Ryan Lavarnway

Ryan Lavarnway probably had more than 1,000 teammates across 27 teams during his 16 seasons in professional baseball. Primarily a catcher with seven games at first base and 28 as a designated hitter, he played for eight different major-league teams and has one World Series ring, from his time with the Boston Red Sox in 2013.

There were 26 times he was sent up from the minor leagues to the majors and back. He played professional baseball in both Venezuela and Australia, and baseball in Asia and Europe as well. In a 2023 article he wrote for The Athletic to announce his retirement, he said, “An outsider might say there were more downs than ups, but I wouldn’t give back a single day.”1

Ryan Cole Lavarnway was born in Burbank, California on August 7, 1987, and raised in nearby Woodland Hills, California. He graduated from its El Camino Real High School. Father Tracy Lavarnway was an architect and mother Jill worked in insurance compliance. Ryan has a younger sister, Courtney, who works as a travel agent in Los Angeles County.

His parents came from different backgrounds: his father being raised Catholic, and his mother raised Jewish. The family celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah.2 Neither parent pushed him one way or the other. “My dad a disenchanted Catholic; my mom is a Jew that loves Christmas,” he said in a 2018 interview.3 He was free to find his own path.  

His father played pickup softball, and Ryan enjoyed playing as well. One early experience playing baseball came when, at age 13, he played in the Maccabi Games while he was in middle school. In August 2001, the California team traveled to Monmouth, New Jersey; Ryan was the catcher. “I’m pretty sure we won the tournament.”4 He continued to catch in Little League and high school but switched to the outfield in his senior year.

It was in high school that he first began to find affinity with Judaism. “I started going to temple with my friend’s mom who had [multiple sclerosis]. She needed someone to drive her, and I was looking for an excuse to go.”5 Though he never had a bar mitzvah, he said, “At the time, I felt spiritually attracted and I began to attend synagogue. Today, my wife and I live in Denver and go to synagogue regularly and live a Jewish lifestyle. We are proud members of the Jewish community in the city.”6

A philosophy major at Yale, Lavarnway switched back to catcher for his second year at university, feeling he wasn’t fleet enough to make it as an outfielder. As a sophomore, he led all NCAA batters with a .467 batting average, thanks in part to an Ivy League-record 25-game hitting streak. Both his 14 homers and 55 RBIs set Yale records. That summer, he played collegiate ball in New England for the Manchester Silkworms and made that league’s all-star team. In his junior year, 2008, he hit .398 and, despite missing a number of games at the end of the season with a broken wrist, became, at the time, the Ivy League’s all-time career home run leader with 33 in his college career.

Yale baseball coach John Stuper offered an evaluation of his player’s evolution: “Ryan became possibly the hardest worker I’ve ever had. He is very single-minded. After his freshman year, he said he wanted to play in the big leagues and began doing absolutely everything to make that happen.”7

Three times in his final month, Lavarnway was named the league’s Player of the Week. It was no surprise that he attracted the attention of major-league scouts, although he later joked that Yale “has produced more United States presidents than big-league hitters.”8

The Boston Red Sox selected him in the sixth round of the June 2008 amateur draft. He had yet to turn 21 years old. Credited with the signing was Red Sox scout Ray Fagnant. Lavarnway received a signing bonus reported as $325.000.9

He left Yale with two semesters remaining to be completed. He has since completed four classes online, but that is the limit allowed – he must return to campus to complete his final semester for graduation. Will that day come to pass, perhaps to serve as a model for his young daughter? “Time will tell.”10

Entering professional baseball, he was assigned to the Lowell Spinners in the low-A New York/Penn League. He appeared in 22 games and hit .211, with two homers and nine RBIs. He handled 95 chances as catcher without an error.  

His first full season in the minors was in South Carolina with the Greenville Drive (Single-A South Atlantic League) in 2009. In 106 games, he hit .285 with 21 homers and 36 doubles. At the time the homers tied and the doubles broke the Greenville franchise records. By doing so, he led the league in extra-base hits and drove in 87 runs.

