Mr. Belding threw out the first pitch for the Kansas City T-Bones Thursday

There are method actors and then there is Dennis Haskins. The actor who played Mr. Belding, the hotheaded principal on the NBC Saturday morning mainstay Saved By the Bell, stopped by CommunityAmerica Ballpark last night to throw out the first pitch for the Kansas City T-Bones and sign autographs.

While it’s been 12 years since he kept the halls at Bayside High School safe, Haskins is still holding on to his persona (his Twitter feed is @mrbelding) because my generation refuses to give up on our childhood.

Haskins is apparently a regular on the minor league baseball circuit, the kind of guy you plug in between the dizzy bat race and fireworks. And even right now, he may still be stuck at Kansas City International Airport thanks to some complicated plot that is likely the work of Zack Morris.