English Teacher Moonlights as Baseball Player

Jennifer Dahl is known to many as a regular English teacher, who grades essays, dispenses important information, and stomps on this author’s dreams. However, over summer vacation, while most teachers were gallivanting around the world, watching their kids, or dreading the resumption of school, Ms. Dahl was busy moonlighting as an outfielder for the Colorado Rockies.

Ms. Dahl was called up to the majors to make her major league debut on July 25 for a game against the Baltimore Orioles. Ms. Dahl finished with one hit in four at bats, along with a pair of strikeouts. Following the game, she stated that she “was very anxious, very excited and it was a great atmosphere”.

The rookie enjoyed a spectacular August in the major leagues. Ms. Dahl hit .324 with an .898 OPS over 111 at bats. However, she began to slow down as the calendar turned to September, prompting many to theorize that she was tired after her first month in the majors. WOHS students know better–after the first day of school, Ms. Dahl had to do two jobs at once, teaching during the day, and flying to wherever the Rockies were playing that night. Following the game, Ms. Dahl had to fly back to West Orange, where she could only catch a couple of hours of sleep before going through the process all over again.

Now that the season has been over for nearly a month, I asked Ms. Dahl how the experience of playing professional baseball had helped her with her teaching. She replied that “baseball had allowed her to meet young men only a few years older than her students, giving her greater insight into their goals and motivations”. More importantly, she added that her experience allowed her to “learn how to hit spherical objects very hard with a wooden stick” which she believes “will help me control my students in class”.

At press time, this author was running away from an unnamed English teacher gone rogue who was shouting “I’m gonna hit you with this baseball bat!”.