PHOENIX – Before his appearances on Fox Sports, before his local radio show, before his disheveled hair drew shrill screams from girls, Eric Byrnes had his boys.
Remember his snapshot with the Rockies? Byrnes spent 15 games in Colorado in 2005, a layover before landing in Baltimore as part of the botched Kelly Shoppach trade. During his first and only road trip with the Rockies, Byrnes, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ closest thing to a superstar, was followed by four scraggly haired kids from Battle Creek, Mich.
The Byrnes’ Boys – Ryan Widemon, Brian Lucke, Lee Silvers and Alex Braner – tracked him from Cincinnati to Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh, impossible to miss with white T-shirts and silk-screen pictures of Byrnes on the front.
Byrnes took to them immediately, admiring their hard-core attitude. He paid for their hotel in Pittsburgh after hearing that they were sleeping in a 1998 Chevy Lumina.
Two years later, the story has come full circle, with two of the boys (Lucke and Silvers) attending Arizona State and a third (Widemon) in junior college in the area. On Monday, Widemon ran into Byrnes at a Diamondbacks pep rally, their conversation a reminder of why the Arizona outfielder’s fans are so deeply loyal to this human caffeinated beverage.
“He talked to Ryan just like a friend. That’s the thing about Eric. It’s gotten crazy with all the attention he gets now. He’s a star,” Lucke said. “But he’s always treated us the same despite how unbelievably successful he’s become.”
The Byrnes’ Boys worshipped the outfielder for his hard-charging style and frequent appearance on ESPN’s Web Gems. They recently presented Byrnes with a colorful skateboard deck with pictures of their travel escapades. It sits in his locker at Chase Field.
“You have to understand these aren’t guys jumping on the bandwagon. They were there before there was even a wagon,” Byrnes said. “It’s really cool what they have done.”
