Saturday, October 25, 1997

Head of management risk firm wasn't rooting for a 1989 Ryan no-hitter

By CHARLES RICHARDS / Associated Press Writer

DALLAS (AP) -- On a Sunday afternoon in 1989, when Nolan Ryan took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays, Bob Hamman was nervous.

It was American Express and Best Western Motels who had announced they would donate $1 million to Little League Baseball if Ryan threw a no-hitter that year.

But it was SCA, Inc., a Dallas-based prize contingency company that Hamman began only three years earlier, that would have to pay off the million dollars.

"Ryan had just come to Dallas. He hadn't pitched a no-hitter for seven or eight years. He was, I think, 41 or 42. He was coming from the Astrodome, where it was nice and air-conditioned, to a rather unpleasant summer pitching environment, and it was our opinion it couldn't happen," Hamman said.

That Sunday eight years ago, after he got a telephone call about Ryan's gem in process, Hamman became extremely interested in the game.

"I tune in, and sure enough, it's all zeroes, and the announcers are talking hushed tones," Hamman said. Then, with one out in the ninth, light-hitting Blue Jay Nelson Liriano singled over the second baseman's head, and Hamman breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was the early scary event for us," said Hamman, whose company has become America's leading prize-fulfilment company.

Twice in 1989, Ryan took no-hitters into the ninth, and Ryan did pitch no-hitters in 1990 and 1991. "But I wasn't involved in 1990 or 1991," Hamman said, breaking into a laugh.

SCA had another near-miss on a million-dollar prize at the Home Run Derby of this year's All-Star Game in Cleveland. Mark McGwire hit a drive to deep left field.

"We had a sign that was about 10 by 15 feet, and if he had hit the sign, it would have been a million bucks for some fan. It cleared the sign by about a foot. There was really high drama, and those are the things that people in an audience remember," Hamman said.

When you see a spectator kick a field goal at halftime of an NFL game or someone come out of the stands to make a halfcourt shot at an NBA game, chances are it's SCA that will write the check for the lucky fan.

SCA has grown from $100,000 in sales 11 years ago to $20 million today. Since it began in 1986, the company has covered prizes totaling more than $10 billion.

At any given time, SCA is responsible for millions of dollars in prizes, but only about 5 percent to 8 percent of his total promotions produce winners, Hamman says.

SCA enables sponsors of contests to increase the value of a promotion at a fraction of a cost of the grand prize, sometimes for as little as 2 percent.

A nine-time world bridge champion, Hamman is an expert in probabilities and odds. He has a staff of 50 at his offices in Dallas, but it's he and his son, Chris, who work out the fee structure, based on how likely it is that anyone will win the prize being offered.

The operators of a bar told SCA they wanted to offer a $10,000 prize to anyone who could throw a green olive into a martini glass. Chris Hammon spent a couple of hours throwing maybe 300 olives at the martini glass himself, "and after not making any, I decided it was probably a safe risk."

The promotion became a popular "olive-in-one" promotion in bars and nightclubs on slow nights. It became known as "Martini Monday."

SCA manufactures a number of scratch-off cards, frequently on behalf of state lotteries. It has guaranteed prizes for fishing contests in New Guinea, operated a lottery promotion in the United Kingdom, and guaranteed the risk for million-dollar television game shows in Argentina.

For eight years, SCA has taken the risk for an operator of satellite-transmitted bingo games on Indian reservations.

"They got us for a million dollars a few days ago," Hamman said.

"They run two games a night, except Sundays, with matinee games on Saturday and Sunday. It's highly competitive, dealing with thousands of cards a session. We pay off quite often."

When Hamman gets a call at home on a Friday night from the bingo operations manager, he says,"it's generally not to discuss my opinion on the weekend football games."