Joe Ryan's gifts to Twins: Cool Grateful Dead T-shirts and a hot fastball

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Of course Joe Ryan uses a Grateful Dead tune, "Fire on the Mountain," as his entrance music before each of his starts at Target Field. After all, he grew up in the heart of the San Francisco Bay area, home of the iconic band, and "he's got a lot of California in him," as Twins coach Jayce Tingler notes.

Here's the crazy part about Ryan's Deadhead vibe, though: The pitcher's love for extended Grateful Dead jams was hatched not in San Francisco nightclubs, but on a Florida beach, mostly due to the influence of a native Texan, during one of the greatest slacker summers of all time.

C'mon. Jerry Garcia would be proud.

"Shane Baz and I were assigned to [Tampa Bay's] alternate site, but the Rays told us, 'Hey, you guys aren't going to the big leagues,'" Ryan says of the 2020 pandemic summer, which he spent with the Houston-native righthander in Port Charlotte, Fla. "So we had a couple months of just going to the field for a couple hours each day, then hanging out on the beach, mostly. Or sitting in our backyard — we were living on a golf course. And we listened to all their albums, and we watched that Amazon documentary ["Long Strange Trip"] about the Dead, and their music was always playing. 'Fire on the Mountain' kept playing in the house, over and over."

Which is how Joe Ryan — off to a 6-1 start with a 2.25 ERA — became, well, not exactly a member of the band, but at least a business partner of Grateful Dead founder Bob Weir and the current cast of musicians. And it raises the question: Which is cooler, being one of the best pitchers in the major leagues, or having the Grateful Dead endorse you with a T-shirt?

"I mean, I'm kind of psycho about trying to make myself better on the mound. If I didn't work hard at it every day, I'd feel like I'm being lazy," Ryan said. "But I know how much the music means to people. It's super fun to be connected to that. And they're on their final tour, so to be a tiny part of that, it's really special."

More specifically, what's special is a set of three T-shirts with a Grateful Dead motif that the Twins, with the cooperation of the Hall of Fame band, will put on sale at Target Field in June. Ryan helped design the artwork, even sketched out his idea as a starting point for the shirts, which his teammates have been wearing on their California road trip.

They include the Dead's signature skeleton character, with hints of their flowery fonts and psychedelic colors, plus Ryan's fire-starting fastball.

"Joe is actually the first athlete to ever have a partnership like this with Grateful Dead imagery. They've never done this before," said Venika Streeter, the Twins' senior manager for authentic and retail marketing. "We've done Grateful Dead shirts in the past, but they were generic team stuff. This time, we asked [T-shirt manufacturer] Homage, who has their commercial rights, if we could let a player who is really into the band have creative control over the shirts. They went to the Grateful Dead, and they were excited about it."

About as excited as the Twins were to acquire Ryan two summers ago, probably. Minnesota dealt designated hitter Nelson Cruz, 10 weeks shy of free agency, for a rookie pitcher who immediately claimed a spot in their rotation and already looks like he'll have a career as long as his favorite band's. Ryan started the 2023 season in dazzling style, going 5-0 in April and allowing one or zero earned runs in five of his first eight starts.

"Hitters will tell you what pitches you need to throw, right? Joe's success is a credit to his dedication to drilling down on what works best," Twins pitching coach Pete Maki said. "It's pretty clear that he has a unique heater. Guys just don't take good swings on it."

In an era where pitchers are urged to throw fewer fastballs in order to pursue greater horizontal movement on their pitches, Ryan is an anomaly, choosing a four-seamer for three pitches out of every five, the second-highest percentage among starters behind only Rangers righthander Jacob deGrom. Before Friday, batters were hitting just .189 against baseball's most basic pitch when thrown by Ryan, and 30% of the time they swing and miss completely.

The secret is simple, but unique: Ryan's three-quarter arm angle is traditionally the look of a sinkerball pitcher. But Ryan has a gift that few have: The ability to maintain altitude, which give the illusion — known in the game as "perceived carry" — of rising as it approaches the plate.

"I faced him in spring training. That fastball is 92 or 93 [mph], but it rises really hard," said teammate Kyle Farmer. "It kind of screams at you as it goes by."

With apologies to the legendary garage band who recorded Terrapin Station, Ryan says his real inspiration, coincidentally, comes from deGrom, who dominated the National League as a Met while Ryan was working his way through the minor leagues. Both were later-round picks who had to accept a smaller bonus because they were seniors without other options, and both relied on fastballs, and little else, to dominate hitters.

"He came up later like me, just throwing 93 or 94, and he kept getting better and better. And even though he was winning awards and making All-Star [teams], he kept working and working to get better," said Ryan, who was drafted out of Cal State Stanislaus. "Focusing on that, it's what helped me get here. No matter how good you are, you've got to just keep getting better."

Matter of fact, teammate Pablo López called him "a professor" of the game, remarkable for a 26-year-old.

"He knows a lot about pitching. I ask him a question and he gives a very detailed answer, and [an explanation of] where his answer comes from, and why his answer is what it is. He's a guy who knows the things that make him good, and he sticks to them," López said. "It's really fun for me to watch his bullpens, because whatever he works on, he's completely convicted in it. And then he takes it to the game and uses that same conviction in creative ways."

That's how he approached the T-shirt project, too. Asked to provide ideas for a Grateful Dead Night promotion, Ryan sketched out potential themes and designs, working with a professional designer at Homage "to bring those concepts to life," Streeter said. The team ultimately chose to forgo a specific theme night for the band, at least this year, but Ryan's drawings were too good to discard, she said.

"We looked at them and said, we should [make] these anyway. He loves being creative and they're really cool," said Streeter, who also worked with Eddie Rosario on the 2019 Bomba Squad T-shirts. "There are a lot of younger Dead fans out there. I don't know if it's parents indoctrinating their kids into being Dead fans or what. But it's great to have somebody like Joe, who is young, exciting and really performing on the field. He's got a fan base, both on the female and male side of things, so that's helpful too. You want them to have a good relationship with the fan base, and Joe really is developing that. So it was an easy call."

Just one caveat, but please don't let this get out: Ryan is a Grateful Dead fan, true. His ambition, in fact, is to warm up to "Scarlet Begonias," the 20-minute live version, and then take the mound as the band transitions into "Fire on the Mountain," sort of a free-jamming tribute, and motivational anthem.

"He's weird enough to where he's not weird, if that makes sense," said Farmer, referring to Ryan's penchant for riding antique bikes to Target Field, or his in-game enthusiasm for his teammates' big moments. "He's a free spirit."

Yet "I'm not like the biggest Deadhead or anything. I like all kinds of music, old and new," Ryan said. "I genuinely like a lot of their songs. I chose 'Fire' as my walkout because I really liked the song and it fit what I was going for. I like the whole message of the band, all their positivity. They're an opportunity to spread some love."

But he's too young to have ever actually heard the Dead in concert, seeing how Garcia died 10 months before Ryan was born. And he's never attended a live show of Dead & Company, Weir's post-Garcia iteration, though he has hopes of seeing their July 16 finale in San Francisco, after the Twins' series in Oakland. He's hoping to meet the band, actually, perhaps with manager (and Dead fan) Rocco Baldelli in tow.

"I love their music. But I love the Stones and Led Zepp and a lot of old bands. And a lot of new bands, hip-hop, tech, too," Ryan said. "My playlist is wild. It's wild! But it's like baseball — so much different stuff to love every time."