It is June 20 and Ryans hailing from 31 states and Canadian provinces have assembled in the Mile High City seeking to achieve previously unreached heights for a gathering of humans sharing an identical handle. Their goal: to set a record for the most people of the same first name to attend a sporting event. That event: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.

“You see, Ryan…” explained Ryan the college student from Seattle, surrounded by Ryan of Nashville and Ryan of Amarillo, Texas. “I think that what myself, Ryan, Ryan, and all of the other Ryans are here to do is set the bar. Place that bar where no one of any other name would dare to match it. And setting that bar starts here in this bar.”

The streetside banner that hangs by the front door of that bar reads “Is your name RYAN? Join the Ryan Meetup. No Bryans allowed.” Soon, the Ryan Triumvirate climbs atop the bar inside that bar to welcome their fellow Ryans and instruct them on the proper execution of the Ryan cheers they will use once they have made the 105-degree, sun-baked, three-block walk to Coors Field.

“Let’s go, Ryan!” Clap clap clap-clap-clap

“Give me an ‘R’!”

“The Rockies have four Ryans on their roster and the Diamondbacks have one,” Ryan explains to the room of Ryans, speaking of Colorado third baseman and cleanup hitter Ryan McMahon, rookie shortstop Ryan Ritter, as well as pitchers Ryan Rolison and Ryan Feltner (though Feltner is on the injured list) and Arizona reliever Ryan Thompson.

D-backs righty Ryne Nelson does not count. Ryne is not Ryan. There are rules.

From atop the bar, one of the Ryan Trio has been DM’ing with one of the Rockies Ryans but won’t reveal which one. Not yet. “We cheer for all Ryans. They are our priority!”

The Ryan rah-rah routines are explained by one of three New York Ryans standing above the others. In 2022, Ryan Rose, aka Ryan of New York No. 1, says she had moved to New York and was looking to make new friends. After a couple of failed attempts to create other groups, she decided to lean into her name and printed 10 flyers she posted around her neighborhood. It was a deliberately simple sheet of white paper with the question “Are you a Ryan? No Bryans allowed” and a QR code that led to further information. Ryan Cousins, aka Ryan of New York No. 2, says one day he was leaving his apartment and only a few steps from his front door saw people gathered around a telephone pole. They were reading Ryan Rose’s flyer and one of them turned to him and asked, “Isn’t your name Ryan? You should do this.” When Ryan Cousins showed up, only two other Ryans were there, Ryan Rose and Ryan Le, aka Ryan of New York No. 3, who had been sent a tweet of the flyer from a non-Ryan friend.

From there, the three OG Ryans began posting more Ryan invites around the city and wherever their work travels took them, from Texas to Philly. Then one of Ryan Le’s Manhattan flyers caught the eye of a popular New York social feed, which created buzz within a Ryan Reddit group.

Ryan began a’flyin’.

“All of the sudden,” Ryan Cousins recalls, “We went from Ryan Meetups that had maybe 20 people to having 100, like overnight. And it’s kept growing from there.”

There was a Ryan Rodeo in Austin. A St. Ryan’s Day in Boston. An All-Ryans Game Show in San Diego. They raised enough money in one hour to help a family afford their baby Ryan’s hydrocephalus surgery. And one year ago, they rented out a Manhattan movie theater for a screening of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” attended by 150 Ryans and one Hugh.

“We were hoping Ryan Reynolds might show up,” Cousins confesses. “We did bring in the one Hugh. But we also knew that Hugh Jackman lives in New York and if he had shown up, we would have totally replaced the other Hugh with the movie star Hugh.”

It is now 5:30 p.m. and the Ryans are on the move. A couple dozen Ryans are in a pack, marching toward the entrance of Coors Field. There’s a Denver Ryan, accompanied by another local Ryan, whom he’d just met. It was his Uber driver. “When I got in and realized his name was Ryan, I said I didn’t care if he was at the end of his shift or not, he was parking his car and coming with me.”

There’s a kid in a Rockies jersey with purple “Ryan” lettering across his shoulders, holding hands with a woman whose shirt reads “Ryan’s Mom.” There’s a Ryan in a Kris Bryant Rockies jersey with the “B” and “T” covered with tape so it just reads RYAN. There is a wobbly-walking gentleman in a bowling shirt with a script embroidered “Ryan.” Other shirts say, “Ryan’s Wife,” “Ryan’s Sister,” “I’m With Ryan” and, yes, “F*ck Bryan.” Multiple foursomes of Ryans have no shirts at all, having grabbed the cans of black body paint that were at the bar and slathered R, Y, A or N across their chests. When a “SportsCenter” live report from the pregame festivities attempted to include them, they accidentally but enthusiastically spelled NAYR.

However, on this day the most memorable Ryan was a pregnant woman with a name tag affixed to her belly that informs us she has a Ryan on the way.

