Trenni Casey will be running — a lot — for a cause close to her heart

Boston Globe

4 hours ago

She is running and raising funds for multiple sclerosis research in memory of her aunt
Sandi
, who was diagnosed with the disease at age 25. She died at age 37 in November 1995, when Casey was in high school.
'I was just 4 or 5 when she was diagnosed, and we didn't spend as much time with her as I wish I had,' said Casey. 'I didn't really get to know her, and that's part of why I wanted to do this. Like I feel we didn't do enough for her to bring her joy in her life. We were busy, we were kids, we were all over the place. Everyone keeps telling me you didn't know any better, but I just always have wanted to do something to give back to that community and to honor her.'
Casey will run her portion of the relay in her home state of Wisconsin, beginning in Plattesville on July 1 and concluding in Milwaukee on July 6. She said her plan is to run — and sometimes walk — 30 or 31 miles the first four or five days.
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'So that would leave me with just 8 to 10 miles on the last day,'' said Casey, who has been training for six months. She's tapering her mileage now as the race gets closer, having run 55 miles last week.
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Participants in the relay are required to raise a minimum of $10,000. Casey, ever the competitor, has long surpassed that threshold and is aiming much higher.
Related
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'I originally wanted to raise $30,000 in honor of the 30th anniversary of when Aunt Sandi passed away,' she said, 'but then I asked, 'What's the most anyone has ever raised?' '
She was told the record was in the range of $56,000.
'So I thought about it, and I was like, I'm going to try to raise $67,000, because my aunt would be 67 years old now.'
Casey's fund-raising page can be found at:
Back to college for Bradley Jr.
ESPN was thinking about
Jackie Bradley Jr.'s
future as a broadcaster before he had given it any thought himself.
The former Red Sox center fielder and two-time College World Series national champion at South Carolina joined ESPN in April as a college baseball analyst.
So broadcasting must have been a career path he had thought about before his playing days were over, yes?
'Not for a minute,' he said with a laugh during a recent conversation. 'ESPN actually first reached out to me about it two years ago, but I was still playing and my wife was pregnant — we have four kids now. They reached out a couple of times over the years, but the time was never right until now. I'm enjoying it.'
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Bradley, who has not filed his retirement papers with Major League Baseball, confirmed that NESN also reached out to him about working some Sox games.
'I didn't close any doors or anything,' he said, 'but I wanted to focus on the college game and give that my undivided attention. I wanted to learn how to do this first rather than get thrown into something that I didn't feel I was ready for.'
During ESPN's coverage of the College World Series, which culminates with the best-of-three final between Louisiana State and Coastal Carolina beginning Saturday night, Bradley has been in studio along with
Mike Monaco
(a familiar voice to Red Sox fans) and
Ben McDonald
.
'I'm really enjoying it,' said Bradley, the 2010 College World Series Most Outstanding Player. 'It's been fun to see how much goes into production, how intricate it is, and how hard everyone works. I'm just a couple of months into this, so I'm still at the point where I'm paying attention to everything and asking a lot of questions and just trying to build trust and get better at it.'
NBA Finals viewership down
The NBA Finals have been a thrill for true basketball junkies, but viewership numbers can't be thrilling the league. Official Nielsen data for the Pacers' series-tying Game 6 win over the Thunder Thursday was not available at this writing, but through the first five games, the series was averaging 9.18 million viewers on ABC. That's down 19 percent from the Celtics-Mavericks Finals last season, which averaged 11.3 million viewers in the full five-game series. Game 7s historically have a huge spike in viewership. This series is worthy of such an ending.
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Chad Finn can be reached at