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WASHINGTON - Shane Victorino was singled out by President Barack Obama during a reception at the White House on Friday honoring the Philadelphia Phillies' victory in last year's World Series.

''Also guys like Shane Victorino - Shane, we don't get that many baseball players from Hawaii in the Majors,'' Obama said. ''Where did Shane go? He was around here somewhere. He was pointing out the Hawaiian flag on the carpet in there, saying ''shaka'' - local boy. But that means that there are a lot of folks looking out for you.''

Victorino, a 1999 St. Anthony High School graduate, hit the Phillies' first-ever postseason grand slam last year during a divisional series win over the Milwaukee Brewers, and set a franchise record for postseason RBIs with 13.

He is the only Maui-born World Series champion, and the first from Hawaii since 1986, when the New York Mets had Honolulu-born pitchers Sid Fernandez and Ron Darling.

Obama praised the Phillies as ''an underdog team that loved to prove the prognosticators wrong.''

''And so we share something in common there, because nobody thought I was going to win either,'' he said to laughter at a White House reception Friday.

Obama also thanked shortstop Jimmy Rollins for making calls on behalf of Obama's campaign last year.

Rollins presented Obama with a jersey and baseball. The president jokingly asked for Rollins' World Series ring.

Obama said Philadelphia's championship was a victory for fans like Vice President Joe Biden and David Plouffe, who managed last year's campaign.

''I'm not sure whether he cared more about my victory or the Phillies' victory,'' Obama cracked about Plouffe.

The Phillies' championship was their first since 1980, and Obama said that as a fan, he knows something about long droughts like that - his Chicago White Sox went nearly nine decades without a title before snapping the streak in 2005.

''So Cubs fans out there, take heart,'' he said to laughter ''Anything is possible.'' The Cubs last won a World Series in 1908.

Rollins told reporters later that the event meant a lot to him.

''To have the first black president in office, number 44, it kind of just brings it all together,'' he said. ''It was like something that was meant to be - he won the presidency, we won the World Series.''