Before he was an MLB pitcher, he was a snake wrangler

In another life, Joe Ryan might be a park ranger or a horticulturist or maybe just a Northern California beach bum, riding the waves by day and camping out under the stars at night. After all, long before the famed Grateful Dead-loving pitcher was the ace of the Twins' staff, he was out exploring the Marin County wilderness where his family has lived for the last five generations.

"I spent most of the time outside, so that was great," Ryan said during a recent stop at the MLB studio. "Both my parents are super active and it was just a great childhood for me to be able to spend so much time just in nature. Where we grew up, we had good mountains, lakes, and we had the beach pretty close."

His father, Kurtis, was evidently one of the original mountain bikers in the country.

"So allegedly, mountain biking was invented, like, five houses down from us," Ryan said. "He got pretty early access to some pretty cool bikes. We'd go ride a lot of the trails that the pioneers were riding, too. Just get out there and go ride our bikes. We'd go ride mountain bikes up to the lakes and go fishing for a little bit and then have a good ride down."

While fishing, hiking and biking are some fairly standard childhood activities for the outdoorsy types, Ryan and his father got up to something that most other kids don't: They went snake wrangling, diving through the bushes and briars to find snakes to snatch by hand.

"I think it was probably getting me over a fear of snakes. I watched too many 'Indiana Jones' movies, so I had this phobia of snakes for a while," Ryan said. "So, we'd go out there and catch some pretty big gopher snakes and were always looking for king snakes and stuff, but definitely good memories."

It wasn't just movies, though. The family also would sit down to watch Steve Irwin go chasing wildlife in the evening, too.

"When we did watch TV, it was a lot of 'Crocodile Hunter,' so to be out there, just like going and grabbing snakes. We'd get some turtles every once in a while, so we were just having fun."

Did the tactic work? Is Ryan no longer afraid of the slithering serpents?

"I also am still wary of snakes and don't like them," he said with a smile. "I think it was [my dad] teaching me lessons of like, 'Alright, stay away from rattlesnakes. And if you're gonna be out here, don't pick up the wrong thing or get close to those. They're dangerous.'"

While the thought that Ryan might be using his pitching hand to reach into some bushes and pull out a king snake might give manager Rocco Baldelli nightmares -- even though Ryan was specifically interested in that snake because they "eat rattlesnakes" -- the pitcher spent much of his time growing up in the water. He did a lot of surfing, though he admits that now that he's in the big leagues that's largely stopped.

"I don't go out when [the waves are] too big anymore just because of the career I have," Ryan said. "I don't want to mess anything up and be stupid. I just try to go out when it's fun now and just have a good time with my friends."

He was also a standout water polo player -- even crediting the sport for helping teach him new methods for getting spin on a baseball.

"I think it teaches you backspin," Ryan told MLB Network. "You have to stay behind the ball a little longer and really get your arm out front, so I think it just teaches good throwing mechanics. Definitely a challenging sport."

That's normal for a player with a multitude of interests, though: Whatever task or hobby he approaches, he finds a way to let it inform his work on the mound. During Covid, when he was left with hours of time on his own, Ryan picked up Muay Thai with Zoom lessons from one of the Twins' trainers.

"It was just something to look at as a different discipline," Ryan explained. "I'm not at all a fighter or a good MMA fighter at all. Not going to say that. It was something good to transfer energy and work on pitching. Throwing a baseball is similar to throwing a punch and looking at just that, again, transfer of energy. It's something else that I can do that's to keep the body moving that's different than just sitting there and stretching all the time."

Having already played in the Olympics when he represented Team USA in 2021 in Tokyo -- Ryan went 1-0 with a 1.74 ERA in 10 1/3 innings pitched -- could he ever see himself playing another sport after his days in the big leagues are done?

"There's the modern pentathlon, I think it's what it's called, and they're always looking for people to do that," Ryan joked. "So, that's my backup plan in years where I'm like, 'I really want to get back to the Olympics.' So I'm going to try to find like a niche sport that I could get good at and get back to the Olympics in."