Lavarnway said his “biggest goal” for 2010 was to work on his catching. “It’s motivation, knowing we have so many good catchers. The competition is good for us. I can’t be only a hitter. I need to be balanced.”11 Statistics show him to have made relatively few errors. He was promoted twice in 2010 – first to High-A ball (Salem Red Sox, Carolina League) and then to the double-A Portland Sea Dogs in the Eastern League. He maintained consistent production, batting .290 with 14 home runs and 63 RBIs in 82 games at Salem and then .285 with eight home runs and 39 RBIs in 44 Double-A games with Portland. That year he enjoyed what the Boston Globe characterized as a “breakthrough season.”12 He was named Co-Red Sox Minor League Offensive Player of the Year (an honor he won again in 2011).

The following season, 2011, he made the major leagues. He began with Portland and on June 13 was promoted to the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox (International League) where he upped his offense to .295 with 18 home runs and 55 RBIs in 61 games.

When Boston’s Kevin Youkilis went on the disabled list, owing to a number of injuries, Lavarnway was called up to the big leagues, primarily for his bat.

On August 18, the 6-foot-4 rookie – listed at the time at 239 pounds – made his major-league debut in Kansas City against the Royals.13 Jason Varitek caught; Lavarnway was the designated hitter and went 0-for-4. He got his first base hit the following day, off Jeff Francis, and his first run scored when that day’s catcher, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, followed with a homer. On August 20 – still in Kansas City – he drove in his first run.

Optioned back to Pawtucket to finish their season, he was recalled in early September. Overall, he appeared in 17 big-league games, catching 26 2/3 innings in eight of them. He finished the season with a .231 average (.302 on-base percentage), with two home runs and eight RBIs.

The two homers (and four of the eight RBIs) came in the same game, on September 27 in Baltimore. It was the first game in which he was called upon to be the starting catcher – and it was a key game: Boston and Tampa Bay were tied for second place in the AL East, with a playoff slot at stake. Both main Red Sox catchers, Varitek and Saltalamacchia, were out with injuries. Lavarnway hit a three-run homer off Zack Britton in the fourth inning and a solo homer off Zach Phillips in the eighth, the run that made the difference in Boston’s 8-7 win.

Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon earned his 31st save in the game. He expressed his appreciation of the work Lavarnway had done, both behind the plate and at bat. “The kid showed a tremendous amount of poise. Wow, impressive night for him, top to bottom.” Manager Terry Francona added, “Besides what he did offensively, I thought he ran the game, I thought he had a lot of poise. That was one of the more exciting things to watch. We’ve seen a lot of interesting things here over the years. That was right near the top.”14

After just five games in Venezuelan winter ball, curtailed by illness, Lavarnway was reassigned to the PawSox in 2012, and played there until early August. Once again, he hit .295. Though playing more games (83), he hit fewer homers (8) and drove in fewer runs (43). Nonetheless, he was called up to Boston and got into his first game on August 2. His major-league stats were down across the board in 2012; though he had 166 plate appearances in 46 games, he hit just .157 with two home runs and 12 RBIs

Lavarnway earned his World Series ring with the Red Sox in 2013, a year in which he hit .299 over 25 games across four call-ups with the big-league team. His final stint, six September games, accounted for six of his 14 RBIs. Heading into the postseason, he was the third catcher on the depth chart and traveled with the team as a uniformed but non-roster player. It is of interest that Yale graduate Craig Breslow – who also happens to be Jewish – was also on the 2012 and 2013 Red Sox. They were said to have been the first Yale teammates on a major-league team since 1883.15

There was some question of whether Lavarnway would be with the organization in 2014.16 He spent almost the full 2014 season in the minors. He’d started with Boston, playing in two games at first base, but suffered a broken wrist bone on May 29. In 62 games at Pawtucket, he hit .283. The PawSox won the International League pennant, and Lavarnway was named MVP of the playoffs. He got into four September games in Boston, also at first base, but in a total of 10 at-bats never got on base once.

That December, he had the odd experience of being placed on, and claimed from, waivers three times in a three-week stretch, by the Dodgers, Cubs, and finally the Orioles.