It is a reminder of why there are so many Rockies-bound Ryans here in her age group. Millennial and Gen Z Ryans, with some Gen X Ryans, dominate the crowd. According to the Social Security Administration’s database, there isn’t even a blip on their Ryan radar until the 1940s, when the name first cracked their list of the annual top 1,000 baby names. Ryan remained ranked in the triple digits for decades until Ryans ran rampant in the mid-1970s. Ryan peaked in 1991 as the 11th-most-popular name for boys, when 27,534 Ryans were born in the United States. From 1976 through 2009, Ryans rooted themselves in the top 20. Then the Ryan rung of the registry rusted over. In 2024, only 3,892 boy Ryans were birthed, ranking 87th in popularity. They were joined by 399 girl Ryans, rated only 702nd on the female moniker mountain.

“Maybe that’s why we are all so eager to find each other and stick together,” surmised one of the 477 girl Ryans born in 1998, having arrived at the Ryan Meetup from Colorado Springs. “They might call Ryan a dying breed, but clearly, we are very much alive. And maybe we will inspire people to do the right thing and bring more Ryans into this world. By pregnancy or paperwork.”

Ah yes, that paperwork. She and the other Ryans are all buzzing about the one guy who accepted the Ryan Meetup offer to convert him into one of them. To another round of “Ry-an! Ry-an!” encouragement, he held up the name change form he had just filled out, ready to be taken to a local judge. His given name was Payton Thatcher. But here, only 2½ miles from where Peyton Manning once led the Broncos to a Super Bowl championship season, this Denver-living Payton has started the process of changing his name to Ryan. Why? On the line of the form that says: “I am requesting a name change for the following reason(s)” the newest Ryan simply wrote “Because Ryans are awesome.”

As the Ryan Revue marches its way to the front steps of Coors Field, they are greeted by one of the six Ryans who work in the Rockies’ front office. He is there to escort a group of them to the field for the ceremonial first pitch, where they will be joined by Ryan Harris, one of the offensive linemen who blocked for Manning during that Super Bowl run.

It was those Ryans on the Rockies staff who reached out to the Ryan Meetup after spotting their efforts on social media. Said Cousins: “We had done a Ryan Meetup at a Boston Red Sox game and had a decent number, but it’s hard to get a lot of Red Sox tickets. The Rockies don’t have that problem, currently.”

That’s what happens when it’s late June and you are a franchise that is losing ball games at a historically terrible rate. The kind of season where a big league club is looking for any sort of spark to get its ballpark cranking and save its sinking ship before it hits the bottom of the South Platte River.

Rockies Ryan watches the Ryans take a photo in front of the ballpark and then announces, “Ryan, come with me!” And they do.

It is now 6:30 p.m. and the five sections located in the lower-level center-field section of Coors Field are reverberating with the roar of Ryans. Two of those sections are almost exclusively Ryan’d. The Ryans get revved up when the Diamondbacks relievers walk across the outfield to the bullpen and Ryan Thompson gives them a point. They are whipped into a full Ryan ruckus when on the 8,369-square-foot Rockies Vision scoreboard, the massive face of former Colorado outfielder Ryan Spilborghs appears like the Wizard of Oz, points down into the Ryan sections and leads them in a “Ry-an! Ry-an!” cheer. There are so many Ryan Meetup white T-shirts in center field that one Ryan wonders aloud if it might keep the hitters standing 415 feet way from being able to clearly see pitches. Then he adds, “But I don’t really care as long as the two Ryans who will be hitting can see. I’m not sure how I will react when they are at bat.”

Ryan’s and the Ryans’ reaction comes precisely 30 minutes later, when Ryan McMahon’s name is announced and the 6-foot-2 third baseman, whose 11 homers have been one of the lone bright spots during this dismal season, approaches the plate. The Ryans lose their collective “Ry-an! Ry-an! Ry-an!” mind. When he starts with a 1-0 count but then strikes out on three straight pitches, they give a polite “You’ll get ’em next time” clap. Then, as they sit down, a Ryan among them shouts, “That umpire must be a Bryan!” They are cheering again.

(Side note: Unless you are a Ryan, you can’t possibly understand the animosity toward Bryan. Why? Imagine being called the wrong name on a weekly, if not daily, basis. For Ryans, the Bryan confusion makes for so many long first days of school, so many misspelled coffee shop cups, even diplomas and driver licenses that have to be sent back. Is it a bit much to serve a F*ck Brian Belgian White Ale as they did at the brewery on this day? Probably. But now maybe you understand where it comes from.)

One inning later, Ryan Ritter’s name booms from the same scoreboard that has spent every between-inning break showing the in-stadium contests, every participant being a Ryan plucked from the meetup. The rookie is barely two weeks removed from making his big league debut. He has yet to record an extra-base hit.

Until now.

When Ryan Ritter slides into second with a double, he turns and points toward the Ryans in center field. As the Ryans dance and scream and hug, Ryan Cousins finally reveals to the Ryans around him that the Rockies Ryan he had been DM’ing with all day was the one now standing on second. Five pitches later, Ritter is crossing home plate for Colorado’s first run of the night.

