You love baseball. Tim Kurkjian loves baseball. So while we await its return, every day we'll provide you with a story or two tied to this date in baseball history.

ON THIS DATE IN 1968, Nolan Ryan won his first major league game.

Nolan Ryan is not the greatest pitcher of all time. He is the greatest power pitcher ever, and the hardest pitcher to hit in major league history. He finished his 25-year career with 324 victories and 5,714 strikeouts. Next on the list, Randy Johnson, would need three more 300-strikeout seasons to pass Ryan. For a quarter of a century, no one threw a baseball harder than Nolan Ryan.

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In the 1980s, when Ryan pitched for the Astros, Roger Clemens used go to games at the Astrodome to "listen'' to Ryan warm up in the bullpen. In the 1990s, Ryan's Rangers were in the middle of a terrible losing streak. Ryan looked at his teammates before he went to the mound and said, "This ends right here!' Then he went out and threw some ridiculous shutout with 15 strikeouts. Once in the 1970s, leadoff man Ralph Garr, who could hit any fastball, struck out on three pitches against Ryan to start the game. His teammates looked at him for a scouting report. Garr, one batter in, said, "This game is over.''

After Ryan's seventh no-hitter (three more than anyone in history), which he threw at age 44, his family waited for him after the game to celebrate. He told them they had to wait, he had to ride the exercise bike for 45 minutes because that's what he did after every start, there were no exceptions. For all his greatness, Ryan was beloved by teammates: More than 20 teammates named a son Nolan after him. So when Blue Jays third baseman Rance Mulliniks was once asked what the world would be like if everyone in it was like Nolan Ryan, he said, "Everyone would love each other, and no one would get a hit.''

Once a power pitcher, always a power pitcher. Ryan threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Rangers game 10 years ago. He was 63. His catcher for that first pitch was Jim Sundberg, a six-time Gold Glover, who had caught Ryan during his career. Ryan had gotten loose in an area under the stadium. He threw the first ball at 85 mph, amazing at 63.

"I wasn't ready for it. I had to bend down quickly just to catch it,'' Sundberg said. "I split my pants.''

Other baseball notes from April 14

• In 1960, Gene Mauch managed his first major league game. He was a brilliant man and a great manager, even though he never managed a World Series game. He told me he would "have given up 20 years of my life just to play 100 games in Henry Aaron's body.''

• In 1910, William Howard Taft, our heaviest president, became the first president to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. He threw it to Senators ace Walter Johnson, who would make the first of his 14 Opening Day starts. Johnson shut out the A's 3-0. Sixty-four years later, I graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland, at 125 lbs.

• In 2017, the White Sox's starting outfield all shared the same last name -- Garcia. Avisail in left, Euery in center and Willy in right. Not even three Alous, in San Francisco, started the same game in the outfield.

• In 2005, in the first game played by the Nationals at RFK Stadium, President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The ball was delivered by Joe Grzenda. He had thrown the last pitch at RFK before the Senators moved to Texas after the 1971 season. President Bush made an excellent first pitch, but not as good as the one he made before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium. "I asked Derek Jeter for advice before that one,'' Bush said. "He told me not to throw from the top of the mound, just throw from the dirt, that's good enough. And he said, 'This is New York, don't bounce it, they'll boo you.''' Bush went to the top of the mound and threw an athletic strike.

• In 1969, catcher Brad Ausmus was born. He is a graduate of Dartmouth. He is the only major leaguer I have ever met who used the word "malevolent'' in a complete sentence.