The Orioles used him in 10 games at the start of the 2015 season, but he was granted free agency on May 29 and was signed the next day by the Atlanta Braves. He appeared in 27 games for the Braves, batting .227.

Lavarnway started 2016 with the Gwinnett Braves in Triple A but was cut loose after 25 games. He signed with the Toronto Blue Jays and played in 66 games for the Double-A Eastern League’s New Hampshire Fisher Cats, batting .262.

Prior to the 2017 season, Lavarnway signed with the Oakland A’s. Before the regular season began he served as starting catcher for Team Israel during the 2017 World Baseball Classic; previously, he’d done so in the pre-WBC qualifiers in Brooklyn in 2016. Come the March 2017 games, Team Israel played three games in Seoul and three games in Tokyo. The team was in its first WBC and won its first four games before being eliminated. Lavarnway was 8-for-18 at the plate, with five bases on balls and six RBIs.17 Of the experience, he said, “It changed how proud I am about being Jewish.”18 He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “When I played for the WBC team in 2017, that was a really life-changing experience for me. I didn’t feel a huge connection to my Judaism, to any religion, to the community at all. Through playing for Team Israel, I felt that for the first time.”19

How was it he wound up with Team Israel in the first place? “They asked if I wanted to play and I said, ‘Sure.’” As noted above, he had played in the Maccabi Games, and thus was identified as Jewish. “I wouldn’t say I was super-involved. But enough.”20 The team brought participants to Israel, visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Masada, and other places. It reinforced his life-changing experience, building on the commitment to Jewish life and culture he had already begun to develop. As he wrote in his children’s book Baseball and Belonging:

He met Israeli kids
who came from near and far.
They looked up to the players
like they were superstars.

More than anything he felt
a growing sense of pride.
People said, “You’re one of us.
Welcome to the tribe.”21

That 2017 effort helped build interest in baseball. In March 2023, he tweeted: “Our goal was to grow the game of baseball in Israel. Participation has doubled. … There was only one field in the whole country. The prize money we have won has built a second field and broken ground on a third. In fact, Israel is the confirmed host of the 2025 European Championships!”22

Lavarnway spent most of the 2017 season with the triple-A Nashville Sounds, mostly catching, though he did play one game at first base – and pitched in three games for a total of 2 1/3 innings. In 83 games, he hit .239 with 26 RBIs. In separate callups in July and August, he was 3-for-11 in six major-league games with Oakland.

He signed with his eighth big-league organization in January 2018 – the Pittsburgh Pirates. Most of the season was at Triple A again (the International League’s Indianapolis Indians), where he hit .288 with nine home runs and 33 RBIs in 78 games. He got a call to Pittsburgh in early September and pinch-hit in six Pirates games, hitting safely four times. His one RBI won the September 18 home game against the visiting Kansas City Royals; it came on a bases-loaded one-out single in the bottom of the 11th.

Lavarnway signed with the New York Yankees later that year and in 2019 played for three different organizations. He started with the Yankees’ triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre but hit only .213 in 35 games. Released on July 18, he was signed by the Cincinnati Reds. “At the time,” he said, “all I felt was a huge sense of gratitude for the opportunity to be back in the big leagues. I remember thinking, “This almost doesn’t seem real. I feel like a cat with nine lives.”23

He caught for Cincinnati the very next day against the St. Louis Cardinals, banging out an RBI double his first time up, a three-run homer the next inning, and, after a strikeout, a two-run homer later in the game. Driving in six runs in his first game for the Reds set a franchise record. Four days later, he had a two-hit game – but after the July 27 game he was designated for assignment, sent to Triple A, and then released at the end of August. He’d appeared in five games for the Reds. “Two weeks later, I was sent down to AAA Louisville and subsequently traded to Columbus on a day that those two teams were playing against each other. I walked across the parking lot, moved into a new locker, took BP, and went to work again.”24

The Cleveland Indians had signed him for the final four games of the season for triple-A Columbus, where he went on to become a big part of their 2019 International League championship run (Lavarnway’s third AAA championship).

