Bucky, Dobbs and Moose hit a home run at Breidablik

BREIDABLIK — If you write it, they will come.

After five years of asking, physical education teacher Bob Webb’s letters to the Seattle Mariners baseball organization were finally answered. And the team’s response this year turned out to be a dream come true for young M’s fans who attend Breidablik Elementary.

“I just kept asking for them to come out,” said Webb, whose gymnasium classroom is adorned with posters of professional athletes, including many Mariner greats such as Jamie Moyer and Edgar Martinez.

Though their posters don’t hang on those same walls — yet — young slugger and potential 2005 M’s designated hitter Bucky Jacobsen, fellow rookie of last year Greg Dobbs and, of course, the Mariner Moose all made the trip to the North Kitsap school.

The reaction by the approximately 450 students who attend Breidablik was an often deafening cheer — most notably when the moose showed off his dance moves.

The visit to the elementary school was part of the team’s 2005 winter tour, of which Breidablik was one of 18 stops the Mariners will be making in a 12-day period across the Pacific Northwest.

The focus of the assembly was teaching students the individual principles of their acronym-based “DREAM team” philosophy: “being Drug free, having Respect for yourself and others, Education through reading, Attitude and Motivation to achieve your dreams.”

“I’ve got three words I want to teach you,” Dobbs, the only Mariner in the team’s history to hit a home-run in his first big league at bat, said as he led off the lesson. “‘I’m drug free.’”

“I want to encourage you all to respect your teachers, respect your parents and respect your classmates,” Jacobsen continued.

Dobbs made sure to point out that he, too, is a student and that his education has been a big part of his success.

“I like school so much that even though I’m a major league baseball player right now ... I’m taking classes,” Dobbs said. “Without education, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Dobbs added that the Breidablik visit included the “most awesome welcome they’d ever seen,” at a school.

The M’s were also greeted off of their tour bus by the Breidablik BRATS (Breidablik’s Rising Athletically Talented Students) — a club at the school that Webb coaches.

“It was fun performing for them and welcoming them to our school,” said Breidablik sixth grader and BRATS member Austin Cherry. “And the moose was really awesome.”

“I learned that to be able to follow your dreams, you have to take care of your body and respect others,” said sixth grader and fellow BRATS member Karlton Rychener. “And you’ve just got to believe in yourself.”

“To accomplish your dreams, you have to work hard for it,” said BRATS member and sixth grader Nick Hall. “Like the moose did.”

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