Thursday, October 02, 2025
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Bert with Red Sox Outfielder Roman Anthony
A number of years ago, my brother-in-law, Tom Caduto, introduced me to a long-time boyhood friend of his, Peter Conti. Since that time, Peter has also become a good friend of mine.
Peter is a published writer and author who collaborated with Tom on the original draft of the screenplay for the movie “Bleed for This,” starring Miles Teller as local boxing legend and World Champ, Vinny Pazienza, highlighting his amazing comeback from an almost paralyzing severe car accident to capture the Middleweight World Title in 1993 vs Dan Sherry. That screenplay became the basis of Tom Caduto’s biography on Vinny Paz, “Fight or Die,” published in 2009. Tom currently teaches at Cranston West HS.
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Peter Conti also has to his credit, among others, an Amazon # 1 Bestseller, “Gringo: My Life on the Edge as an International Fugitive,” published in 2020.
He was raised in the Manton Avenue section of Providence, along with his three brothers, Bert, Chris, and David, by their single Mom, Cindy. Due to his writing career, he splits the majority of his time between LA and New York, but is based primarily in Los Angeles.
Besides his wife, Florencia, and his career, the main focus of Peter’s life has always been his younger brother Bert. At the early developmental age of about 18 months, the family and doctors detected some ambulatory anomalies in Bert’s movements that were the early signs of what was to become an increasingly debilitating case of cerebral palsy. The disease progressed severely enough that by the age of 10, Bert was confined to a wheelchair.
Fast forward to today, the Cerebral Palsy has so thoroughly restricted his nervous and muscular skeletal bone structure that the only movement Bert is capable of, and, is his only means of communication, is the up and down movement of his eyes, whereby Peter, and his great 24/7 caretakers from United Cerebral Palsy, have developed an ocular morse code of sorts enabling day to day basic communication with Bert.
Luckily, Bert’s mental faculties are 100%, and Peter and the experienced UCP personnel familiar with Bert have developed an almost 6th telepathic sense to be able to discern a lot of nonverbal communications from his countenance and eye movements.
Upon visiting Bert’s apartment, you can see right away from all the autographed memorabilia on the walls and end tables that he is an avid sports fan – Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, Providence College basketball, and Vinny Paz dominate most of the displays. Peter tells me that since he was a young boy to the present day, Bert’s passion for sports has always been the number one driver of his interests. As far back as an 8 or 10-year-old, Bert would commit to memory the entire Red Sox roster; the players’ batting averages, the pitchers’ win/loss records and ERAs, etc.
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Kevin Stacom with Bert at his home
Peter conveyed to me that he and his brother were old enough to remember Marvin Barnes hurting his knee in the 1973 Final Four semifinal game vs Memphis, and how hard Bert took that loss. With regard to that, however, he gets a big kick out of it when his friend Ernie D stops to visit on occasion to spend some time with Bert. Vinny Paz might be his all-time favorite, who has also spent a good amount of time with Bert through the years.
So it happens that in early July, Peter gets a call while he was in Los Angeles from one of the caretakers in Rhode Island that Bert’s condition has considerably deteriorated — that there seems to be a problem with the feeding tube, causing stomach pain, extending also to his arms and legs.
Hospice was called in to see if they could do something to help alleviate some of the pain.
Peter, as the most involved family member along with his mother, has the power of attorney involving all medical decisions concerning Bert. At first, Peter is sold on the idea of Hospice as primarily an increased level of intensive care, but when they asked his permission to just increase dramatically the morphine levels as in an end-of-life scenario, he said “absolutely not.”
His regular Cerebral Palsy caretakers agreed with Peter that it was too early for that and requested, after five days of Hospice care at home, to immediately arrange for him to get to RI Hospital, which has treated Bert for many years and is very familiar with him and his condition.
At that point, Peter took a red-eye flight back to Providence and immediately went to see Bert at the hospital. Peter could not remember seeing his brother in such a despondent state of mind and physical discomfort. There was none of the usual glint in his eyes upon seeing Peter coming home to see him. The nurse told him that Bert’s pain level was at a 10 out of 10, but they were going to try to give him a newly designed feeding tube that they were having some success with to try to mitigate some of that pain.
