Your 2008 Grizzlies: Ryne Therroyo

Of all the things I have ever done on the internet that were baffling to the brain, Bleed Grizzly Pink may be the brain-bafflingest. A fictional Chicago team that sold out completely to corporate interest and non-fans, the Grizzlies were based on a reader comment made at the inexplicably popular Bleed Cubbie Blue. At one point BGP had like 9 writers, each of which pretty much made up whatever the hell they wanted to. And that is all you get from me. Here's an archived piece:


Grit. Determination. Playing the game The Right Way. Not being afraid to get your uniform dirty.

These are just a few of the things that Grizzlies fans are relatively indifferent to. We hold our players to different standards than other teams. We want patient hitters with a lot of power, cannon arms, and natural athletic ability. Just like Ryne Therroyo, the slugging shortstop and #2 hitter for the 2008 Grizz Machine.

Don't let his small size fool you, "Ryngo" (as he is playfully known to the Grizzly faithful in his hometown of Liverpool, England) is a coiled spring of pure hitting power. His frozen rope line drives and opposite field home runs are already the stuff of local legend, as are the slick double play partnership with fellow Liverpudlian slugger Mack "Little Ted Kluszewski" Fontegna.

Indeed the Mersey Marauders, as "The Royo" (the nickname Grizzly color commentator Brent Bonely is contractually obligated to call him after losing a bet with colorful owner Sam Zeeck during a charity pie eating contest) and "Little Klusz" were known when they starred together on the Cambridge University American-Style Rounders Team before signing with the Grizzlies after matriculating, are inextricably linked in the minds of The Fabled Box Bums. Even as undergraduates, when "Ryngo" lead the Cambridge Seven in Metric Homeruns with 37.4 and Fontegna posted a European Record 14 Dodekacouples (a particularly exciting offensive play exclusive to the British version of the sport whereupon the "batsman" advances 2 bases on a ground rule double, then rolls a pair of dice to see how many additional bases he is allowed to reach, provided the left fielder was unable to outrun him in a foot race held prior to the match), the fans were so worried that the duo might be split that a group of rowdy Rounders Hooligans, blasted out of their minds on room-temperature stout, attempted to sew them together with fishing line. Thankfully, the fan's tailoring was mostly as poor as their dentistry, and both men managed to recover with minimal injury and one heck of a good story to tell at GrizzlyCon '08.

The Royo's other major claim to fame is that it was his genetic code that was used to crack the Human Genome Project, which led some wags to joke about a fanciful cloned "40-Therroyo Roster" which would dominate the National League handily. While Sabremetricians are largely in agreement that a lineup consisting entirely of Ryne Therroyos would handily defeat any other proposed lineups in history, such as the 1927 Yankees, the 1975 Reds, the 2005 Grizzlies, and even the fanciful All-Satchel Paige Replicants Barnstorming team dreamed up by Sci-Fi visionary Philip K. Dick, the odds of such a lineup being stable enough to complete a season without imploding and forming a neutron star are up for serious debate in the field of Theoretical Particle Physics.