New approach has Gulf Coast's Max Ryerson among nation's power elite By Dustin Kent Baseball is the rare sport in which accomplishing the ultimate individual goal, such as hitting the ball out of the ball park, is often made possible by explicitly trying not to do so. At least that is the case for Gulf Coast sophomore Max Ryerson. "Home runs are accidents," the 6-foot-3, 210-pound first baseman said. "My goal is to hit a hard line drive or just hit the ball hard to the right side, so if I accomplish that I'm gonna hit a line drive over the second baseman's head. If I happen to catch a hanging curve or a fastball out over the plate where I get a better launch angle it may go over the fence, but I'm never trying to hit a home run." Those "accidents" have been happening pretty frequently this season for Ryerson, who has 11 home runs in just 23 games, which puts him in a tie with Southern Nevada's Damiano Palmegiani for the national lead. Ryerson is also second in the nation with 34 RBI and third nationally in slugging percentage among hitters with at least 60 at bats. Even after hitting six home runs and driving in 29 runs in just 24 games of Gulf Coast's COVID-shortened 2020 season, Ryerson's output has taken a sizable leap in 2021. He has improved his average from .297 to .420, his on-base percentage from .398 to .560, and his slugging percentage from .568 to .928. Ryerson attributes the jump in production to switching to a different approach at the plate that seems almost counterintuitive to hitting balls over the fence. "I read more into hitting and what the best players are doing and all that, and I changed my approach to the idea that I swing down," he said. "I try to hit ground balls to second base. I feel like that flattens out my swing. I look for chances to catch the ball out in front but the entire approach is swinging down on the baseball. "It's very funny. We looked at Barry Bonds' approach, Alex Rodriguez, Christian Yelich, they pretty much all have the same approach. I hit home runs growing up so I was like man I'm just going to try to hit a home run every single time. I tried to get under it and all of that, but when I changed the approach to swing down at the baseball and catch it out in front, I was quicker to the baseball and got more hard contact." Commodores coach Mike Kandler said when Ryerson returned he noticed an immediate change in his mentality in the batter's box. "That's the mature approach to hitting," he said. "It kind of keeps you on the ball where you're trying to hit line drives and if you clip the ball just right you'll hit it over the fence. It's a hard thing for young hitters to understand. If it was just as easy as just trying to hit a home run you'd have a lot of guys in the Major Leagues hitting home runs every time they come up. But Max is really a complete hitter who just happens to be hitting the ball over the fence." Ryerson had plenty of time to work on his approach during an offseason that was much longer than he or any other college baseball player had anticipated as a result of the interruption of the 2020 season due to COVID. He went back to Myrtle Beach and tried with his dad John to figure out how to get better in the middle of a pandemic. They found a batting cage at the Conway Recreation Center, "the only place we could go without getting kicked out," according to Ryerson, and the two went to work on revamping his swing. "We did that all day during COVID," Ryerson said. "We set up a little gym in the garage so it was my dad and me pretty much just working on hitting and being in the garage and making sure my nutrition was perfect. I got almost a full year to try to perfect what I wanted to do. It was actually pretty fun." Where Ryerson would get to apply his revamped approach wasn't initially certain. A sophomore transfer from Charleston Southern, Ryerson had the opportunity to move on to a four-year school after last season. But with many Division-I rosters having fewer spots available due to the NCAA's decision to allow seniors to retain their eligibility for the next season, Ryerson decided to take advantage of the NJCAA's same rule and return to Gulf Coast for another season. "It was definitely a surreal experience," Ryerson, who has since committed to Georgia State, said of having last season ended prematurely. "After the season I didn't even know if I was gonna play again. It was pretty awesome they gave me an opporutnity to come back to Gulf Coast as a third year JUCO player. Baseball has been what I've wanted to do my entire life. It's been exciting to have a year like this year. I'm excited to keep a level head and just keep it going." The son of a jazz musician father, John, and an actress mother, Bonnie, Ryerson was encouraged to play baseball at a young age by his dad, a native New Yorker and "die-hard Yankees fan," according to Ryerson, who took to the sport immediately unlike his three older brothers before him, much to the delight of John. "When we lived in Queens my dad would gig at night and during the day we'd break into this baseball field and spend all day playing," Max said. "My past three brothers never wanted to play baseball, so my dad was pretty excited when I came along and loved it." It's not just baseball that Ryerson picked up from his dad, however. He is also a musician in his own right as a jazz guitarist and said he plans to be a music major at Georgia State. So serious about music is Ryerson that after a tough fall season as a freshman at Charleston Southern he considered hanging up the cleats and attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston. His father convinced him to not give up on his baseball dream and Ryerson continues to do both baseball and music, though he said he wishes he could find more time to play guitar than his schedule allows. There is a precendent for the path of the baseball player/jazz guitarist and it's one set by a former New York Yankees legend and four-time World Series champion who has since retiring released two Jazz albums and even been nominated for a Latin Grammy. "I'm trying to do the Bernie Williams route," Ryerson said. "I want to play baseball for as long as I can and then switch over to music." While Ryerson and his dad share a common passion for music, it's baseball that dominates much of their daily conversations these days. Not content to simply connect by phone, John is a regular at Gulf Coast home games despite living approximately 11 hours away. "He actually bought a camper so he can try and make as many games as he can," Max said. "He's been to about half of them and I can't imagine he's gonna miss one conference game. He'll make round trips and sleep in the camper and drive right back. It's intense." John has gotten to see his son play the best baseball of his life to this point, including a torrid 15-game stretch in which he batted .500 with all 11 of his home runs and 30 RBI following a slow 3 for 13 start in his first five outings. It's the kind of hot streak that any baseball player would kill for, though Ryerson said that no matter how hot or cold he is, nothing ever really changes for him at the plate. "It's funny because everyone says (the baseball) must look like a beach ball, but it looks the exact same as it did when I got off to a slow start," he said. "I just keep the same approach and I feel like good things will happen. It's a good feeling, but I think pops is even more excited about it than me. He's just like a giddy old man."