But when Nolan Ryan first set a new Major League record for most strikeouts in a career 25 years ago Sunday, he didn't think the record would last long. Ryan didn't see himself staying on top of the the all-time strikeout list very long.

"The year before, Steve Carlton and I kept going back and forth as to who was going to break Walter Johnson's record," Ryan said last week while attending to his duties as the Rangers club president. "I really felt that Steve Carlton was going to be the all-time strikeout leader because I didn't think I'd play much longer.

"He was a workout fanatic. I felt he'd play a lot longer than I did. I felt even if I did break Johnson's record, I still wouldn't be the all-time strikeout leader when it was all said and done."

He is still No. 1.

When Ryan, pitching for the Astros, struck out Montreal pinch-hitter Brad Mills on April 27, 1983, for the 3,509th strikeout of his career, he still had another 10 years and 2,205 strikeouts left in his powerful right arm. Ryan lasted as baseball's supreme strikeout pitcher five years after Carlton had retired and has long left the Hall of Fame left-hander -- and every other pitcher -- far behind.

"If you had told me at the time, I would have said no way," said Ryan, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999.

Ryan finished with 5,714 strikeouts. Roger Clemens, who appears done with his playing career, is a distant second with 4,672 and Randy Johnson is third with 4,629. Johnson is still pitching, but is 44 and trying to come back from last season's back surgery. He has had a remarkable career of his own, but it seems highly unlikely that he'll be able to come up with another 3-4 seasons and another 1,000 or more strikeouts.

Ryan, at the time of his induction into the Hall of Fame, held or shared 48 Major League records, including seven no-hitters. But even he agrees that the all-time strikeout record will probably never be broken.

"The reason being is the way pitching is nowadays and the number of innings they're pitching," Ryan said. "The only way somebody is going to break that record is if they accumulate the required number of innings, and that's going to be a challenge. We've gone to five-man rotations, and most games consist of three pitchers being used. That decreases the chances."

There were only 19,309 people in the stands at Olympic Stadium when Ryan took the mound on April 27, 1983. There was nobody from the Commissioner's Office to witness the historic event. Astros owner John McMullen and general manager Al Rosen were also absent. McMullen had to attend a personal function and Rosen was watching one of the Astros' Minor League teams.

It was Ryan's third start after opening the season with an inflamed prostate gland. He began the season needing just 15 batters to break the record and struck out seven in his first start against the Expos.

He had a shot at breaking the record in Houston in front of 32,130 at the Astrodome, but struggled against the Phillies. He struck out three in six innings and lost, 6-3.

That left him five short when he faced the Expos for the second time on a Wednesday afternoon in Montreal. Carlton, with 3,480, was 23 behind Ryan and 28 behind Walter Johnson. Ryan struck out Tim Wallach and Tim Blackwell in the second inning but did not get No. 3 until Bryan Little fanned in the sixth.

In the middle innings, Ryan developed a blister that had to be drained. His fastball wasn't sharp and he wasn't getting his curve over the plate.

But, catcher Alan Ashby said, "Nolan was getting sharper as the game went along. He was making good pitches, close pitches that barely missed."

Mills watched the game progress from the Expos bench. He is now the bench coach for the world champion Red Sox, but at the time, he was a backup infielder and pinch-hitter for the Expos. It was his fourth and last season in the Major Leagues. He would finish with just 168 career at-bats and 21 strikeouts. One of those 21 would go down in history.

"I remember everyone had gotten a pool together in the clubhouse to see who was going to get it," Mills said. "Of course, nobody put me in the pool. I put some money in the pool to get somebody else. We were sitting there on the bench during the game; we were in Montreal, so they were counting it down on the scoreboard, but we were paying attention to it a little bit.

"Tim Blackwell struck out right before me as a pinch-hitter. And I walked up there as a pinch-hitter and I wasn't exactly sure if I was the one to tie it or to break it."

Blackwell was Ryan's fourth strikeout of the evening. He needed one more. He jumped ahead 0-2 on Mills, missed with a curve and then got ready to throw another one.

"He throws me a curveball away and I took it for a ball," Mills said. "But their whole dugout -- I'm left-handed, so I'm looking into their dugout -- their whole dugout jumped up like that was strike three. Then I stepped up and I said, Oh no, I'm it.' I knew I was it then.

"And I got back in there, and he threw me another curveball -- I had stepped out and thought, for the record, he's going to throw a fastball because that's what he's known for -- but he didn't. He threw another curveball. And I thought it was away and the umpire rung me up."

Ryan had set a new all-time strikeout record and ended up the winning pitcher in the Astros' 4-2 victory.

"It was interesting that when I first broke into the Major Leagues, the two records that everybody thought would never be broken were Babe Ruth's all-time home run record and Walter Johnson's strikeout record," Ryan said. "Obviously I was thrilled to break the record. I would have preferred to have it been in Houston in front of the home crowd. In Montreal, baseball not being the No. 1 sport there, I don't think the fans were intent on what was going on."

Ryan's teammates certainly were as they raced to the mound and congratulated him. Both baseballs -- the one for Blackwell and the one for Mills -- were taken out of play and sent to the Hall of Fame.

"I think the pitches I made to those hitters were as good as any I made all day," Ryan said.

It was a magic moment in Ryan's career and at the time seemed one of the last ones available. That proved hardly the case. He would hit the 4,000- and the 5,000-strikeout marks, throw two more no-hitters and win his 300th career game. He still had 10 more years of pitching ahead of him.

But on April 27, 1983, Nolan Ryan became baseball's all-time strikeout king and he's going to be wearing that crown for a long time to come. Possibly forever.