Mark Leiter Jr. reaches the majors 23 years after his younger brother’s death

The young mother sat in a room at the Jolly Roger hotel in Anaheim, thousands of miles from home. Her infant son had just passed away, in her arms. Her husband, a pitcher for the Angels, was aboard a flight to Minnesota for the season opener.

There were tears to be shed, calls to be placed, arrangements to be made. There was another son to care for.

Mark Leiter Jr. was 3. His brother Ryan had endured almost all of his nine months on Earth fighting a spinal muscular atrophy, a disease that strikes children with particular ferocity. By the end, Ryan could not lift his head, move his hands or breathe without an oxygen tank.

Ryan could smile. Mark Leiter got a smile from him in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot before he boarded that flight. As soon as the Angels landed, he learned Ryan had died and flew right back to California.

That left about seven hours for Allison Leiter to mourn without her husband, and to plan. There was a knock on the hotel door, with one of the Angels’ clubhouse attendants delivering Ryan’s christening outfit. Mark had kept it in his locker; Ryan would be buried in it.

There was another knock too, from Tim Mead, then the Angels’ assistant general manager. He had come over to play games with Mark Jr., to share toys, to give Allison some space and support.

“Mark was so good for his mom,” Mead said. “He knew. He was protective.

“One time, he just said, ‘Ryan’s sleeping.’ ”

Mead, now the Angels’ vice president of communications, has embraced thousands of players and their families during his four decades with the team. He had no idea that the 3-year-old kid he hugged on that tragic day in 1994 just got called up to the major leagues.

“Oh, my Lord,” Mead said.

Mark Leiter Jr. is 26 now, a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. As he stood at his locker at Dodger Stadium last week, he said most of the memories of his brother come from pictures and movies.

“I was so young, I don’t remember all of it,” he said. “I still feel the emotion that comes with it, the pain of losing my brother.”

In the wake of losing his son, Mark threw his regular bullpen session at Anaheim Stadium, then stunned some of his teammates by flying to Milwaukee so he would not miss a turn.

“I would have been done for the year,” Chuck Finley said.

Today, players can go on a bereavement list, essentially taking a leave of absence. That list did not exist in 1994, but Mark Jr. said he did not believe his father would have used it. (Mark politely declined comment for this story. He and his wife since have divorced.)

“The way we are,” Mark Jr. said, “the one place that is your happy zone, your happy place, whatever you want to call it, is when you’re pitching. It’s something that we love. It’s what we’re most comfortable doing.”

In that first start, five days after his son died, with his wife and Mark Jr. in attendance, Mark gave up two runs in six innings. The Angels won each of Leiter’s first three starts. They lost his fourth, 11-1, at Yankee Stadium.

“It was about a thousand degrees,” Finley said. “He was out there just taking one for the team. I looked over at him and he was just sweating. He had smoke coming off him, from all the heat and humidity.

“And he said, ‘God, I’m getting my ass lit, but isn’t this fun?’ ”

Mark pitched 11 years in the major leagues. His brother Al – Mark Jr.’s uncle – pitched 19 years in the majors.

Genetics conferred no great advantage upon Mark Jr., a 22^nd-round draft pick, a short right-hander with a below-average fastball. But, after three years of starting at Class A and two at double A, the Phillies moved him to the bullpen at triple A this year, then called him up after two games.

He feels as if he is pitching for his brother. Yet he is not dedicating his career to his brother, or writing Ryan’s name on his cap, or finding some other gesture of remembrance.

“I lived it, unfortunately,” he said. “I didn’t get to grow up with my brother.

“The reality is, he would have lived a very, very uncomfortable life with the disease that he had. When I think about him, I think about him as being healthy. The truth is, he wouldn’t have been healthy. I’m happy my brain has viewed it that way, even though the reality would have been he would have been very sick, and struggling every day.

“He’s in a better place, for sure.”

The Phillies called up Mark Jr. on April 18. His father followed the Phillies to New York for a three-game series, then back to Philadelphia for a six-game homestand.

Mark Jr. did not pitch in any of those games. His father bid him farewell as the Phillies headed across the country. So, of course, he made his major league debut in the Phillies’ very next game, the series opener at Dodger Stadium.

It would be sad to say that Mark Leiter Jr. made his debut with no one from his family watching. It also would be wrong, because his baby brother was looking down on him.

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

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