Ryness was allowed only seven hours of TV per week as a child, so he parceled his viewing judiciously: one baseball game (typically the NBC Game of the Week), "This Week in Baseball" every Saturday morning and some combination of "Diff'rent Strokes," "The Wonder Years," "Family Ties" and "The Cosby Show." If he was lucky, he'd catch a few innings of the occasional A's or Braves game.

When he wasn't watching games on TV, he sat alone with his baseball card collection, aping the players' photos and batting stances, simulating entire games for his own amusement.

Memorizing players' mannerisms proved effortless. To this day, he absorbs most players' stances subconsciously, only resorting to game footage when he needs to learn a player who was recently called up from the minor leagues. His memory has garnered comparisons to "Rain Man," which he takes as a compliment.