How good is Ryan?
Palm Desert coach Darol Salazar grew up a Dodgers fan. He watched Steve Garvey play. When he saw Ryan as a freshman during his first practice, Salazar quickly picked up some things about Ryan. He had many of the same mannerisms as his father.
"I had to find out," Salazar said. "I asked Steve after Ryan was done hitting, ‘He looks just like you when he steps in there, does he watch a lot of video of you?' Steve laughed, and said no, that's all natural genetics. Ryan hits the ball harder than anyone I ever had. Our problem with Ryan is we didn't really know where to play him, center field or first base, because he's so proficient in both."
But Ryan didn't really take off until the second half of his junior year. Sure, there were sporadic flashes of brilliance here and there, though nothing consistent. Ryan was on the lean, gangling side when he first got to Palm Desert.
"All elbows and knees, like a baby deer tripping over himself," laughed Salazar. "But you can always tell Ryan can hit. There was that athleticism you noticed. The other thing is Ryan hasn't played as much baseball as other kids his age. He's from cold country and you can say he's relatively new, in comparison to the other kids. But last year showed what he could do. Ryan's best baseball is way ahead of him. There's no doubt in my mind he'll be a big leaguer."
The gaping difference between this season and last is that Ryan was streaky at times. Those times he struggled, Salazar said, had more to do with the inexperience factor. Now those hot streaks last longer, much longer. There is a consistency to his game where a pitcher can't get a ball by him. That also has to do with a work ethic where Ryan will hit in his backyard cage until blisters begin forming on his hands. He's meticulous. Ryan and Steve break down film of each at-bat after every game, trouble-shooting nuances like when he opens his hips, the arc of his swing.
Mike Spiers, who coaches Ryan for the ABD Academy Bulldogs, says Ryan's raw power reminds him of Josh Vitters, a 2007 first-round pick by the Cubs who's with their Class AA affiliate in Tennessee. Spiers has watched Ryan evolve from the young man who was extremely hard on himself to the player he's become, someone who accepts failure as part of the game and can analyze what he did wrong.
"Dealing with failure is the hardest thing for any young player," Spiers said. "Ryan had a tough time with that at first. He tried I think too hard to live up to expectations to his dad. He's turned himself into a pro prospect. We didn't take it easy on Ryan. He's earned everything, and that's the way Steve wanted it. He's allowed his son to play in this program with no interference. He wants Ryan to grow into the game. When Ryan was young, you would hear the ‘Steve Garvey's son' thing. Now, a lot of guys with potential to go in the draft, they don't look at him as Steve Garvey's son. They look at him as Ryan Garvey. He's created his own identity."
To Candace Garvey, Ryan will always be her "baby boy." Above his ability to smash a baseball, or run down a fly in the gap, to Candace, it's Ryan's humility and the values she and Steve instilled in him that count the most.
There could be a reason why Ryan didn't take off until the middle of his junior year, a deep, emotional motive that weighed more heavily on him than carrying an important surname.
Ryan was taking care of his dying grandfather, Joe Garvey, who was battling cancer last year. Ryan would regularly visit the hospice where Joe was being cared for, holding his hand, shaving him. When Joe passed away, Ryan climbed into bed with him. He didn't want to let him go. Salazar wanted to ease him back into the lineup, giving him three games to gather himself. Ryan wanted to return sooner, approaching Salazar and saying, "I think my grandfather would want me playing."
"That's Ryan," recounted Candace, pausing for a second, a trickle of emotion in her voice. "Ryan believes in God, above everything, and he believes in doing the right thing. He's accountable the times he does something wrong, and he is a normal teenager. We don't expect perfection from him. He does make mistakes. But Ryan does have the perfect temperament for baseball, because it is a game of failure. Ryan is able to let the failures go. The beauty of our situation is that Steve had a wonderful career. We tell Ryan your dad had his career; he doesn't have to live through you. Ryan has to do his own thing. Ryan has to do it because he loves it, and we'll always be there to support him. Ryan knows he doesn't have to go back out there for our approval."
There is one thing missing Steve hasn't passed down to his son.
"Those forearms, those things just don't come overnight," Ryan said, laughing. "I'm getting there. I just have to work on it every day and live up to those forearms. I'm always asking my father 'How did you get them that big and freakish?' They're unmanly. I don't even know how to describe them. They're still lingering around here. It's like they have their own brain, they're another living being. Who knows what those things are?"
One thing is certain: More and more people are finding out who Ryan Garvey is, sans the forearms.
