Countywide : Students Give Pitcher a Royal Welcome

When the Jan. 17 earthquake struck, Mark Gubicza, a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, felt his Northridge house shake, heard the terrifying cry of his baby daughter, and then, worst of all, had trouble getting to her because fallen furniture had blocked his path.

Though nobody was hurt, Gubicza remembers how neighbors, genuinely concerned, came over afterward to see how he and his family were doing.

So, when he heard a few students from Our Savior’s First Lutheran school in Granada Hills were having a hard time adjusting to the aftermath of the temblor, Gubicza could relate.

So he and the Royals organization decided to fly the six students to Kansas City in late July, a gesture that Peggy Ash, the school’s principal, fondly refers to as “real ‘royal’ treatment.”

There, the students were given a tour of the stadium and saw two games against the red-hot White Sox.

They also lunched with Gubicza, met former batting champion George Brett, stayed in a five-star hotel and then endured a few somersaults at Worlds of Fun, an amusement park.

On Tuesday, the same students, and a handful more, returned Gubicza’s hospitality during batting practice at Anaheim Stadium, when the Royals were in town against the Angels.

Crowding into box seats behind the backstop, they yelled their hellos, then held up a Happy Birthday banner for Gubicza, who turns 32 on Sunday.

“Now everybody’s going to know how old I am,” the pitcher joked, as he talked to the students from the field, the sound of ball on bat in the background.

Gubicza said he had gone to such extremes to help the students, some of whom had to live out of tents after the quake, “because it hit home, being here myself when it happened and having a little girl who went through it too.”

He added: “It was tough for them, tough for everybody, and this was just a way of getting them away from it all, showing them Kansas City, getting their minds off it.”

Paula Kuhn, a parent at Our Savior’s sister school in San Diego, who orchestrated the trip by calling the Royals organization, said she thinks the children finally have put the earthquake behind them with all the recent fun.

Seventh-grader Larisa Bargman has a new Gubicza-autographed Royals hat to help her forget the fish tank that fell on her.

And Herman Dhillon, a sixth-grader, has a Gubicza-autographed baseball card to help him get over being pinned beneath his bed.

“They used to hear a shaking window, and it would set them off,” Kuhn said. “We all have fear, and we all have to conquer it. And I think they’re over it now.”