Helicopter dad? A proud John Fedko was there to watch his son, Kyler, make his MLB debut
John Fedko and his wife, Tina, had always wanted to visit the historic Church of St. Patrick in Toledo, Ohio, when they were in town to watch their son, Kyler, play in minor league baseball games there.
This past Sunday, it was finally open for them to make a visit. Fedko - the popular former Pittsburgh sportscaster with WPXI - immediately noticed images of Sts. Jude, Theresa and Anthony, who are associated with lost causes and miracles in the Catholic tradition.
"If you see all three of those in a church, you're going to get a miracle," Fedko told the Post-Gazette on Tuesday.
Sure enough, Kyler texted them shortly after that moment to tell them he'd been called up by the Minnesota Twins to make his MLB debut.
"Guys, I'm going to the big leagues," the 26-year-old's text to his family read. "Trust in God, and the sky is the limit."
He was in the lineup and batted sixth Monday in a game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas. He went 0 for 4 with a pair of strikeouts in a 4-2 victory for the Twins.
News of the promotion sent Kyler's family into a mad dash. They returned to Pittsburgh, then got back in the car bound for Texas only a couple of hours later. The Fedkos drove through the night to Arlington and arrived at Globe Life Park around 5 p.m. local time.
By that point, Kyler had already taken batting practice, but the family was in place in plenty of time to see the game itself.
Kyler struck out in his first at-bat against All-Star pitcher MacKenzie Gore, whose fastball is notoriously tough for even the best big-league hitters to make contact with.
John wasn't worried, though. He thought back to conversations he once had with Barry Bonds as MLB's all-time home run king was leading the Pirates to division titles in the 1990s - and wisdom John then shared with his son in his rise through the ranks to baseball's biggest stage.
"OK, Gore got you," he thought. "Hey, a great pitcher is going to get you out. You've seen that 97-mph fastball now. Now what are you going to do with it the next time you see it?"
Sure enough, later in the game, Fedko adjusted and just missed a home run by timing up a fastball well.
Gore didn't throw him another fastball for the rest of the game. Fedko just missed out on his first big-league hit in the ninth inning when Rangers shortstop Nicky Lopez made an impressive play on a sharp ground ball to throw Fedko out by a step at first base.
It wasn't the storybook debut, per se. But it was a fitting microcosm of the persistence Kyler showed to reach that moment. And that caused the emotions to spill out of John back in Ohio when the family received the news.
"I was on the ground crying," John said. "Just saying, ‘God, thank you, God.' I screamed. I'm in a hotel room. The hotel must have heard it. I screamed out of the top of my lungs. I hugged my wife, and she was crying. I mean, I really was. I was crying, just thanking God. It's been a long road."
Indeed it has been. Kyler starred at Vincentian Academy in high school, helping his team win a pair of state titles in 2016 and 2018.
He went on to play college baseball at UConn, but his sophomore season there was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. MLB shortened its draft to just five rounds in 2020 to compensate, forcing many players who otherwise might have gone pro back into the college ranks. That made Kyler's draft the following year one of the deepest in MLB history simply because of the volume of prospects available.
He was eventually drafted by the Twins in the 12th round despite talent that probably would have pushed him higher under normal circumstances.
Ever since, he's had to fight that label through the minor leagues, and injuries along the way did not help. He does not appear in MLB.com's rankings of the Twins' top prospects, and Fangraphs ranks him at just 17th in the organization.
This past winter brought more frustration when Kyler wasn't selected in the MLB Rule 5 Draft, which exists to prevent teams from piling up too much talent in the upper levels of the minor leagues without making promotions. It might have given him a clearer route to a big-league debut had, for example, a team like the Pirates been looking to scoop up a right-handed power hitter.
Instead, he wasn't selected and returned to the Twins, who invited him to big-league spring training. He started the 2026 season with Triple-A St. Paul knowing he needed to put up some big numbers to take the final step toward his ultimate goal.
He held up his end of the bargain by hitting .286 with 15 homers, 45 RBIs, nine stolen bases and a .950 OPS that ranked sixth in the International League at the time of his promotion. By the end, minor league pitchers weren't throwing him fastballs either - which was a sign for John that a promotion had to be coming soon.
It all culminated with the big moment Monday night, and the Fedkos will keep the party going all week. They'll watch the second game of the series against the Rangers in Arlington on Tuesday before heading to Minnesota to watch Kyler face Shohei Ohtani and the back-to-back defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers next week in what could be another "pinch me" moment.
John plans to write a book about the journey from his unique perspective as a journalist who covered the game before embedding himself in it through his son.
Though he's most known for his entertaining "The Fedko Zone" highlight segments and his helicopter appearances at high school football games in the fall, he said he's always absorbed what he learned about the game and hopes it's helped his son. Kyler's brother, Christian, is also a ballplayer with the Schaumburg Boomers of the independent Frontier League.
"I was so blessed to cover those Pirate teams with [Bonds], Andy Van Slyke, Mike LaValliere and Doug Drabek," John said. "The more I talked to those guys, it was like, this is unbelievable. What a life to be able to play baseball and live this. When I had my sons, I said I could do anything just so they could have that life."
Now one of them does.
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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 3:44 PM.