After scoring the winning run in the 2012 World Series, Ryan Theriot vanished. He didn’t attend the San Francisco Giants championship parade, which was more than slightly disappointing for fans. Theriot was such a fun-loving and expressive character during his time with the Giants that everyone expected him to spend the parade pounding beers in the back of some old car before grabbing the mic from Ed Lee and making everyone laugh at Civic Center.
Alright, maybe I was the only one who expected to see that. I would much rather have seen The Riot riding down Market Street than emo Brian Wilson awkwardly fist-pumping while plotting revenge against the Giants for not tendering him a contract worth $7 million or whatever.
A year went by, and we heard next to nothing. There were rumblings that he was holding out for a starting job, fueled in part by what he said to Henry Schulman in March of 2013, but he didn’t officially announce his retirement until early January of this year.
(Carmen said a formal good-bye with five of Theriot’s best GIFs here.)
Unless he somehow lost the ability to speak in the time after Game 4 in Detroit, we all knew we’d hear plenty from Theriot at some point. And where else would he pop up, but on Twitter?
For those of you that asked me at fan fest what Ryan Theriot has been up to, you can now ask him yourself –> @rtheriot7
— Brandon Crawford (@bcraw35) February 11, 2014
Here’s @rtheriot7’s avatar.
DEVELOPING STORY: Theriot likes to hunt. If you need more proof, you can check out a photo of him holding up the head of a large deer with the caption “Sausage anyone?” Besides shooting animals while sporting camo clothes and face paint, Theriot looks like he spends a lot of time at a sports training institute in Baton Rouge, and recently he decided to break into the radio biz.
Although I have a face for TV I guess I’ll have to start my media career on the radio…..@mattmoscona.#AFR
— ryan theriot (@rtheriot7) February 7, 2014
I assumed #AFR stood for Armed Forces Radio, but it’s actually short for “After Further Review,” a show on 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge.
It’d be easy to see Theriot building off those guest appearances and becoming a full-fledged media personality. He also told Schulman how he wouldn’t mind working for his old agency (Beverly Hills Sports Council), but at that time he also mentioned wanting to be around for his three young children.
Theriot also acknowledged how odd it seems for a player to be ready to walk away at his age with several teams calling him about reserve jobs in the majors.
“I could definitely see how somebody could look at that and say, ‘Wait a minute. Are you serious?’” he said. “That’s just where I’m at. My kids are 7, 6 and 4. If I wait until I’m 37 and they’re 5 years older than that, then I start to look at, what am I going to miss? What was I not there for?”
And on that note, one last tweet from Theriot:
My Show son chilling in the deer blind. ….. what a beauty! pic.twitter.com/gAVjl2R01L
— ryan theriot (@rtheriot7) February 1, 2014