McDonald’s good-luck charm

By JOHN HARRIS

sports@vindy.com

MCDONALD

Just about everyone in this village of 3,000 is a Cleveland Indians fan. Recently, one of the youngest of those fans made the biggest impact with her favorite Major League Baseball team.

Seven-year-old Mia Starnes is one of 18 students in Ally Thompson’s second-grade class at Roosevelt Elementary. Last week, the class wrote 25 letters to every player on the Indians’ active roster.

Starnes’ letter to Francisco Lindor drew a personal response from the 22-year-old shortstop.

After clubbing game-winning hits in each of Cleveland’s first two games against the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series at Progressive Field, Lindor mentioned in a national interview the letter he received from a special young fan from McDonald which included a lucky penny he stuck in his right uniform pocket.

“At first, Mia was like, `OK.’ Then she realized how popular and crazy it got and she was like a big ball of energy,” said Thompson, who along with her star pupil conducted several television and newspaper interviews at the school on Monday.

“The [first] interview is what set it all off,” Thompson said. “A friend sent a text message [Sunday]: ‘Did you see this?’

“I went on Facebook and she had tagged me and it just spread like wildfire.”

Said Starnes: “I like it because he won a game with it.”

In an attempt to encourage letter writing among her students, Thompson placed the names of Indians’ players on folded slips of paper so they could randomly select to whom they would write.

First drafts were completed last Tuesday and Thompson proofed them that night. Final drafts were completed the next day. On Thursday, letters were hand-delivered to the Indians’ offices, the day before the series opened.

A penny was inserted in each letter for good luck.

“Letter writing is part of our curriculum so I thought it would be fun to actually write a letter to someone famous. I really didn’t think we would get a response,” Thompson said.

“For [Lindor] to even mention it, he could have mentioned anything,” said David Vecchione, Roosevelt Elementary principal. “It’s pretty special that he mentioned a letter from a second grader who’s 7 years old.”

Starnes said math is her favorite subject and that older brother Anthony is an even bigger Indians’ fan than she is. She eagerly described the contents of her letter to Lindor.

“So basically what I wrote is, `My name is Mia Starnes at Roosevelt Elementary,’ “ she said. “‘I’ve gone to one of your games with my Grandma, my Grandpa, my Dad and my brother. It was fun. Good luck.’“

Vecchione said messages from family and friends resulting from Starnes’ letter have come as far away as Virginia.

“Students are thrilled it had that kind of impact,” he said. “The community and school have a lot of pride.”