Baseball Weekend Schedule Updated

January 20, 2011

Alumni and friends are being welcomed to University Campus this weekend for Baseball Alumni Weekend, featuring special programming culminating in a Saturday dinner with alumnus and New York Mets executive J.P. Ricciardi as the keynote speaker.

Activities will begin Saturday at noon with a ball-park style buffet, available under a tent, at the Thomas B. Southard Stadium. The 2011 Lions baseball team will play an intra-squad game. Admission is $5 per person. This particular event was originally scheduled for Friday evening, but has been delayed because of rainy weather.

 “Opening Night with the Lions” will follow, beginning with a reception at 6 p.m., Saturday, in the Greenfelder-Denlinger Boardrooms of the Student Community Center. Dinner will follow at 6:30 p.m. The keynote speaker, J.P. Ricciardi, was a switch-hitting second baseman for the Saint Leo College Monarchs for three seasons commencing in the late 1970s. He went on to become general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, and served last season as an analyst on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. He is now the special assistant to New York Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson, and works with all aspects of the Mets baseball department. He was inducted into the Saint Leo University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003. Ricciardi will discuss the ways Saint Leo prepared him for a career in Major League Baseball, and will offer motivational insights for the Lions moving into the 2011 season, which begins February 4 with a home game against Valdosta State.

Tickets for “Opening Night with the Lions” are $100, including the buffet meal. For information or registration, contact Russ McNickle, head baseball coach, at russell.mcnickle@saintleo.edu or call (352) 588-8227.