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Brotherhood, Baseball, Peanuts And Cracker Jacks...Well, Maybe No Peanuts

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 14, 2008

BOSTON - The most tender moment of this ALCS nearly went unnoticed.

It didn't even happen during Game 3 on Monday at Fenway.

That's not to say something didn't happen in Game 3, because a lot of things did, a lot of good things for the Rays. And late in the game, Rocco Baldelli hit a three-run homer in the Rays' jamboree win over the Red Sox.

"I guess that's as full circle as you can get," Rocco said.

After all he has been through, the mysterious illness, the endless layoff, to hit one over the Green Monster in a playoff game just 45 minutes from home In Cumberland, R.I., in front of all that family.

"When he hit it, I yelled 'Go out, go out,' " Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "This is one of the great comeback stories."

Go out. Go out.

It's been like that for the people who care about Rocco Baldelli. It was that way when they tried to keep him involved in this worst-to-first miracle, even though he knew he wasn't. It was there when in Seattle in early August, when Baldelli returned to the field after missing 240 games.

"When I saw him come out and play in Safeco, it was awesome," said Rays pitcher Andy Sonnanstine, who started Game 4 Tuesday. "It was like watching a son go out and play, everything he's been through and dealt with. It's amazing."

But the most tender moment?

It took place more a few hours before Game 3.

That was when Rocco Baldelli got his 10-year-old brother Dante on the field at Fenway.

They walked to the outfield together and shagged fly balls.

"That's not something he's been able to do before," Rocco said. "To be able to do it at Fenway, and with the playoffs going on, I think it's something he'll remember."

It's like Rocco once said: "He's my little guy."

When Game 3 started, Dante sat near the top of Section 22 at Fenway, in the back row. His mom and dad asked the people sitting in back of them and in front if they'd refrain from eating peanuts. The people in the next section over they couldn't ask, so they kept Dante in the middle. He wore batting gloves and was all bundled up, so he wouldn't touch anything with peanuts.

He's allergic.

"Allergy isn't the right word," Dan Baldelli said of his youngest son's allergy. Dante nearly died when he was a year and a half old when his dad, not knowing, gave him a little bit of English muffin with peanut butter on it.

"Any contact, he's in serious trouble," Dan said. "If he ingests a peanut, or touches a peanut, or even smells a peanut."

Dante has been to only a handful of his big brother's major-league games. He has visited the Trop a few times, but watched from private boxes.

The irony is so cruel.

A brother who's a ballplayer — and he's allergic to a ballpark staple.

Dante plays Little League. Dan coaches him. He tells all the kids' parents not to have them eat peanut butter before games, because they use the same bats and other equipment. When kids come to the door at the Baldelli home to ask if Dante can come out and play, he asks if they have eaten peanut butter that day. If they have, they have to go home and scrub their hands and face, then come back.

Dante's hero is his big brother the baseball star.

His hero is Rocco.

And then his hero got sick, too.

For months, Rocco didn't know what it was.

Rocco and his dad would sit and talk, and sometimes they'd cry.

They had no idea what it was. But Dan remembers one day when Rocco turned to him and announced, "They can't kill me."

Rocco kept smiling. He kept smiling after the doctors, after all the tests, found the villain: mitochondrial disorder, a condition that slows muscle recovery and causes fatigue. Rocco always kept smiling, even when he was dying inside, maybe because he knew he wasn't dying, and because he knew what other people have gone through, things a lot worse, things like Dante lives with — and their folks.

"Difficult?" Dan said. "You live your life every day wondering who is going to kill your kid accidentally. People have no idea."

And it doesn't matter which kid, or what's wrong with them.

It went for Rocco, too.

Dan said, "It's that as a parent all you ever worry about is your kids for the rest of their lives. You got to take care of them, in your mind and your heart."

He talked about his 27-year-old boy.

"A father always wants his son to be better than he is, and I don't just mean sports, but total, the whole package. That's Rocco. His character, his fortitude. He never says die, he never gives up."

Rocco Baldelli stood in the Rays clubhouse late Monday night. He had one hand on the knob of the bat he used for the home run. He won't use it again. "It's going somewhere, my parents' house, maybe mine," he said.

He thought about the road to Game 3.

"I try to keep a smile on my face, no matter what I'm going through. Once you go through something like this, it puts things in perspective. You start to wonder what's rally important in my life. It's mor important to be happy and have a smile on your face. Don't think about what you're not getting, think about what you have."

He left 10 tickets for family and friends for the game. His kid brother Nick went. Dante brought his best friend. And there was Rocco's best friend and Little League teammate growing up, Mihn Pham, who lived with the Baldellis after his mom died. And, of course, there was the Baldelli family priest — Father Taillon, who was at Rocco's Catholic high school when he went there.

"He wore the collar and all," Dan Baldelli said. "Collar, prayer beads, and he made a bunch of signs of holy something for Rocco, said prayers for Rocco, and he made up a sign that said TBS, for the network, and it read 'Total Baldelli Support.' "

Rocco Baldelli smiled.

"I think, everything combined, it's one of the more special moments of my baseball career. This is as probably as good as it gets, with my family and all my friends, with everything I've gone through health wise, to the team playing as well as it has, to being at Fenway where me and friends lived. Put it all together it's a very nice moment for me.

"I don't mind know if I'll ever get to the point where I can play every single day, it's OK with me. I don't mind doing what I'm doing right now. It's a great role, and it's helping me stay on the field."

Who knows what tomorrow holds.

"We really don't know, day to day, if it's going to be better or worse, or a lot worse," Dan said. "We don't know where he's going to be two years, three years from now. We only know where he is right now."

On the field for Game 3, with his little guy.

Dante wore a short that said 'Power Hitter."

"He wants to be a power hitter," Rocco said. "He probably won't quit until he is."

The homer sailed deep into the night, over the Green Monster.

"Good for him," Dan Baldelii said as the ball went out. "Good for him."

They met under the third base stands after the game.

There weren't a lot of words.

"I just hugged him and kissed him," Dan said.

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