There are two baseball nerds named Ryan Ferguson, and I’m not the World Series champion (yet)

From time to time, I’m mistaken for another Ryan Ferguson, who, like me, once lived in Liverpool and just happens to support Tranmere Rovers. Unfortunately, that guy is a football hooligan who was recently jailed for nine months after racially abusing a rival player at a match. As I explained here, people within the small Tranmere community often mix us up, and national media reports of his criminality regularly destroy my search engine optimisation. But such is life, I guess.

I also regularly receive misplaced emails pertaining to another Ryan Ferguson – an American student who spent 10 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. My inbox contains various messages expressing gratitude, with helpless people in similarly desperate scenarios citing ‘my’ case as inspiration. Alas, I’m not that guy, either. He has accrued over $50 million in compensation following the ordeal, and none of those funds – unlike his emails – have been misrouted.

I mention these quirks having recently been contacted by – yes – another Ryan Ferguson, who received a spam email intended for me. I was thankful that someone took the time to seek me out and forward a message that many would have deleted, but I was even more intrigued by the backstory – and the employer – of this new Ryan Ferguson. In fact, it blew my mind.

“I’m the Ryan Ferguson who works at the Houston Astros, so same name and baseball,” he wrote. “Who would have thought!”

I was instantly fascinated and, quite frankly, confused. How, as a devout baseball nerd, had I never come across this connection before? 

Naturally, I Googled my way down a rabbit hole and discovered that modesty is apparently a Ferguson clan trait. Why? Because my pen pal does not just casually ‘work at the Houston Astros.’ No, that Ryan Ferguson is a Senior Analyst within the Astros’ front office, and has been since 2015. Yes, the same Astros front office that revolutionised Major League Baseball with its novel use of advanced analytics, yielding four pennants and two World Series championships in a six-year stretch. That Ryan Ferguson is a major cog in the entire operation. 

Long-term readers will appreciate the irony of this. I’m a Yankees fan, and the Astros’ well-documented sign-stealing scheme is a major reason why a 15-year title drought still gnaws at the Bronx. The fact that Ryan Ferguson helped mastermind the Astros’ ascent – and, by extension, the Yankees’ frustration – breaks my brain. But hey, it makes for a great story. One day, I will tell my kids about Ryan Ferguson, the World Series champion. Ryan Ferguson, the football hooligan? Not so much.

I’m long over the whole ‘Astros cheating scandal’ and its attendant opprobrium. Sure, it sucked, but holding pent-up grudges is exhausting, and we all need to move on. Besides, the whole trashcan blueprint was devised by uniformed personnel. Ryan Ferguson had nothing to do with it, I assure you. I will bet the family tartan on it. The family tartan, I say!

All joking aside, though, this entire exchange was very cool to me. My Astros pen pal said he also receives mail for Wrongfully Convicted Ryan, and he queried how I – a nocturnal Brit – even became interest in baseball. Astros Ryan also mentioned a few staffers had poked around my website and, citing this article, ribbed him for having a desk strewn with Diet Coke cans. Good job I deleted those historic trashcan columns, huh? Only kidding.

I have since scoured the internet for Astros Ryan content – inception, much? – and I’m genuinely impressed. He is kind of a big deal, even if he does not realise it, or is too humble to blow his own bagpipe (Ferguson, Scottish, get it?). Regardless, I will watch the Astros with added affection – or reduced hostility? – in future, knowing their success is partly derived from my fellow clansman crunching numbers in the front office. 

Indeed, I will rest easy tonight knowing that, somewhere on this perplexing planet, there are two World Series rings engraved with the name ‘Ryan Ferguson.’ Yes, they are Astros rings. And no, they are not mine. But semantics, semantics. This is awesome, nevertheless.