10th Inning Changeup

It's roundup time for the cattle at the Gonzales River Ranch, while Texas native, Nolan Ryan roams nearby on horseback. He reminisces, "Ever since I was probably five or six years old I knew I wanted to be in the cattle business. And that's been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember."

Ryan credits his record-breaking career as a major league baseball pitcher for his being able to pursue cattle ranching today. He pitched for 27 seasons, played for four teams from the New York Mets to the Texas Rangers. What many fans might not have known, even back then was that he was a cattleman! He started ranching in 1973.

He says, "After a road trip and then after a couple of tough losses, you know, in the dog days of August, you were wanting to go down to the ranch and get away for a couple of days." Baseball is still in his blood. Today he is the president of the Major League Baseball team, The Texas Rangers. At any given home game you can find him talking with fans. But when the stadium lights are off in Arlington there's a good chance you'll find him 250 miles away at his ranch. He explains, "I spent my baseball career putting this ranch together, basically. And we call it the Gonzales River Ranch because we're located her on the Guadalupe River. And, it gives the ranch a real special feeling and has been special to our family over the years just because of the river and the kids grew up playing by the river and all the activity here."

Today Nolan and Ruth Ryan's children are grown. Now, the grandkids explore the 7-thousand acres of timber, pasture and river bottom. But make no mistake; this isn't an entirely relaxing retirement ranch. Nolan Ryan's ranch is a real working ranch. He lists, "We breed about 2-thousand momma cows every year and then we market about 500 heifers every year and then we also put our replacement heifers back into our program. And then we put probably something somewhere around 500 to 700 steers on feed yard every year."

Of course ranching this is a 24/7 job and being hundreds of miles away requires a trusted ranch manager. That's Mike Mendel's job. When asked about his job at Nolan's Ranch and running the ranch from a distance, Mike answers, "He's on the phone quite a bit, he'll come down and we'll set up a game plan, know what we have to do or what he wants done." When asked, what kind of things does Nolan end up doing when he comes down to visit? Mike says, "Yeah, he's handy. He doesn't just come down and give orders. He'll jump right in and help."

Back at the ballpark in Arlington, vendors holler, "Nolan Ryan cheeseburgers here, hot of the grill!"

…More evidence of Nolan's second passion. Baseball fans can buy Nolan Ryan All-Natural beef hamburgers and other meat products. Ryan's beef business started in 2000 and sells more than five million pounds of meat a year in 43 states. Ryan doesn't handle the day-to-day operations of the business but he is the owner and general partner. Nolan's notoriety has also turned him into somewhat of an ambassador for US beef around the world.

Nolan explains, "When the Japanese market opened back up for our product we went over for the US Beef Export Federation and met with so many of their importers and talked about our product."

It's a product he's proud of and a lifestyle he's worked hard to preserve for future generations, on the mound and on the ranch. He admits, "When I come to the ranch I'm very relaxed, I enjoy it. You take a lot of pride and ownership of your cattle and of your land and the stewardship that you have."