Of course you did. Stymied by who I should honor this with the EUG honor, I thought why not an athlete, a professional athlete. Then, as luck would have it, I sauntered into our TV room, caught the Texas Rangers beating St. Louis Cardinals out of the corner of my eye and it came to me.
In honor the Rangers taking the lead in the Series (at least for now), this week’s Cool Conservative is Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr., nicknamed “The Ryan Express,” the former Major League Baseball pitcher and currently the principal owner, president and CEO of the Texas Rangers.
Oh yeah, and a Conservative Republican to boot.
During Ryan’s major league record 27-year baseball career, he pitched in 1966 and from 1968 to 1993 for four different teams: the New York Mets, California Angels, Houston Astros, and Texas Rangers. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.
During election years in the late 1990s, Ryan’s name would frequently come up in the news as a potential candidate for some statewide office. Ryan is an ardent Republican but has never run in any race; lucky for him and his sanity these rumors have quieted. He has appeared in print ads for the National Rifle Association’s “I'm the NRA’" campaign (yeah a 2nd Amendment guy).
While not running for office himself, in 1996 Ryan campaigned on behalf of Ron Paul in the Texas’s 14th congressional district election. Hmmm, so Ryan has Libertarian leanings.
And it gets even better. Ryan married his Alvin High School sweetheart, formerly Ruth Holdorff, on June 25, 1967 and they are still married today. They have three children, Reid, Reese and Wendy, all seemingly athletes in their own right.
It’s fun to find conservatives in all types of nooks and crannies, but even better when they are the headliner of a MLB World Series. Go Nolan, Go Rangers!
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