In December 2019, Lavarnway signed with his 12th organization – the Miami Marlins. There was no minor-league baseball in 2020 because of the pandemic. As Ron Rembert noted, “During COVID, Lavarnway, the teacher, emerged. With his wife tossing pitches to him in his home’s basement and his dog joyously sharing the moment, he videotaped instructional tapes for young catchers. He offered encouragement, advice, instruction and wisdom about the art of catching as learning occasions for viewers under lockdown conditions. Keep practicing was the mantra!”25

He caught in five August games for the Marlins, and – as he had with Cincinnati – flourished briefly, batting .364 – four singles in 11 at-bats, albeit with neither a run scored or driven in.

Lavarnway obtained Israeli citizenship in 2019 ahead of the anticipated 2020 Olympic Games. Delayed because of the pandemic, he had the honor of playing for Israel when the 2020 Games were finally held in Tokyo in July and August 2021. He homered twice in the opening game against South Korea and was 7-for-20 overall. He finished the tournament with a .700 slugging percentage, fifth among all players. The team finished fifth.26

It was back to Cleveland in 2021, and he appeared in nine more major-league games. The Indians (it was the last year the franchise was known as such) were the eighth team which had used him in the majors. Most of the year was with Columbus –13 homers and 40 RBIs in 49 games. His two call-ups to Cleveland saw him catch in three June games and pinch-hit once, and then catch in five September games. He hit .250 with three extra-base hits.

In March 2022, the Detroit Tigers signed him. By then 34 years old, this was his 13th organization. He appeared in 44 games for the International League’s Toledo Mud Hens, batting .281 with five homers and 26 RBIs. The Marlins wanted to give him another try, so they purchased his contract and assigned him to their triple-A team in Jacksonville. He hit .205 in 40 games, homering six times and driving in 18 runs.

Over the winter he traveled to Australia and played in 13 games for the Melbourne Aces, batting .262.27

Lavarnway again played baseball for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, being named team captain.28 Playing under manager Ian Kinsler, he was 1-for-9 in three games.

In 2013, Lavarnway and Jamie Neistat married in Denver. Jamie is a former softball player (and Rockies fan) from Colorado. She had majored in culinary arts and business management and at the time of their marriage had already begun as an active food blogger, for a number of years posting to her site Cooking in Red Socks.29 Asked if she had been more involved in the Jewish community than he had been, Ryan responded, “She was bat mitzvahed and more of a practicing or active participant than I was in Judaism at the time.”30

The often nomadic life of baseball could well imperil any relationship. As Jamie said in 2019, “Having to find new places to live every season (sometimes multiple times a season!) is always the biggest challenge. I can’t remember the last time we ended one season and started the next season with the same team. Making new friends, trying to establish some sort of life in a new city, that’s the hardest part.”31

Their daughter Blake was born in June 2022.

In late March, after the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Ryan Lavarnway announced his retirement from playing professional baseball.32 Later that year, he became a published author with his first book Baseball and Belonging, a children’s book dedicated to Blake.33 It briefly tells the story of his own quest to find a faith. As he put it in the book,

Ryan has a Jewish mom
and a Catholic dad.
He felt he had to pick one,
he was confused and sad.

His parents let him choose his path
They said, “You can be either.”
But thinking he was half and half
Made him feel like he was neither.

Where he soon learned he truly belonged had been on the baseball field. He loved playing the game and was good at it. He fit. But there had been the sense of something missing. In time, the answer came to him. As mentioned, playing in the Maccabi Games as a young teenager helped in that regard.

He hadn’t stopped playing entirely. In September 2023, Team Israel competed in the 2023 European Baseball Championship, held in the Czech Republic. Israel placed sixth among the 16 teams.34 Though Lavarnway hit only .174, he led the team in extra-base hits and tied for second in team RBIs with five.

Just about a week later came the events of October 7, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked Israeli civilians, killing well over 1,000 and taking more than 200 hostages. “Some of Lavarnway’s teammates were hastily called into active duty by the Israel Defense Forces.”35

He also played in a couple of independent baseball games for the Pioneer League’s Rocky Mountain Vibes of Colorado Springs.36 In 2023, he had taken up work as a pregame and postgame on-air television analyst covering Colorado Rockies games, but the broadcaster, AT&T Sportsnet, went bankrupt after the season was over.

