caught up to the Ryan Express.