Theirs is a road well-traveled

We know what you’re thinking: No more about Barry Bonds, please. After a week of debate by anagram -- is that baseball’s most storied record or baseball’s most steroid record? -- we ought to start this week with a feel-good story.

So let us introduce you to Colin and Kyle O’Grady.

They’re brothers. Colin is 27, Kyle 22. They grew up in Irvine, rooting for the Angels, loving baseball, dreaming of the ultimate fan’s trip: one summer, one game in each major league stadium.

This was that summer. They jumped into Kyle’s car and hit the road, hundreds of miles each day, scores of granola bars along the way.

Wherever they went, they would show up somewhat scruffy, slightly smelly. They would sit in the stands, meet fans, make friends. They had their answer ready for the inevitable question: What are you guys up to?

This was not Colin and Kyle’s Excellent Adventure. This was not just about baseball, or brothers bonding.

“We could drive around the country and drink beer and eat hot dogs all summer long,” Colin said, “or we could do something.”

They thought of their father, a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, who reared the boys on stories of Roberto Clemente, the Hall of Fame outfielder who visited children’s hospitals wherever the Pirates played, who helped youth in his native Puerto Rico, who died in a 1972 plane crash en route to deliver earthquake relief supplies to Nicaragua.

They thought of their mother, who runs marathons to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They thought of their aunt, who died of lymphoma, and two aunts diagnosed with the cancer last year. They thought of two family friends diagnosed in their 20s. One survived, one died.

So the brothers turned their trip into a fundraiser on wheels, hoping to raise $30,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They thought up a catchy name for their journey: 30 Games for 30K. They set up a website: www.30gamesfor30k.com. They printed T-shirts and wore them in every ballpark.

What are you guys up to?

Check the T-shirt, listen to the pitch, maybe make a donation.

The biggest donations, they figured, would come from the teams. They wrote to every major league team. Most did not bother to write back. No team wrote a check.

The Florida Marlins and Houston Astros set up a booth along a ballpark walkway, so the brothers could solicit donations on the day they were in town. The Angels provided a John Lackey autographed ball for the brothers to auction. The Washington Nationals provided a Felipe Lopez autographed ball -- and generously estimated the value of the ball at $85.

The brothers were not disappointed or deterred. Every team, they reasoned, is deluged with charitable requests. No matter how worthy the cause, they understood, better to help the community in which the team plays than to help two guys from Irvine.

This effort would be grass-roots -- or turf roots, in the three domed stadiums. In Seattle, the brothers commiserated with a fan who had lost his grandfather to leukemia. In Baltimore, standing in line for beer, they met a fellow Angels fan who donated $20. In Houston, a man handed them $20 and said, quietly, “My little brother is in the hospital with leukemia.”

Said Colin: “It was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.”

At Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the brothers struck up a conversation with a man visiting from Alabama. The man excused himself to take a call on his cellphone, in which he learned a friend had been diagnosed with lymphoma.

“I could see his face drop,” Colin said.

The O’Grady boys came home Friday, finishing their trip at Angel Stadium. The final statistics: 54 days on the road -- seven nights in hotels, the rest on couches and air mattresses -- 16,800 miles on the car, $5,200 in expenses.

They saw their share of incredible baseball moments: In Baltimore, Vladimir Guerrero threw out Melvin Mora at the plate to end a game. In Cleveland, Ben Francisco hit a walk-off home run. In Seattle, Jeff Weaver threw a shutout. In Toronto, Casey Janssen slipped while making a pitch and threw the ball into the third base dugout.

Yet, the memories they will cherish most are the moments with fans, sitting in the stands, talking baseball, sharing their story. They did not raise $30,000. They did not raise even $10,000.

But, with donations of $10 here and $20 there, with no corporate sponsor or major league sanction, they did what they could, and proudly so. As Colin returns to the high school English class he teaches in Virginia, and as Kyle prepares for the admission test to law school, the brothers say they were touched by the generosity and sympathy of so many people, so many strangers turned friends.

And, in this summer of Bonds and steroids, Colin discovered the natural bonds, the stronger bonds, between a country and its national pastime.

“People kept asking, ‘What does baseball have to do with cancer?’ Baseball has everything to do with bringing people together,” Colin said. “There’s something about the fabric of America that baseball taps into, in a way no other sport can.

“This game is bigger than anything.”

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bill.shaikin@latimes.com