Tigers' Inge develops bond with pediatric patients

Detroit Tigers All-Star Brandon Inge has dedicated two recent homers to pediatric patients he knows at Mott Children's Hospital.

And now, they're making requests.

"Can you try to hit a home run?" 11-year-old Jonelle Bailey asked Inge on Wednesday afternoon from her hospital bed during his latest visit.

"I'll try," Inge said, looking back with a smile.

The hospital at the University of Michigan proclaimed Sept. 2 as "Brandon and Shani Inge Day." The couple has given a lot of their time and some of their money to help fund a $750 million, 1.1 million square-foot hospital for women and children.

There's a push to raise the final $23 million before the facility with one 12-story tower and another nine floors high opens in 2012, prompting Inge to go public with his off-the-field work.

"That's the only way I look at it," Inge said. "My wife and I don't do any of this for the publicity."

Inge's passion was seen publicly Friday when he broke down in the dugout after hitting a home run with the name "NOAH" scrawled on his arm after visiting a 5-year-old boy with terminal cancer.

"That hadn't happened before," Inge said. "If anyone put in my situation didn't show any emotion there, they probably didn't have a pulse."

The ailing boy, though, could not join Inge in a parade of kids, some of whom were in wheelchairs, in a courtyard outside the hospital.

"Noah's not here. He's at home," Inge said quietly. "I talked to him, actually, yesterday."

The other patient who saw Inge hit a homer with his name on his arm was Tommy Schomaker. The youngster was sporting a Tigers' jersey - No. 15, Inge on the back, of course - and a miniature baseball bat on a sunsplashed Wednesday with other patients and his famous friend.

With Schomaker's plastic bat tilted toward Inge, mimicking his stance, the 8-year-old boy cracked a whiffle ball off one of many pitches Inge threw to a line of children.

On June 23, Inge visited Schomaker while he was recovering from heart-transplant surgery. That night, with Tommy scrawled on his arm with a black marker, Inge hit a homer.

"I got out of bed and jumped up and down," the boy recalled. "It was cool."

His father said there wasn't a dry eye in the hospital room at that moment.

"Disney couldn't have written a better script," recalled Mike Schomaker of Rochester Hills, Mich. "And if Disney had, it would've been too hokey for anybody to believe it.

"They went through the story (on TV) and the nurse's station was clapping when Tommy got announced on the screen. Kids were coming into the room with IVs, `Tommy, did you see your name? You're on TV! You're on TV!' Then in the seventh inning, down 2-1 with one man on, Brandon hit a home run."

Inge doesn't have a name scrawled in marker on his arm every game. He does have Tyler on one forearm and Chase on the other - tattoos of his sons' names, put there after the Tommy-inspired homer.

"I told them, `Since I'm having all of these kids sign my arm at the hospital I'll go ahead and get your names on my arms permanently,'" Inge said.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland has lauded the toughness Inge has had this season, playing consistently despite having injured knees - including one with a torn patella tendon.

"This is tough," Inge said before visiting patients who were unable to go outside for the festivities. "Nothing baseball-related is tough."

---

On the Net:

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital: http://www.mottchildrenshospital.org/