Michigan State Baseball Hosts First Pitch Dinner This Sunday

Dale Petroskey, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, headlines annual event.EAST LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan State baseball program will host the second annual First Pitch Dinner this Sunday, Feb. 18 at 1 p.m. in the LaSalle Bank Club at Spartan Stadium. Tickets for the event, which include a dinner, season tickets, a media guide and a Spartan baseball, are $25 for children and students, $30 for MSU baseball alumni and $50 for the general public. Dale Petroskey, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, will be honored as the MSU Baseball Alumnus of the Year, and other baseball celebrities are also scheduled to attend the event, includingErnie Harwell and Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. To order a table, please contact the baseball office at 517-355-4486 or visit www.msuspartans.com for an order form. Doors will open at 1 p.m. with a silent auction featuring numerous items of baseball memorabilia, and dinner will follow at 1:30 p.m."Michigan State and especially the MSU baseball program are both thrilled and privileged to be honoring a great person and a tremendous baseball man in Dale Petroskey," said head coach David Grewe. "As he follows in the footsteps of other great Spartans to be named MSU Baseball Alumnus of the year, Dale is a perfect representative of this award. As we kick off our 2007 season and announce our excitement for the upcoming schedule, it will be very special to share this with Dale. February is a great month to kick off the season for baseball."Petroskey, a 1978 Michigan State graduate, became the fifth president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in July 1999. He oversees the 67-year-old national shrine dedicated to preserving baseball history and telling the story of its role in American culture. The museum’s mission is to preserve history, honor excellence, and connect generations. Only one percent of those privileged to play Major League Baseball are immortalized with a plaque in the Hall of Fame. The non-profit educational membership organization opened its doors in 1939, and today occupies 50,000 square feet, employs 90 full-time staff members and attracts about 350,000 visitors a year to Cooperstown, N.Y. The museum’s collections contain more than 165,000 items, and its library catalogs and preserves more than 2 million documents, 500,000 historic photographs, and 12,000 hours of original TV and radio recordings. Prior to joining the Hall of Fame, Petroskey served at the National Geographic Society for 11 years, the last three as Senior Vice President for Mission Programs. From 1985-1987, he served in the White House as Assistant Press Secretary to President Ronald Reagan. Petroskey married the former Ann Holiday Grover after both graduated from Michigan State University. They have three children - Kathleen, 19, Frank, 18, and Claire, 16 - and live in Cooperstown.

Thanks to Ben Phlegar the MSU SID.