At the time of the June 2024 interview, he said, “This year I am roving catching instructor with the Cubs. As I speak with you now, I’m with the Myrtle Beach single-A team.”37 The work keeps him on the road, more than he would prefer, given family, but one does have to make a living.

In addition to his children’s book, Ryan Lavarnway has presented as a motivational speaker at – per his website in June 2024 – “Harvard, Yale Law School, Kent State, various leadership summers, and numerous Jewish community centers.” He has also “launched an inspirational podcast, Finding the Way.”38

Increasingly, he has focused on Judaic culture and community. In 2020, he presented the chest protector of Moe Berg (also both a catcher and Ivy Leaguer) to Anu – Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.39

As he said on Jewish Heritage Night at Fenway Park (May 15, 2024), “I found my spiritual identity, my Jewish identity, through playing baseball for Team Israel. It really was a life-changing experience for me to play in the World Baseball Classic.”40 Lavarnway caught that evening’s ceremonial first pitch thrown by comedian Alex Edelman.41

If it is safe to predict anything, the one thing might predict for Ryan Lavarnway is that there are many future stops in store as his career continues to evolve.

Last revised: November 4, 2024

Sources and Acknowledgments

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org.

Special thanks to Ryan Lavarnway for his memories. Thanks also to Ron Rembert for sharing a great deal of information he had assembled on Lavarnway’s career, and for being willing to offer helpful suggestions toward improving this biography, which was subsequently reviewed by Rory Costello and Kim Juhase and fact-checked by Mark Sternman.

Photo credit: Ryan Lavarnway, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Ryan Lavarnway: As I retire from baseball, lessons learned in a decade in MLB,” The Athletic, March 23, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4325514/2023/03/22/ryan-lavarnway-retirement-lessons-learned/

2 Author interview with Ryan Lavarnway, June 13, 2024.

3 “Israel’s WBC inspired catcher,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 10, 2018.

4 In June 2024, the JCC Association of North America responded to an inquiry that their records regarding the Maccabi Games do not go back as far as 2001.

5 “Israel’s WBC inspired catcher.”

6 Yair Katan, “Mensch on the bench: Israel to play in World Baseball Classic,” YNetNews.com, November 14, 2016. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4879114,00.html

7 Marty Dobrow, “Ivy rivals find common ground with Sox,” ESPN.com, July 11, 2011. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story/_/id/6756014

8 “Ryan Lavarnway: As I retire from baseball, lessons learned in a decade in MLB.”

9 Baseball America, September 19, 2011: 44. Thanks to Rod Nelson of SABR’s Scouts and Scouting Committee.

10 Author interview with Ryan Lavarnway.

11 Peter Abraham, “Lavarnway Catching Up,” Boston Globe, May 7, 2010: C6.

12 Peter Abraham, “Top 10 places to get better,” Boston Globe, September 10, 2010: C5.

13 Later records list him as 6-3.

14 Peter Abraham, “All Square,” Boston Globe. September 28, 2011: C1, C3. Baltimore beat Boston the following day, Tampa Bay winning and earning a berth in postseason play.

15 A relief pitcher who worked in 61 games in 2013, Breslow was 5-2 with a 1.81 ERA. In 11 of them, Lavarnway caught Breslow, including two of the wins – May 18 and September 5, with Lavarnway driving in two runs in each of those two games. Breslow worked in 10 postseason games with a 2.45 ERA and a record of 1-0. Lavarnway had first caught Breslow for two pitches on August 18, 2012; a 3-6-3 double play resulted. Charles Condro, “Bulldogs in Beantown,” Yale Daily News, September 5, 2012. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/09/05/bulldogs-in-beantown/

16 Peter Abraham, “Sox short in pursuit of Ruiz,” Boston Globe, November 19, 2013: C2.

17 Pool A was comprised of the teams from South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Netherlands, and Israel. Lavarnway was designated as MVP of the Pool A teams.

