APITCH FOR THE TEACHER
By Denise Dick
Boardman fourth-graders get hero on Tribe mound
The Robinwood Lane teacher was surprised to throw out the first pitch at an Indians game.
BOARDMAN — C.C. Sabathia, Paul Byrd and Jeff Hammerton?
OK, maybe not. But the Robinwood Lane Elementary fourth-grade teacher walked in the cleat steps of some of the Cleveland Indians’ famed pitchers when he threw the first pitch at the Tribe’s game Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox.
Fellow teachers Jeanette Tamulonis and Jan Zorman came up with the idea for part of the fourth grade’s annual sojourn to Progressive Field.
Zorman contacted the organization, and fourth-grade pupils wrote letters to the Indians asking that Hammerton, a big baseball fan, have the honor.
All of the planning and letter-writing happened without Hammerton’s knowledge.
“Jan Zorman told me some story about how I was supposed to meet a guy that her husband worked with,” Hammerton said. “I figured something was up.”
Tamulonis and Zorman wanted to recognize Hammerton for all of the work he does throughout the year and in planning the trip to the baseball game.
“It was exciting,” Hammerton said.
His name and the name of the school flashed across the scoreboard when it was Hammerton’s turn on the mound. All of the pupils cheered, the teachers said.
Hammerton acknowledges, though, that it wasn’t his best throw. The distance between the pitcher’s mound and home plate is longer than it looks.
Fourth-graders Jayson Shoemaker, 9, and David Suarez, Mark Slavens, Natalie Pilolli and Emily Bluedorn, all 10, tried to emphasize Hammerton’s fun teaching style in their letters to the Indians.
“Mr. Hammerton is a good teacher and a great guy, and we wanted him to have a unique and fun gift,” Jayson said.
David said that Hammerton deserved the pitching opportunity because of all of his hard work in organizing the field trip.
Mark said his teacher threw a good pitch.
Both Natalie and Emily said they enjoy Hammerton’s class because he takes difficult concepts and makes them fun and easy to understand.
“He’s a teacher that everyone wants to have,” Emily said.
The kids said they wanted to leave Hammerton with a lasting memory.
They did.
“It’s something that not everyone gets to do,” Hammerton said.
The three teachers pointed to Principal Don Robinson for his participation in planning the trip. The kids pay about half the cost for the game tickets, while the principal uses school funds to pay the rest .
With gas prices on the rise, the school district is cutting back on field trips and Zorman said they’ll look for a sponsor for next year’s trip.
Robinson, though, said next year’s fourth-graders will get a big send-off trip too. It’s their goodbye from elementary school, he said.
The principal said the three fourth-grade teachers work well together as a team and it shows each year in pupils’ performance on state achievement tests.
He didn’t go to the game but knew about the first-pitch plan.
“It was so hard not to tell,” Robinson said.