Their family circle is baseball. The fabric of their being is cowhide with red stitching.

The father played big league baseball, coached big league baseball, tutors minor league pitchers still. Their mother threw and hit with them when the father was on the road or otherwise occupied at work, which was mostly every February-through-September day when they couldn't accompany him to the ballpark.

The older sons worked as batboys when not goofing around the indoor cages or playing tapeball in the Yankee Stadium hallways with Ken Griffey's kid, Junior. Their buddies were the family friends whose familiar names -- Nolan Ryan, Frank Tanana, Bobby Thigpen -- could be found across the backs of all-star jerseys. The firstborn son was named after the father's Angels batterymate, catcher Jeff Torborg.

They had a batting cage, a bushel of scuffed big league balls, a bag of big league bats and a new address most every summer.

They each had an individuality, a divergent path, a seam-filled destiny -- and two of the three Brothers LaRoche somehow have been able to weave one path together in the major leagues.

Adam and Andy locker side by side in the same Pirates clubhouse. One throws to the other across a Pirates diamond, third baseman Andy to first baseman Adam. One sometimes hits directly behind the other in the Pirates' batting order. One sometimes drives in the other.

One soon may be leaving the other.

With the flurry of Pirates trades this past week and month, the marketable first baseman is a prime candidate to exit by the July 31 deadline. This baseball family expects as much.

"That's it. I'm just trying to enjoy every day with him. Because [a trade] could happen any day now," said Adam LaRoche, 29 and the elder by four years. "I realize this may never happen again."

"Awesome," Andy called it. "Unbelievable."

All along, the baby brother, who came to the Pirates last July 31 in such a deadline deal, has prefaced this rare chance: Even if it's only for one year. ...

The highlight of their time together in the majors?

"Hitting a home run in the same game," Andy said of June 17 in Minnesota, when his fourth-inning blast drove in his big brother, who thumped him atop the helmet at home plate as a way of congratulations. Adam hit his in the eighth, the first instance of brotherly bashing in their nearly 920 combined big league games. Each finished that game with 31 RBIs for the season. They're close, all right.

"His first home run on the Pirates," Adam replied of Aug. 3 in Chicago. "I was on the disabled list, but I was there in the dugout. It was important for him, and it was important for me, because he's blood."

Not coincidentally, the sentiments were the same from inside the family.

"That was just the coolest picture to me, to see the two brothers coming to the dugout together," Patty LaRoche said of the Minnesota moment. "That was really awesome."

"Andy hit a homer, and Adam was on the disabled list, but they showed him on TV at the bottom of the stairs waiting for Andy," Dave LaRoche said of the Wrigley Field freeze frame. "That was neat to see."

Each brother is, admittedly, different. Andy has black hair, Adam red. Adam has a scruff of a beard and moustache, Andy hasn't had much more than a scrub of facial hair much of the season.

Andy is a right-hander, Adam a left-hander ... although each identically points his bat toward his outfield side just before returning to the ready position in the batter's box. Adam is the power hitter with the elegant swing, Andy is the contact hitter with the hard swing. Adam is tall and skinny at 6 feet 3, 203 pounds, Andy stockier at little more than 6 feet, 210 pounds.

Adam is married with children, an avid hunter and a team spokesman, Andy is none of the above.

Funny, but they would prefer to be opposite one another throwing in a different diamond fashion.

Andy would rather play what every LaRoche, including himself, considers his best position: catcher.

Adam would rather play what every LaRoche, including himself, considers his best position: pitcher.

For once, this family of kidders isn't joshing, either.

Adam was born to an Angel.

Andy was born to a left-handed reliever in his last days as a Yankee.

"There's been a lot of baseball in our lives," said their dad, who pitched for five different clubs over 15 seasons, 381 games, 126 saves and what is believed to be the last eephus pitch thrown in the majors, labeled the LaLob. He coached in such outposts as: Albany, Fort Lauderdale, Columbus, Syracuse, Kingsport, Chicago, New York, Pittsfield, Orlando, Omaha, New Hampshire and, now, Las Vegas, where he and Patty live with Nikki, a former softball-playing daughter from his first wife.

"A matter of fact, that was how we bribed them for good behavior: If they didn't do this or that, they couldn't go to the ballpark with me. That was the perfect carrot to dangle."

"We knew they loved it. I guess -- because I'm a [drama] teacher -- I stressed the academics and the cultural. They didn't. I made them take piano lessons, and that was a nightmare," said their mother, a former softball player and their backyard baseball companion/peacemaker who can still envision Adam's glove atop the piano throughout a 30-minute lesson. "That was always the incentive for everything."

"We grew up in the Yankees' clubhouse. Or the Mets'. Or White Sox's," said Jeff, the eldest at 18 months older than Adam, "It was funny, 'cause during the games -- especially when he was coaching the White Sox or somebody -- we didn't care about the games. We'd have batting-cage games, balls off the back wall were home runs. ... We had to be close, 'cause every summer it seemed we'd go someplace different. Occasionally, we'd go someplace twice. We had nobody else to play with."

