Got Your Back, Bro

What looked to be a study in sibling rivalry-brothers bumping each other off the same major league roster, back and forth-has become something even more interesting. Now that Jered Weaver is enjoying a history-making rookie season with the Los Angeles Angels and older brother Jeff is struggling for the St. Louis Cardinals, there is additionally the matter of birth order to reconsider. Not only that. This, really, is a seminar on all kinds of family dynamics. Just what does it mean to be a kid brother these days? What is the role of competition among children? Who loved whom best?

Also: What the hell is Jered throwing out there?

This last topic is the more pressing, certainly the more mysterious. Ever since he knocked Jeff out of the rotation and clean into St. Louis (the story line going from Brothers in Arms to O Brother, Where Art Thou? as soon as the switch was made in June), Jered has been a frustrating puzzle for American League batters. When he helped shut out the Seattle Mariners on Aug. 18 to improve to 9-0 and equal Whitey Ford's 56-year-old record for best career start among American Leaguers (Hooks Wiltse went 12-0 out of the box for the 1904 New York Giants-there's your major league mark), the 23-year-old lowered his ERA under 2.00 and boosted his reputation for unflappability. With runners on the corners, no outs in the seventh and 44,072 people on their feet at Angel Stadium, he mowed down the Mariners-throwing curves on 3-and-2 counts! He cannot be flapped.

"Now," he said after the game, laconic in the way required of any shaggy-haired dude raised in the vast valley north of Los Angeles, "I've got to start thinking about how to get that 10th win."

Jered's success-whether it's a once-around-the-league novelty act or the breakthrough of an honest-to-God talent (box, page 85)-has, for the moment, eclipsed the remarkable circumstances of his ascension. It is not often that a player is shuttled to the minors (after winning his first four big league starts, no less) to preserve his older brother's spot in the rotation, or that the younger brother then returns, five weeks later, to usurp the older brother's position, ultimately exiling him to a different league. It was a delicious situation, for anybody not named Weaver. "It was rather unique," admits Gail Weaver, the boys' mother, who was set to enjoy some one-stop parenting in Anaheim, only to end up having to suffer an awkward moment or two when her sons' careers started interfering with each other.

In fact, it was never that awkward, or not as awkward as it should have been. Jered, a prized prospect out of Long Beach State, was supposed to be cooling his heels on the farm this year, making up for the time he lost in a lengthy contract holdout that was finally resolved in May 2005. It didn't occur to the Angels that there'd be any roster confusion when, last February, they signed Jeff to a one-year, $8.3 million deal. It did occur to Jeff, who'd just had two middling seasons with the crosstown Dodgers, that his presence could complicate conversation at the dinner table when everybody got together again, and he was quick to clear it with little bro. "I knew that he was going to have a chance to be in the rotation this year at some time," says Jeff. "I didn't really want to step on his toes."

He called Jered, who, of course, was all for it. "That'd be awesome!" the younger Weaver replied, thinking of the possibility of finally playing on the same team with his big brother, his idol all those years. Through most of their lives the six-year age difference had been substantial enough that they'd never really gotten to know each other. "I mean, he's 16, I'm 10," Jered explains. "He's going to take me in the car?"

Says Jeff, "[My buddies and I] were too cool for that-couldn't have the little brother around." When their relationship wasn't based on distance, it was based on intimidation. "I would always have to throw my weight around," Jeff says. "Always wrestling around, trying to show him who's boss."

Moreover, they had little in common, not until Jeff blossomed into a dominant pitcher at Fresno State. He was a late bloomer, making the team as a walk-on (he pitched fewer than 30 innings in high school in Simi Valley), while Jered was more precocious (although he was originally a catcher in high school). "Thank God we started having some similar interests," says Jeff. "Totally."

Once Jeff made it in the major leagues, beginning with the Detroit Tigers in 1999, followed by a season-and-a-half stint with the Yankees in New York, Jered became a more welcome tagalong, visiting him for a week at a time, hanging out at Yankee Stadium, shagging batting practice. They even went on vacations together, spending eight days in the Bahamas, their age difference dissolving in their mutual devotion to baseball. And now that they might have a chance to play on the same team, well, that really would be awesome.