No answer for one, but a big clue for another

Jim Fregosi with the Angels

In what seems like a good idea at the time, the New York Mets believe they solve their perennial problem at third base 53 years ago today by trading four players to the California Angels for Jim Fregosi.

Fregosi, a six-time American League All-Star shortstop during his 11 seasons with the Angels but nary with an inning at third base in that time, lasts less than two seasons as New York’s third baseman before the Mets sell him to the Texas Rangers.

“It’s hard to adjust to a new position,” Fregosi tells Sports Illustrated in 1972, “and when you change leagues there is a whole new set of ballparks and pitchers to contend with.

“After you’ve been in one league for 10 seasons you know the pitchers as well as you are going to get to know them. Here I have to learn two or three new things in every game.”

Nolan Ryan with the Mets

Two of the players the Mets give up for him – pitcher Don Rose and catcher Frank Estrada – have brief, but forgettable stays in the majors.

A third player, outfielder Leroy Stanton, has five mostly serviceable seasons for the Angels.

The fourth player?

Oh, that would be a then-erratic, hard-throwing pitcher named Nolan Ryan, who wins 295 games after leaving the Mets en route to 324 victories in his career.

Ryan ends up compiling a MLB-record 5,714 strikeouts and seven no-hitters, gaudy totals that in 1999 lead him to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Ryan attributes his turnaround from being a thrower with the Mets to a pitcher with the Angels to working with California pitching coach Tom Morgan and for a new-found faith in weight training.

During the formative years of Ryan’s career, baseball managers, coaches and pundits warn players against using weights, believing that bulk is bad for a player’s body.

Ryan, though, embraces the concept. Not for bulk, but for tone.

“It’s weight conditioning, not weight lifting,” Ryan says. “I was not trying to see how much weight I could lift. I was trying to lift the right weights in the right way.”