He was on crutches, barely ambulatory and just back from Pensacola, Fla., where Dr. James Andrews had performed arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. So when Stephen Tulloch saw his publicist, Sherrie Handrinos, at his door one Wednesday in May, his first instinct was to shoo her away.
Handrinos picked up Tulloch from the airport a day earlier, and on the way home they talked about the upcoming charity softball tournament he was hosting with Lions teammate Nate Burleson.
The city of Dearborn, where the tournament was being held, had reached out and wondered: Would it be possible for a boy suffering from a rare form of brain cancer, 9-year-old Ryan Kennedy, to throw out the first pitch at the game?