Tribe Caravan hits Parma, Brecksville
01/25/2006PARMA, Ohio -- The doors opened, the music lifted and the fuzzy fuchsia monster hurtled himself into the pews.
With 50 Cent's "Disco Inferno" blasting over the speakers, Indians mascot Slider took his hip-shaking, belly-wiggling dance act into the church at Bethel Christian Academy on Wednesday morning, and the third day of the Indians Winter Caravan was off to a raucous start.
It's doubtful this church had ever been privy to a service quite like the one the Tribe delivered.
"It's just a big party," children's pastor Tammy Brumley said.
The party was earned by the 300 or so kids in attendance because of their good behavior over the course of a school year. In fact, children at a total of six area schools were privy to the party, as the Indians made the school visits before sending their two buses to the Akron and Sandusky tour stops.
At Bethel Christian Academy and St. Columbkille in Parma and Central School in Brecksville, Indians announcer Tom Hamilton introduced the lucky kids to left-handed pitchers C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Jeremy Sowers.
The children got to ask a few questions of the ballplayers, and a few even came away with autographed balls.
The Q&A sessions, in particular, brought about some interesting nuggets of information.
When the kids at St. Columbkille asked which player would be most likely to appear on "American Idol," the unanimous choices were Coco Crisp and Ben Broussard.
Lee, though, suggested Sowers could give the show a shot, despite the young prospect's shy nature.
"The only way that would happen is if they go back to the 80s and do Journey songs," Sowers said.
At Bethel Christian Academy, a young boy wanted to know how many home runs Sabathia had hit in his career.
"Just one," Sabathia responded, referring to his center-field blast in Cincinnati last May. "But I've watched the video of it about 200 times."
And at Central School, the players were asked what their favorite color is. Lee provided a little comic relief by pointing to a child in the front row, wearing a neon-colored hat, and said, "Hot pink."
That drew laughter from the crowd, but the laughter could do nothing to top the ear-piecing screams let out at each school when the players and Slider first arrived.
"Is that the sound you make when your teacher tells you there's going to be a math test?" Hamilton asked the kids at Central School.
The noise was no surprise, because each school had been anxiously anticipating the Indians visit for a while.
"I've been waiting day and night for the past week or so," said 14-year-old Kyle Ori, an eighth grader at St. Columbkille who had the pleasure of introducing Hamilton, the emcee. "You know how little kids are always into baseball, and even the big kids like me and my friend Mike [Ozog] here, we love it."
Plenty of love was in the air at all the schools, especially Central School, which had more than 700 students packed into its gym.
"It's a great opportunity for the kids," Central School principal Beverly Chambers said. "There's a lot of spirit here."
It's questionable, though, which visitors received more attention at Central School -- the Indians players or the WKYC Channel 3 cameraman who was there to take shots for the 6 o'clock news.
"Everybody's a ham," Chambers said with a laugh.
Sabathia said he had a lot of fun getting hang out with the little hams for a few hours.
"It's still early, but baseball season is coming up, so hopefully we can get these kids into the game," he said. "It's awesome to see the support of the schools and the kids. It's a lot of fun. I'd do this all day."
Source: http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/
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