The screaming-pink backpack isn't Hello Kitty, but rather more along the lines of Welcome to the Majors, Rook. Inside the satchel strapped to his wide back as an indoctrination, he totes to the bullpen whatever waters, sunflower seeds, bubble gums and other nightly necessities his Pirates mates require. If that's the light load he must carry "the rest of my life to be in the big leagues," he says, "I'll be happy with that."

Donald Tyrone Veal II is accustomed to shouldering burdens and trudging onward.

He lost his mother to stomach cancer when he was trying to start a college career.

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Today

• Game: Pirates vs. St. Louis Cardinals, 7:05 p.m., PNC Park.

• TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WPGB-FM (104.7).

• Pitching: LHP Zach Duke (3-3, 2.79) vs. RHP Todd Wellemeyer (3-2, 4.75).

• Key matchup: St. Louis star Albert Pujols has a career .500 average vs. Duke, including going 4 for 6 with a home run in two meetings this season.

• Of note: The Pirates' bullpen has struck out 66 and walked 53, the smallest gap between strikeouts and walks in Major League Baseball.

---

He lost his father to a heart attack when he was concluding his first Class AA year with the Chicago Cubs.

He became a father figure to his baby brother, Devin, four years younger.

He became a father almost one year to the day of the death of his own dad.

Six weeks after the birth of son Darion Veal, Donnie, a hard-throwing left-hander known as Junior to friends, was plucked by the Pirates in the Rule 5 draft. The backpack that his little brother notices on television? The rare relief appearance once every fortnight as on-the-job training? Those are welcome, even wondrous, events for a 24-year-old who is concurrently a son without a mother and father to turn to, an immeasurable big brother -- beyond his 6 feet 4, 230 pounds -- and a new parent.

"It's a tragedy when you lose both parents like that, in such a short time span. To lose one is hard enough. Then you lose both ..." said Karen Workman, best friends with their late mother and an anchor still to Donnie and Devin Veal. "They've made it. They've made it through the roughest part."

"Not only is he in a career that demands a lot of time and effort and being away from his brother ..." began Donnie's former baseball coach, Bill Wright, from Buena High in Sierra Vista, Ariz., near the Mexico border. "Donald is not one to back away from anything. I imagine that's got to weigh pretty heavy on him."

"I know for me, with coming to the yard and focusing on pitching and trying to get better," Donnie Veal added, "it takes my mind as far from that as possible."

His journey began in the desert.

After spending the first half-dozen years of his life in Mississippi, Veal and his family moved to the Arizona outpost known mostly for the Fort Huachuca military base that employed his mother, Tanya. The father, Donald Sr., worked with the local power company, the Sulphur Springs Valley Electrical Cooperative. Faith, family and athletics were their touchstones.

Tanya was a stocky woman, nicknamed Tonka, who stressed education, dreamed of her boys becoming men and coached basketball -- the family is, after all, distantly related to former Phoenix Suns star and current Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson. She played adult-league softball, where she banged home runs and bled for competition.

"She used to wear shorts [to games], and she had no problem sliding into third base and sliding into home, taking the hide off her leg," Workman said. "She loved life." In fact, Workman added, it was part of the lessons Tanya taught her boys: "Be able to take care of yourself. Love life. And have God in your life. That was her heartbeat."

Their mother died in November 2004, stomach cancer consuming her within weeks of her surprising diagnosis. Donnie was a newly turned 20 years old, about an hour north of home struggling through injuries and the start of a second fall at the University of Arizona in Tucson on baseball and academic scholarships.

Donnie transferred to Pima Community College in Tucson, and the Chicago Cubs made him a second-round draft choice in 2005, little more than six months after his mother's death.

Donald Sr. refereed youth basketball games, coached his boys in baseball, drove first Donnie and then Devin to camps and tryouts three hours one way to Phoenix to further their diamond careers. The father also donated a pile of hours helping to lay wire, construct a batter's eye and other construction work at Buena High's new ballfield.

Devin wound up starting at the university that locals call the UofA, like his big brother -- except he went on a football scholarship. "Devin, I'm sure, could've played Division I baseball," said Bob Workman, Karen's husband and the father of Devin's close friend and longtime baseball teammate, Daniel Workman, a UofA pitcher. "I just think he went a different direction because that was more Junior's thing."

Their father died in November 2007, his heart giving out amid a scuba-diving accident in Mexico.

Donnie had just turned 23 and suddenly was accountable for so much more. This wasn't a game attached to wins and losses, all manner of statistics and minutiae. This was harsh reality.

"He had to assume more leadership of the household, and he did," Bob Workman said. "He had to manage the affairs of the estate, the disposition of stuff, what have you. That fell to Junior."

So did his brother.

"I helped him out," Devin said. "He helped me out."

"I mean, I'm the older brother. I feel he's a little bit of my responsibility," Donnie said. "Obviously, he's in college, he's turning into a man and everything. But I try to watch out for him as much as possible."

That next season, back at Class AA Tennessee, Donnie struggled. He topped the Southern League in walks and wild pitches. He won fewer games than the season before and "started worrying about stuff you have no control over." The Pirates nabbed him Dec. 11 from the Cubs with the Rule 5 draft proviso that they had to keep him on their major-league roster, make some sort of deal with Chicago or return him.

He went to Bradenton for minicamp in January, stayed to work daily with special assistant Jim Benedict, changed his arm slot among other alterations at the suggestion of new pitching coach Joe Kerrigan. He flew in Devin for a vacation over spring break to watch him pitch in spring training and spend time together.

Handled carefully by Kerrigan, manager John Russell and Pirates brass because of his coveted left-handed stuff -- the fastball, curve and changeup -- Donnie has pitched mostly in games whose outcome is no longer in question. In just four appearances covering 41/3 innings, he has nine walks (showing a hint of the control the Pirates aimed to harness), four strikeouts, two hits, one hit batsman and a 4.15 ERA. Half of those appearances came in the past six days, after more than two weeks without pitching in a game, and he yielded nary a hit, walked just two and struck out one in those 11/3 innings.

"An absolute dream come true," Donnie called his major league arrival.

Darion and the baby's mother, Stephanie, Donnie's fiancee, live with him in Pittsburgh. Devin and his fiancee came two weeks ago to San Diego, the next-closest National League outpost to the Arizona Diamondbacks -- whom the Pirates don't visit until late July.

"I haven't said anything" to teammates, Donnie said. "But sometimes guys ask, 'Are your parents coming on the San Diego trip?' That's when they find out. Then they don't know what to say.

"What can you say?"