Firstborn Jeff pitched to his younger brothers.

"He threw so hard, but you never knew where it was going," Patty LaRoche said. "It's nice to throw 95 mph when you're 16 years old, but you could always hit somebody in the head. ... I think there was that fear factor for Adam and Andy."

"There's a lot of truth to that, unfortunately," said Jeff, now a police officer in Steamboat Springs, Colo., where he also coaches high school baseball. "Adam ... he's a lefty, I was a young lefty who threw hard and didn't know where it was going. The tendency was for it to go toward his head. One time, we couldn't find a batting helmet, so we looked around and found a football helmet. So he went in there in a Raiders helmet. He knew what was coming. And I can't say they were always by accident. That's probably where he learned to hit fast pitching. ..."

"More than anything, I think that's part of the reason I'm not all there mentally: He hit me so many times," Andy said.

In their backyard batting cages in Texas and southeastern Kansas, where the parents plus Adam's family still live and Andy spends most of his offseasons, Andy honed his catching skills by squatting for wild Jeff or pitcher-perfect Adam.

"They always picked on me. They'd never take it easy on me. They'd never let up. So, it was always a competition. Made me better," said Andy.

He gave up catching after a torn PCL in college at Grayson County (Texas) Community College prompted a surgeon to advise him to pick another position or quit baseball, so the youngest LaRoche focused on the infield's left side. From there, he was drafted in 2003's 39th round by Los Angeles. "Adam was always a better pitcher than a hitter. He got offered a lot more money to pitch. He's still a better pitcher than he is a hitter."

"Coming out of college, every major league team wanted me as a pitcher," said Adam. "There weren't any scouts that wanted me as a hitter. I think my quote was, 'I won't sign for $10 million as a pitcher, no matter who drafts me.' After coming out and saying that, I think some of them closed their books on me, 'Who's this kid think he is?' "

"The biggest thing I remember is, when they all played together, Andy at a very young age was catching Adam and Jeff," Dave LaRoche said. "At a very young age, he learned how to defend himself."

"Adam, he's ADD. To sit in the dugout for four days was torture for him," his mother added. "The Braves [who drafted him in 2000's 29th round] were the ones who said 'We're not sure. ... If he can't [hit], we still have a great pitcher.' As he turned out, he does hit. Obviously better in the second half than the first half."

Thanks, mom.

"My dad forced the two older ones to be lefties," said Nanette, one of the softball-star sisters. "When they were little, he would grab the spoon and take it out of their right hand. Andy's the only one he didn't do that with, and Andy grew to be a right-hander. ... And we thought all three of them were [going to make the big leagues], especially the two older ones."

Jeff, the flame-throwing lefty who burnt out in Rockies spring training in 2003, wrote Nanette a letter when he was 10: The first big league million he makes would go to her.

"We always tease them that I got the wrong brother to write me the letter."

Maybe Jeff could have been here, too. Before his minor league sojourn with Colorado and Florida, Jeff was drafted in 1997's 31st round out of Blinn (Texas) Junior College, some 29 rounds after John Grabow and, ironically, just four picks after Mike Gonzalez, for whom Adam was traded, by these same Pirates.

Three years in Class A, a brief stint in Class AA, then a display of doubles-hitting and decent power at Class AAA earned a major league promotion in the fifth professional season. That describes Adam's ascent to Atlanta. That describes Andy's trip to LA.

In 2007, the same year that Adam came to the Pirates, Andy arose to the Dodgers.

On the same trade-deadline day in 2008 that Jason Bay went to Boston so Manny Ramirez could head west to Los Angeles, Andy was part of that same deal going to, as his Class AAA Las Vegas manager Lorenzo Bundy teasingly asked, what one big league club he most wanted to play for? The Pirates.

"I expect [a trade], and I think they both expect it," said Dave LaRoche -- the pitching coach in Las Vegas, now Toronto's top minor league team. "It'd be nice if they both could get hot and the team get hot and things work out and they play well for a long time. But the reality is, [Adam] will probably get traded."

"And I think he will be so disappointed," added Patty, whom a certain Pirates third baseman called moments after making two ninth-inning errors against Cleveland last week. "Andy just loves Adam at first base. Andy knows if he throws it in the dirt, Adam's probably going to scoop it -- and save his neck. They really feel for each other. When one's slumping, the other's there for them."

"I know it probably won't last much longer," Jeff said. "It's neat to see them playing across the diamond together, for sure. Honestly, I think I'm more nervous than they are when I'm watching."

Maybe someday, Adam will find another manager like Bobby Cox and a pitching coach like Leo Mazzone, who let him work in the Braves' bullpen once a week: "Now I miss pitching, and I'd love to get back out there. I would love to do both one day."

Maybe someday, Andy will reunite with him: "If it is just one year, we'll see ... after free agency a few years down the road."

Brothers in arms. Pitcher and catcher?