Baseball team featured in 'USA Today'; attends White House ceremony with New York Yankees

In less than 24 hours, the Gallaudet baseball team met President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and the New York Yankees at a White House ceremony and was featured in the sports section of USA Today. Not a bad run for the Bison, who wrapped up their 2010 baseball season on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 27 at Hoy Field against Valley Forge Christian College.

The baseball team had a front row seat to history on Monday, April 26 as the Bison were special guests of Obama at a ceremony to recognize the Yankees for winning the 2009 World Series, their 27th title, overall. The ceremony took place in the East Room of the White House.

The ceremony was extra special for Gallaudet baseball coach Curtis Pride, who played for the New York Yankees in 2003. As the Yankees entered and exited the East Room, many players came over to Pride to exchange hugs, handshakes, and kind words.

“This is a very exciting day for the Gallaudet University baseball program. It was an honor for us to be invited and be a part of this ceremony. For our players to be able to shake hands with the president and the New York Yankees is an incredible experience,” said Pride. “It was especially great to see old friends from the Yankees organization.”

On Tuesday, April 27, the USA Today story about the Gallaudet baseball program ran on the front cover of the sports section. The newspaper’s baseball reporter, Mel Antonen, an award-winning journalist who has covered Major League Baseball for 24 years, came to Kendall Green twice in April to interview Pride and the Bison student-athletes, and to take in two home games. USA Today sports photographer Jack Gruber also came out twice to see the Bison play, and several of his photos are in the newspaper. Gruber and Katye Martens edited a three-minute video segment with captioning.

Antonen writes about Pride coming to Gallaudet and how his upbringing and his years in Major League Baseball are helping him build the Bison baseball program. The article also has quotes from several of the Bison student-athletes and two of Pride’s former managers, Joe Torre and Mike Scioscia.
Links to the USA Today story and video can be found here.
To see more pictures from the White House ceremony click here.
–Sam Atkinson