Family ties that bind

Davis Schneider's childhood dreams came true with the Jays. An important piece of his improbable story is missing

- BRAYDON HOLMYARD

Davis Schneider used to fall asleep with the Green Monster in his room.

A mural of the iconic, 37-foot tall left-field wall at Fenway Park in Boston was painted by his father across from the bunk beds and beside the window of the baseball-themed bedroom he shared with his older brother, Steven.

While the rest of the Schneider household loved the Phillies - their home in Berlin, N.J., was just a half-hour drive from Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia - Steven was a Red Sox fan whose favourite players were Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz.

For Schneider, getting the call to the big leagues last August after improbably climbing up the organizational ranks seven years after being drafted in the 28th round was a dream of its own.

But when his debut came at the historic park in Boston he grew up dreaming beside and he hit a home run that soared over the Green Monster in his first career at-bat with his family and friends crying tears of joy in the stands, it was as if everything from his childhood had come full circle.

Only the piece at the centre of it all was missing.

Schneider and his brother Steven shared a room for a long time. There were five years between them, but that didn't stop the duo from doing everything together.

"We never really fought or anything," Schneider tells the Star. "He always protected me, he never bullied me or anything like that."

Schneider hung out with his big brother's friends from the time he was five years old until eventually they became his lifelong circle of friends, too. The family still talks about the time Steven walked into Davis's kindergarten room, grabbed his little brother by the hand and proudly took him back to his own Grade 5 class for show-and-tell.