Baseball

Last night, while watching the World Series, my phone rang. It was Phil Coke, the pitcher for the Major League Detroit Tigers. He is from Tuolumne County, and as a matter of fact, had attended Black Oak Elementary in kindergarten and first grade. I had spoken with Phil's dad the day before and was trying to arrange a time for Phil to come to school and talk to the students. Today we had our virtue assembly and it was easy to add Phil to that assembly. I had a meeting in Sonora so I swung by Big 5 on the way home and bought a bag of baseballs. During our regular assembly, the kids with the most virtue cards receive a coupon for a free pizza at the Twain Harte Pizza Factory. Today, in addition to the pizza, the virtue card winners also received a signed baseball. Phil was great with the kids and spoke to them a bit about setting high goals and working hard to reach them. The best part was when John in Mr. Dunlap's class asked where Phil would put himself on a scale of 1-10. It was a bold question, but Phil showed off his fat, diamond encrusted World Series ring he won when he was with the Yankees last year. He said that with that ring, he could have said he was a ten. Instead, his goal was to get a ring on every finger, so he only rated himself a 6.

The kids were excited to talk to Phil, and he interacted very well with them. As the assembly ended, he stood at the door, and high fived or shook hands with every kid. I was very impressed with Phil, and was glad to have him at our assembly today.