Soon after, the nurses came into Bert’s room to do their routine care, and Peter went down to the cafeteria during that break. The first thing he did was get on the phone and order three tickets to a Red Sox game on August 30th, a 4 PM game at Fenway vs Pittsburgh. It was a perfect time since a 1 PM game is too early to get everything set up for his situation, and a night game is not practical either for Bert.
As soon as Peter returns upstairs, he goes over to Bert’s bed and tells him the news, “I got three tickets for us to go to a Red Sox game on August 30th, 4 O’Clock, that’s 6 weeks from now, and you have to hang in there and get better to make this happen!”
The caretakers and the nurses said that was the first time they had seen Bert smile in a long time. It was also a big help that it seemed the new feeding tube was having a very positive effect on his stomach problem and overall comfort level. That mental boost and medical improvement allowed Bert to get back home and continue his road back to what is his normalcy.
As the big game day approached, Peter put a call into a couple of LA friends that he knew were big Red Sox fans with strong Boston connections- Eliza Dushku, and Peter Palandjian, she a successful movie and TV actress and he a successful real estate guy who was also a former Harvard Hockey player and professional tennis player who at one time competed at Wimbledon, to see if by chance they happen to be in Boston and would care to go to the game. He also knew they were friends with Big Papi, David Ortiz.
It turned out to be a very fortuitous phone call. Eliza got back to Peter and explained that she and her husband were not in town but that if you get a call from the Red Sox pick it up because they might be able to help with some accommodations for Bert.
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Featured on big board at Fenway
Well, it turns out that they are not only friends with Ortiz, but also with the owner and his wife, John and Linda Henr.y
The call from the Red Sox did come, and what ensued as a result of that call was what Peter described as one of the best and most enjoyable days of Bert’s life due to what the Red Sox organization was able to arrange for Bert, Peter, and their caretaker, Samantha Martin, that afternoon.
There was parking right under Bert’s favorite all-time Red Sox player Carlton Fisk’s number 27, as his famous picture of him waving his home run over the wall to win the 6th game of the 1975 World Series vs the Cincinnati Reds, adorns Bert’s bedroom wall at home.
Bert was granted a number of very prized items, including some Red Sox apparel and a signed game-used bat autographed by left fielder, Rob Refsynder, who, a few minutes later, Bert was able to meet as Sox staffer Rebecca escorted Bert and his entourage to a special section right on the field to observe the pregame batting practice!
A number of players spotted Bert with his new bat across his lap and took the time to come over to say hello.
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Rob Refsnyder and Bert
When Rob Refsnyder walked over to him to say hello and noticed that Bert had his autographed bat, he said, “ Wow, you hold that bat better than I do!” Bert was beaming.
Shortly after, rookie phenom, Roman Anthony, came up to greet Bert, whereupon Peter informed him that Bert was Italian, his last name was Turchetti. Anthony said, “I knew I liked this guy right away!”
Two other Red Sox players came over also to spend a little time and give their autographs – shortstop Trevor Story and pitcher Lucas Giolito. Like Anthony and Refsnyder, they couldn’t have been any nicer.
It was an extraordinary opportunity for the two brothers.
At a time such as now, when we as sports fans, are having are our sensibilities hammered by the constant reminders of the economic underpinnings of stratospheric players salaries and team valuations — it is good to know that enough innocence and humanity still exists even at the highest level of professional sports, that a great sports fan with special needs could enjoy such a special day, quietly enabled by a classy ownership and a classy group of players.
On the way home Peter asked Bert, “ Well, what do you think, Bert? Do any of these Red Sox guys move ahead of Vinny Paz or Ernie D as one of your favorites? Peter could tell by Bert’s eyes he was laughing a bit but concluded “ those guys are great but I gotta stick with my guys Vinny and Ernie!”
Kevin Stacom is one of the most accomplished Providence College basketball players in history. An All-American at Providence, Stacom was a second-round NBA draft pick, played six years in the NBA, and won an NBA championship as a member of the Boston Celtics.
After his playing career, Stacom coached at the college level and served as an NBA scout for nearly 30 years for the Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks.
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