Born on March 29, 1926, to Michael J. Ryan, an Irish immigrant, and Mary E. Murray, of Buffalo, New York, Pat Ryan grew up on Buffalo’s West Side before his family—seven boys and three girls—moved to 46 Orchard Place in North Buffalo in 1941. Ryan graduated from Bennett High School in 1944 and was drafted into General George Patton’s 11th Armored Division, 35th Tank Battalion, Company B, where he served for three years as an assistant driver and cannoneer. Ryan fought in the Battle of the Bulge, spent his 19th birthday crossing the Rhine River at Frankfurt on a pontoon bridge, and helped to liberate the concentration camp at Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria. Later in the war Ryan transferred to the 4th Armored Division and oversaw its medical ward in Stuttgart, Germany. After the Axis surrendered, on a tip Ryan hitched a ride on an Allied troop transport from Stuttgart to Düsseldorf to meet his brother Michael Ryan, who had served as an antitank gunner in the 2nd Armored.
Ryan remained in Germany during the early postwar years, playing baseball in the Army leagues, honing his talents as a batter and a left-handed pitcher. He kept playing baseball after his return to Buffalo in 1947, and in that year led his team—sponsored by Murray’s Delivery Service—to the Municipal “Muni” League championship. The next season Ryan signed up with the Hornell Maple Leafs, a Class D team in the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York (PONY) League, where he earned $5 a day, and for an extra $50 a month drove the team bus. The Boston Red Sox bought Ryan’s contract in 1948 and sent him to Oneonta, then a Class C affiliate, where he helped pitch the team to a League Championship.
Ryan married Virginia Schushan on April 5, 1948, and the couple soon welcomed a daughter, Cass. This brought Ryan back from a brief stint pitching in Fresno; he returned to Oneota but threw out his shoulder, ending a promising baseball career.
Ryan worked as a security guard at Bell Aerospace in Wheatfield, NY from 1950 to 1988. On the side he worked with horses: first as a hauler, then as a ticket taker in the Buffalo Raceway’s SEIU 235, and finally as part-owner of a racing thoroughbred. After retiring from Bell, Ryan devoted himself to breeding and racing full-time, living Glendale, Arizona; South Palm Beach, Florida; and Ridgeway, Ontario, before returning to Buffalo in 2015.
He leaves two brothers, Thomas and Peter Ryan, of Buffalo; his daughter Cass, of Charleston, South Carolina; two granddaughters, Whitney Chamberlain of New Orleans, Louisiana and Erin Spangler of the U.S. Virgin Islands; and many nieces and nephews who loved him greatly.
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