Think-Pink Week

The mother talks to the son before every start.

For 10 years, she has talked to him before every start.

It’s never deep, it’s never original, but it’s always Mom, and it always matters.

Donna Tomko says, “Have a good game, honey.”

So on April 7, on the phone to Philadelphia, she talked to her son, Brett, before his first Dodger start.

Only this time, it was different.

Earlier that day, she learned she had breast cancer. She would have to undergo surgery. There was a chance she would die.

There was so much to tell him. There was so much to ask him.

She needed his shoulder. She needed his savvy.

She came to the phone, dried her eyes and told him something only a mother would understand.

She told him nothing.

Even at her weakest, the mother carries the son.

Donna Tomko said, “Have a good game, honey.”

*

She has never stopped being her son’s team mom.

Donna didn’t tell Brett about her Stage 1 breast cancer until after he had defeated the Phillies.

“It was the hardest I’ve ever had to hold back tears in my life, but there was no way I was going to distract him from his game,” she said.

Donna didn’t schedule her cancer surgery until she had pulled out her Dodger pocket schedule and confirmed the dates of Brett’s starts.

“I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t miss a game because of me,” she said.

Donna then found some blue and white pajamas, because, well, on days he pitches, she always wears his team colors.

“I’m glad he’s no longer with the Giants; every fifth day was Halloween,” she said.

For the 33 years of Brett’s life, not to mention the dozen years of his pro career, his mother has been his cheerleader, his coach, his courage.

For six weeks of anxious moments coated in marvelous pitching, Brett has begun the impossible task of paying her back.

“For all these years, she has been the rock,” he said. “Finally, maybe, I can be the rock.”

He has rushed to her side with laughter, filled her phone with promise, worked the doctors for answers.

And now, on Mother’s Day, he is going to make a national statement for hope.

On a day when Major League Baseball is going to support the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation with special wristbands and ribbons and even bats, Brett Tomko is making sure of one thing:

The Dodgers will be pretty in pink.

He will pass out the pink wristbands that we’re guessing even macho Jeff Kent will wear.

“Usually I’m the kind of guy who stays in the background,” Tomko said. “But not this time.”

He will hope that at least one of the Dodgers will use a pink bat.

“If we can just get the message out to one person,” Tomko said.

Good thing he got the message to his mother.

Donna Tomko, 64, had not had a mammogram in years until sons Brett and Scott pushed her to get one during spring training.

Said Donna: “I was always afraid doctors would find something that would interrupt his baseball season, or my Christmas party, or something else in my life.”

Said Brett: “We finally wore her down.”

It was the best pitching job of his career.

*

You know the working mom who clatters into the youth league game in high heels and carrying juice boxes? That was Donna Tomko.

You know the mom who sits behind home plate in a lawn chair with food and smiles for everyone? That was Donna Tomko.

Growing up in Placentia, Brett was never far from a voice that he stills hears today.

“I always remember her encouraging me, every game, everywhere I went,” he said. “When she comes to my games now, even with all the people, I can still pick out that voice.”

As his youth league president, Donna once suspended Brett’s manager for one game for being too vocal.

It was his father, Jerry.

During another youth league season, when his orange-clad team was named the Huskies, she stuck an orange shirt on a neighborhood husky and brought him to the games.

Yeah, a youth league team with a live mascot.

“My mom was always doing things like that for me,” Brett said. “She was everywhere.”

She would drive home from her financial services job in Century City -- sometimes a two-hour commute -- just so he could hear that voice.

She once delayed a work transfer to Florida so she could spend the spring watching him pitch at a local community college.

When he turned pro, she followed his minor league games through obscure websites and small-town radio stations.

Once he made the big leagues, she watched every start on satellite or computer game tracker or the ESPN ticker.

“If we couldn’t get the games anywhere else, we would just stare at ESPN and wait for the score to come across the bottom of the screen,” Donna said. “If there was a long delay, we were worried he was getting shelled.”

She charted pitches on yellow legal pads that she would throw at the TV after bad plays. She would attend a handful of games each year wearing the team colors and shouting from the stands.

“I tell everyone around me right away that I’m the pitcher’s mom, so they understand how I act,” Donna said.

Blanketed by that sort of love, Brett never felt alone.

Until that April night when, after his Dodger debut in Philadelphia, his brother broke the news.

Brett walked back out to the empty dugout, stared at an empty field, and called home to hear his mother crying.

“She was always so strong, and to hear her so scared, it was hard to take,” he said.

The next day, alone in his hotel room, he found himself crying.

And then the next day, he went to work, seeking the best doctors, looking for every angle.

“Whatever it takes, I’m there,” he said.

In his first start after hearing the news, he gave up five runs in five innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Since then, after calming talks with Manager Grady Little and two visits to his parents’ San Diego home, he has given up six runs in 26 innings, raising his record to 4-1 with a 2.93 earned-run average.

In these worst of times, scouts say he is pitching as well as he ever has.

Said Tomko: “Now I understand pressure. And baseball isn’t pressure.”

Said Little: “We had a nice long talk about that. There are a lot more important things than this game.”

And so although Tomko pitched brilliantly in a Wednesday night victory against the Houston Astros, he was even happier Thursday.

That was the day doctors told his mother that she was cancer free; it was found early enough that it did not spread to the lymph nodes.

With seven weeks of radiation treatments, which will begin soon, the cancer should not return.

In the meantime, Donna Tomko has some baseball to watch, and some new dreams to dream.

Recently, Brett’s wife, Julia, handed Donna a wrapped gift.

It was a framed photo of a positive pregnancy test.

“I Love Grandma and Grandpa” read the inscription.

Donna’s first grandchild, due in January.

Said Donna: “My first thought was, ‘I’ve got to live, I’ve got to live.’ ”

Said Brett: “She’ll be here. That’s my mom.”

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.