It is now 7:30 p.m. and Ryan McMahon is back at the plate. It is the bottom of the fourth and the Rockies are trailing 6-1. What happens next is difficult to fully describe. McMahon shows patience as he takes a first-strike fastball and then lays off an 85 mph changeup out of the zone from Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen. Then, another changeup. It is also 85 mph but most definitely in the strike zone. At least it was. Moments later it lands in the right-field stands, 467 feet away, Ryan McMahon’s 12th home run of the season.

A Ryan and his Ryan-loving wife, dressed in Denver Nuggets and Rockies jerseys with “Realtor Ryan” sewn onto the shoulders, kiss. A Ryan in a 1986 Nolan Ryan jersey high-fives a woman holding a sign that says “Ryan, Call Me” complete with her phone number. A kid Ryan in a Ryan Meetup T-shirt is crying. Pretty sure the grown-up Ryan next to him accidentally stepped on his toes. He is also crying.

“It was so cool, man,” McMahon would say later. “They were loud. They were rowdy. It was good energy. So, it was cool.” And are the Ryans the reason you went yard, Ryan? “It sure didn’t hurt. Whenever the Ryans want to come back, let them know that this Ryan is all for it.”

So is Ritter, who wound up 2-4 and accounted for three of the Rockies’ runs, with two of his own and an RBI.

“Yeah, it was me they were DM’ing on Instagram,” the Ryan wearing No. 8 confessed later that night. “They were acknowledging me, McMahon, Rolison, it was fun.”

It is 9:30 p.m. and perhaps there has been a little too much fun. The last Ryans standing have found their way to Section 160. Few are actually standing. The usher has given up trying to check and see if everyone is in their correct seats, having picked up a “Hello my name is … Ryan” name tag and stuck it just above his official stadium name tag that reads Deandre. The R-Y-A-N boys are once again standing in NAYR formation, the black body paint now sweat-smeared into more of a M-A-V-P. At least three Ryans are asleep. An award has been given to a South Florida Ryan, determined to be the Ryan who traveled the farthest to be with other Ryans. A baseball is being passed from Ryan to Ryan, who handle it with reverence as if it were fine gemstone delivered by Ryan Diamonds (that’s a real place in Los Angeles). It is the ball Ryan McMahon deposited in the stands, retrieved by a Ryan Meetup member who offered the person who caught it $40 and a free beer.

The last burst of Ryan rowdiness rolled through Coors Field a half-hour earlier. That’s when a Ryan ran down to the front row of the meetup sections and announced, “Hey Ryan, it’s time for a Congo line!” Ryan, of course, meant a conga line. And after that line of Ryans had completed a “Let’s go Ry-an!” lap of the stadium, many Ryans went not so quietly into the good Colorado night.

By the time the game ended with, fittingly but cruelly, a Ryan McMahon strikeout, the final official tally of the Ryan Meetup had been rounded up and rounded off. The official Ryan count per Ryan Cousins was 481, based on tickets sold to Ryans. But Rockies estimates were higher, in the 700 range. It wasn’t enough to break the record for same-name gatherings. That still apparently belongs to a group of 2,325 Ivans who amassed in 2017. But until someone of a non-Ryan name can prove otherwise, the Ryan Meetup is claiming the mark for its original goal, the most to pack a singular sporting event. Until they do it again.

It is 10:30 p.m. and the Ryan Meetup core planning group is back at the bar where it started eight hours earlier … plus one. Ryan Ritter is now among them and the shortstop has traded in his Rockies jersey for a white Ryan Meetup T-shirt. The next evening, Ryan McMahon will take pregame warmups while wearing his.

There are laughs. There are smiles. There are a few more “Ry-an! Ry-an!” chants and a few more F*ck Brian beers consumed. Because another goal has also been reached. It’s the problem that Ryan Rose went searching to solve three years ago. She wanted to find some friends. Now Ryan — and all these other Ryans — have more friends than they can accurately count.

“Here we are, in this time where everyone and everything seems to be working to divide us,” a local Denver Ryan said during the game, identifying himself as a psychologist. Dr. Ryan, like dozens of other Ryans, had come from his seats elsewhere in Coors Field to see if as a Ryan he might get in on this Ryan-ing. “Here’s a bunch of people from all over, probably from very different backgrounds and political views, and they have found the simplest common ground to make them forget all of the things that might normally prevent them from being together like this.”

“I mean it when I say the Ryan Meetup has changed my life,” explains Ryan Fisher of South Florida, a member of the committee. “A year or so ago, I was struggling to find my identity. As we get older, it’s hard to meet new people and make new friends and make new friend groups … and this is the most random thing that just has been the coolest thing. When I talk to people about it, they often tell me how they can hear the joy in my voice. And that means a lot to me.”

Thank you, Ryan.

“No, thank you, Ryan.”