Pirates Manager Helps Deliver Coats To Hill District Students
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- There was a little baseball talk Wednesday morning at St. Benedict the Moor School in the Hill District.
"Hey you have your hair just like Polanco, our guy who plays the outfield," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.
Hurdle said this is a nice distraction from the recent disappointments of his day job.
"This is wonderful. Professionally, it's been a hard week. It has been a hard month. I continue to find ways to get out of myself -- outside myself -- and pour back into others. With the knights of Columbus here and his coats for kids program at this school with these kids? Fantastic," he said.
"We had visitors today. Knights of Columbus Coats for Kids came to us and they gave us coats and they had a representative -- the Pittsburgh Pirates manager came to talk to us," said student Teddy Carter.
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Hurdle joined the Knights of Columbus and made an effort to help all of the 170 girls and boys pick a new coat.
"They are going to talk about it. This doesn't happen every day at school. So I think they are going to take about it when they get home," said student Amya Rivers.
"The Knights of Columbus reaches everyone. It doesn't matter if you are a coach of baseball or a coach of Catholic religion," said Pennsylvania State Deputy Charles Vagnarelli.
Hurdle tried to keep his message very simple.
"The city of Pittsburgh is on the front of the jersey. My family name is on the back. I represent. I need to go out and model the behavior I want to instill in others and hopefully there is a couple of nuggets of wisdom they are able to take and use down the road," he said.
"MLB and the Pirates have been great. They have always been a great help in that regard, too. So there are a lot of Catholic athletes that really want to partake in this and they are basically doing it out of the goodness of their heart," said Bill Bordley, Knights of Columbus Sports Councilman.
The kids know how special the day is. They want everyone to know how much they appreciate the kindness.