Kansas University second baseman Ryne Price’s first name has deep baseball roots, even deeper than he realized.

Price was named after Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg, a naming that made a prophet out of his father, KU baseball coach Ritch Price.

The father must have known the son was going to play second base, right?

“I think he just liked the way Ryne Sandberg played,” Ryne Price said. “I used to be a catcher. That is kind of interesting how that worked out, though.”

Ryne Price was not aware that Sandberg was named after former 100 mph flame-thrower Ryne Duren, who was even wilder off the mound than on it. Duren was the inspiration for movie character Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn from the movie “Major League.”

Duren, 77, pitched for seven different major-league teams, most notably for the Yankees of Mickey Mantle. Duren’s second career centers on lecturing on alcohol abuse to young athletes.

In his second book, “I Can See Clearly Now,” written with Tom Sabellico, Duren writes of how alcohol nearly ended his life on numerous occasions and did end his marriage after he fell asleep smoking and nearly burned the house down.

Talking to a reporter once in the Yankee Stadium dugout, Duren said he walked into the ocean with weights tied to him so that he could commit suicide, but aborted the attempt because, “I wanted a drink so badly I decided I had to do that before killing myself.”

Duren, an All-Star and World Series pitcher, wore thick glasses during his playing career and made sure to throw a couple of his warmup tosses onto the backstop to plant fear in hitters. In his final of three full seasons with the Yankees, Duren pitched 49 innings, walked 49 batters, struck out 67 and allowed just 27 hits.

Sandberg said he was named after Duren because his mother was a big fan of the pitcher.

¢ KU’s coach was delighted to be heading to Corvallis for personal and professional reasons.

“I’m pretty excited,” Price said of going back to his native state. “My dad is actually buried in Corvallis, so it’s going to be pretty emotional there. I’m going to go by the gravesite. I’ve only been there once in the past two years, when I was recruiting.”

Price and his wife, Cindy, have family members who will attend the games.

“My mom’s coming from Idaho,” he said. “My brother’s coming from Idaho. My wife’s parents and her brothers are coming. From that standpoint, it will really be a great experience.”

Professionally, Price called it the highlight of his career.

“It’s the greatest feeling of my life, next to getting married,” he said. “I’ve won state championships at the high school level, the American Legion level, stuff like that. And I’ve won regionals at the junior-college level, but every level you move up it’s harder to do. Then to win one of the best three conferences in America is a tremendous accomplishment for our guys, especially when you’re the underdog and you’re from a cold-weather state and you’re not supposed to do that. It’s a great source of pride. I think it will help take us to completely the next level with recruiting. You can come to Kansas, you can play in the Big 12 championship game, and you can go to the NCAA Tournament. That’s every kid’s dream.”

¢ Junior right-hander Ryotaro Hayakawa will return to his first college campus. Before enrolling at Kansas for his freshman season, the native of Narita, Japan, attended summer school for two months at Oregon State.

“I already knew I was coming to KU,” said Hayakawa, a walk-on. “I wanted to take summer school at another school so I could see a different part of the country. My father had a friend at Oregon State, so my father found me Oregon State and told me to have a good time in Corvallis. I took English school for international people. I didn’t speak to any baseball players. Corvallis is a pretty nice town, a college town like Lawrence. People are nice. The weather is gorgeous.”