Fifth-grade teacher Annamarie Toppi and Milt Thompson discuss what she and her students at Pleasant Valley Elementary are focusing on in class.
Milt Thompson was a Phillies’ left-fielder and coach in the ’80s and ’90s. He visited Pleasant Valley on April 29.
Students from Annamarie Toppi’s fifth-grade class at Mullica Hill’s Pleasant Valley School got a visit from former Phillies player and coach, Milt Thompson, on April 29 – a significant date in his career.
Thompson – an outfielder for the team from 1986 to 1989 and again in 1993 and ’94 – addressed and answered questions from the students, part of Toppi’s current lesson on breaking barriers in society. The teacher has told her kids about racial discrimination experienced by Negro League baseball players and the first Black player in Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson.
“I thought it would be a wonderful experience to meet someone who knows a little bit about this and what it’s like to play in Major League Baseball,” Toppi said.
Thompson recounted his first experience with discrimination when he begn his career in minor-league ball in Kingsport, Tennessee, after being drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 1979.
“I’m from the North, so I didn’t even understand this,” he recalled. “I was looking for a place to live. I was walking around and there was a sign ‘Room for Rent.’ I knock on the door, no answer, and a lady saw me knocking on the door and said, ‘Can I help you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m inquiring about a room to rent.’
“I come the next day,” Thompson added, “and the sign is gone. I could not find a place to live. I had to live in a hotel for two-and-a-half months for my first year. I saw another African American girl and asked, ‘Where’s our people? And she said, ‘Across the tracks.’ It was a sundown city.
“By the time the sun went down, you go back on your side of town and unfortunately for me, it was the wrong side of town.”
That experience happened as the Civil Rights movement and Jim Crow discrimination – timely topics for the Pleasant Valley class – were waning. Yet negative stereotypes about African Americans persisted, particularly in the South. Growing up in Maryland, Thompson wasn’t exposed to personal discrimination until his search for a place to live.
After Thompson addressed his playing career, the fifth-graders asked a range of questions: Who was the toughest pitcher he faced? What season in the league was his favorite? Thompson and the class then saw video of a play he made during a Phillies’ game against the San Diego Padres – on April 29, 1993.
The Phillies were up 2-1 and their opponent had the bases loaded when a Padres’ batter smacked what initially appreared to be a grand slam. Out of nowhere, Thompson leapt up the wall in left field and snagged the ball, preserving the Phillies’ lead. They would go on to win 5-3.
“I was back deeper (in the outfield) and I just got a good jump on it,” Thompson recalled. “I just naturally reacted, jumped up and happened to get my glove up. You can’t practice this stuff. In the moment, it just happens.”
Thompson showed the students his 2008 World Series and 2022 National League Championship rings, autographed balls and baseball cards of himself and handed out books with his picture for the class to take home.
Most importantly, his visit left the fifth-graders with a pointed message.
“It’s called do more than,” Thompson explained, asking the students to write down his words so they would remember them. “Do more than look, observe. Do more than listen, understand. Do more than exist, live. And the last one is do more than talk, say something.
“Those are words I pretty much live by every single day.”
In other Pleasant Valley news, the school will advance to the finals of the New Jersey School Board Association’s Steam Tank Challenge. Students were tasked with creating an invention or solution to real-world issues and illustrating it with a virtual presentation.
The ideas and students advancing to the finals are the Sand Grenade, from Christopher Andreacci, Caitlyn Andreacci, Luke George and Adrianna Franceschi; and the Unsinkable Bracelet from Sophie Lynch, Gianna Manzo, Isabella Drissel and Addie Postlewaite. The finals will take place virtually during the week of May 19.
“A big round of applause for our amazing elementary-division teams,” the association posted on Facebook. “Your curiosity, creativity and courage to dream big have truly inspired us all.”
