veteran offensive lineman Brian Baldinger. And 15 years later, we’re still friends.
My yoga inspirer and former broadcast partner at Sporting News Radio, Brian Baldinger insisted that we crash at the “Casa di Baldi,” just outside of Philadelphia on Day 5 after we escaped The Bronx and Yankee Stadium.
Free booze, a bed in the honeymoon suite (or what we called “Baldy’s Basement”) and hanging out with one of my favorite dudes who travels the world was a nice diversion – even though we didn’t get any sleep.
Instead, we went to bed at 2 a.m. and would up awake at 5 a.m. and on the set for Philadelphia and Comcast Sports Net television at 7 a.m.
And we wound up swabbing a ton of people due to the generosity and partnership of the folks at Cordish and Powerplant Live, who allowed us to swab at XFinity Live before the Orioles played the Phillies. We had an amazing crowd!
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On the last day of the tour – after eating my way across the West Coast and through the midwest – we made our way to Cleveland. Needless to say, I told Browns head coach Mike Pettine that I saved the best for last.
(He knew I didn’t mean that.)
No one in Major League Baseball treated us better than the Cleveland Indians. Everything was streamlined from Baltimorean and Gilman grad Mark Shapiro, who recently left the Tribe to take over the Blue Jays in Toronto.
The Indians family felt the sting of cancer and leukemia this spring when utility man Mike Aviles learned his 4-year-old daughter Adriana was diagnosed with A.L.L. on May 8th. Our visit came on July 13th and the Indians openly encouraged all of their employees and ballpark workers to stop by our station and we had a steady line all afternoon at Progressive Field. We literally ran out of swabs and forms on the final day of our tour.
At Progressive Field (I still call it “The Jake”) we were joined by Browns head coach Mike Pettine – another one of my favorite people in sports – who greeted Indians fans and implored them to get on the list.
When he was the linebackers coach and defensive assistant for Rex Ryan, Pettine would routinely watch film after hours with me and my staff to better educate us about football and some keys to learning more about the game. He’s a true teacher.
8Clearly, he’s a special guy.
He left his vacation home to return to Cleveland for the day to visit with the ailing spouse of a coach on his staff and to be with Jenn and I at the Indians game. And, like Tomlin, Pettine really loves baseball.
A Philadelphia guy, he loves every moment of telling you the story of the Phillies winning the World Series and how he escaped the Jets complex to attend some of the games during their march.
Back when we were younger men, we used to talk football together publicly. He once had a chalk talk with video at Piv’s Pub with us in 2006:
Two guys who love football at a baseball game.
All because of sports, friendship and cancer.
This was the final picture from the 30-30 #MLB Tour. Just the way I drew it up…
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Along our journey we met many survivors, donors, swabbers, healers, handlers and helpers.
Although he doesn’t consider himself