18 Carl Steward, “Team Israel start Ryan Lavarnway reveled in WBC experience,” Mercury News (San Jose, California), March 17, 2017.

19 Jacob Gurvis, “MLB catcher Ryan Lavarnway pens kid’s book about Team Israel,” the Times of Israel, August 31, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/mlb-catcher-ryan-lavarnway-pens-kids-book-about-team-israel/

20 Author interview with Ryan Lavarnway.

21 Ryan Lavarnway, Baseball and Belonging (Englewood, Colorado: Turn Left LLC, 2023).

22 Ryan Lavarnway, , “Our Goal was to grow the game of baseball in Israel. Participation has doubled.” Twitter, March 15, 2023, https://x.com/RyanLavarnway/status/1636142110725341185

23 “A waste of an Ivy League education? Tigers’ Ryan Lavarnway begs to differ,” Detroit News, March 30, 2022. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2022/03/30/detroit-tigers-ryan-lavarnway-explains-15-seasons-mlb-starts-year-mud-hens/7215011001/

24 “A waste of an Ivy League education? Tigers’ Ryan Lavarnway begs to differ.”

25 Ron Rembert, e-mail to author, June 10, 2024.

26 Alex Krutchik, “Ryan Lavarnway reflects on Olympic experience,” Columbus Jewish News, August 20, 2021. https://www.columbusjewishnews.com/news/sports/olympics/ryan-lavarnway-reflects-on-olympic-experience/article_6f8ae6e2-ff8b-11eb-aadc-0be7bc0ee132.html

27 The website of the Australian Baseball League: abl.com.au, https://theabl.com.au/player/ryan-lavarnway-543432

28 “Lavarnway named captain of Team Israel,” the website of Israel Baseball, baseball.org.il, https://baseball.org.il/english-news/660-ryan-lavarnway-is-named-team-israel-captain .Accessed October 23, 2024.

29 Jamie Neistat Lavarnway, Cooking in Red Socks (blog). https://cookinginredsocks.com/

30 Author interview with Ryan Lavarnway.

31 Andrew Martin, “Jamie Lavarnway – Ryan Lavarnway’s Partner in His Baseball Journey,” seamheads.com, September 14, 2019. https://seamheads.com/blog/2019/09/14/jamie-lavarnway-ryan-lavarnways-partner-in-his-baseball-journey/

32 Announcing his retirement, he offered the Athletic several pages of thoughts intended to inspire others. See “Ryan Lavarnway: As I retire from baseball, lessons learned in a decade in MLB.”

33 Ryan Lavarnway, Baseball and Belonging.

34 The website of the WBSC Europe: wbsceurope.org. https://www.wbsceurope.org/en/events/2023-european-baseball-championship/standings

35 Jacob Gurvis, “Team Israel baseball captain Ryan Lavarnway talks solidarity,” the Times of Israel, November 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/team-israel-baseball-captain-ryan-lavarnway-speaks-up-at-israel-solidarity-events/

36 This work was as a “marketing player” permitting a celebrity player to appear on the roster once or twice – but no more in any given month.

37 Author interview with Ryan Lavarnway.

38 The website is: https://ryanlavarnway.com/. The podcasts feature him interviewing a number of athletes and coaches. They are available on a number of platforms, including https://open.spotify.com/show/1ofVtBNhd50P7QNzFcqwsA

39 A brief video of him discussing Berg (Princeton, Columbia Law School) is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSAhztaT23c. Berg played 15 years in the majors, for five teams, from 1923-39. His final five seasons were with the Boston Red Sox.

40 Gabrielle Starr, “How baseball shaped former Red Sox catcher Ryan Lavarnway’s Jewish identity and changed his life,” Boston Herald, May 15, 2024. https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/05/15/baseball-shaped-former-red-sox-catcher-ryan-lavarnways-jewish-identity-and-changed-his-life/

41 Alex Edelman, a native of bordering Brookline, wrote the biographies of both Ken Harrelson and Billy Rohr, which appear in the book The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox: Pandemonium on the Field (Bill Nowlin and Dan Desrochers, eds.) (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2017).