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Weekend Plans With Astros President Reid Ryan: Baseball, Family, Tacos

With the start of the ’15 MLB regular season rapidly approaching, Astros President of Business Operations REID RYAN splits his time between the club’s Spring Training complex in Kissimmee, Fla., and preparing for upcoming events in Houston. This weekend, the Astros are hosting the Houston College Classic at Minute Maid Park, a six-team tournament that runs through Sunday. Reid, son of Baseball HOFer NOLAN RYAN, epitomizes what it means to be a baseball lifer. Reid Ryan: “I am very blessed that sports have given my family so many unbelievable opportunities. The comradery, the dealing with failure and overcoming obstacles in sports is the vehicle my wife and I have chosen, and our family is all in, literally.”

TEXAS LEAGUER: On Friday, I am going to lunch with LSU head coach PAUL MAINIERI and one of our owners, JOHN HAVENS, who is a big LSU alum. I always have a finance meeting on Fridays with our Senior VP/Finance JONATHAN GERMER. I am in such a unique job, that I guarantee you I never have two weeks that are ever the same. Because we have the college tournament going on Saturday, I will be at the ballpark all day. Baseball season is back and I will be pressing the flesh. My kids also have softball, baseball and volleyball games, so it will be a normal busy Ryan weekend. Last Saturday, I was up at 6:30am and we had to be at the volleyball tournament at 7:30am. Then my son had a baseball tournament and my other daughter had a basketball tournament. I didn’t get back home until 11:00pm, and that is a normal weekend. On Sunday, we go to church. We are very active with the Second Baptist Church here in Houston and my kids go to Second Baptist School. That is a big part of what we do as a family. We go to a contemporary service at 11:00am, which allows us to get caught up on our rest in the morning.

DRIVE-THRU: We have very active kids, so we are breakfast taco eaters. Our favorite place in Houston for grabbing breakfast to go on a weekend is Island Grill. We’ll hop in there, grab some breakfast tacos and then hit the road again. Houston is a real foodie town. We are big Tex-Mex eaters. One of our staples is Escalante’s right by where we live and where we go to school. We also like to hit Pappasito's or El Tiempo. There is one of the original Carrabba’s here that we like to take the kids to a lot, as well as a Goode Co. BBQ. In Kissimmee, we go to Bonefish Grill a lot. There are also a few restaurants over by Disney World. We go to Celebration a lot, which is kind of like a little master-planned Disney community. There is a Cuban restaurant over there, Columbia, which started out of Tampa.

RYANS’ EXPRESS: I basically work all of the time on weekends, but when I am not working, a favorite weekend for me would be going to their sporting events and just hanging out and being a dad. With a father that was a Major League Baseball player and traveled all the time, I just love getting to be involved. If we don’t have games, then we just go to the ranch as a family. We are very blessed to have a couple of pieces of property; our favorite one to go to is Junction, which is out west of San Antonio. The ranching is a big deal with the family. My father and I love being over there together and go hiking. He really likes to fish, and my brother and I are big into mountain biking. It has a natural spring on it that we can water ski on. It also has a really nice house that we like to go to in the summer and be together. The biggest thing we like to do as a family in the winter during the offseason -- we are big TCU fans -- is a lot of father-son and father-son-grandson football games. We have tickets to a suite and we like to go and tailgate and hang out, which is a lot of fun.

REID-ING RAINBOW: With all the traveling I do, thank God for iTunes and TiVo. My wife and I are into “DOWNTON ABBEY” and I was a big “ENTOURAGE” fan, but I’ve gone through every episode. So now I am on season three of “BREAKING BAD.” I am a non-fiction reader with an eclectic reading taste. I enjoy anything with a historical perspective. I just read “AMERICAN GUN” -- which is the book by CHRIS KYLE from the “AMERICAN SNIPER” film. He was writing it when he was killed. It is a pretty interesting story about 10 guns and how they helped shape the fabric of America. I recently had a friend send me former MLB Commissioner BART GIAMATTI’s book, “A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME,” which I had never read. I am the only dog walker in the family. This happens on a nightly basis, and I either listen to BUSTER OLNEY’s “BASEBALL TONIGHT” podcast or I listen to IVAN MAISEL’s college football podcast during football season. I get on my mountain bike because I have a Labradoodle that is extremely hyper. I usually ride for about 15-30 minutes and just let my dog run.

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