Dedicated to baseball

UCI’s baseball stadium will be named after former Chancellor Ralph Cicerone tonight. He flew in from Washington, D.C., for the dedication ceremony.

Cicerone, who left UCI in 2005 to head the National Academy of Sciences, was instrumental in bringing baseball back to campus after the school disbanded its team during financial hard times in the early 1990s. The university’s team is now the top-ranked program in the country for the fifth week.

“This was not a slap-dash thing; it was a commitment to make a first-class program, and I think you can see the results,” Cicerone said.

The team was funded through a campus ballot initiative that asked students to pay an added fee.

Cicerone was a big supporter of the initiative, but even after it passed the work wasn’t over.

The chancellor said he was constantly convincing the rotating leaders of student government that the program was worth the money and working to increase its funding in the budget.

Having the team capture the No. 1 spot without the luxurious locker rooms, private team jets and state-of-the-art training facilities that exist at other top schools is a great source of pride for Cicerone.

“It’s great because to get there you really have to do things right, and we do not put a lot of money into this program,” he said, adding that from the beginning the program has thrived because of strong coaching and student support.

The former chancellor played baseball for MIT while studying there as an undergraduate and even entertained an offer to become a baseball announcer after establishing himself as a professor.

Cicerone is best known for his research in the field of climate change.

“Of course he has numerous accomplishments on the academic side, but he has always had an affinity for baseball,” said Assistant Athletic Director Kara Jefferies.

The school is trying to build up its program so that it can host more prominent NCAA games. Since the ball field opened in 2002, the school built locker rooms, indoor batting cages, a broadcasting booth and offices for coaches.

A game pitting UCLA against UCI will follow the 5:30 p.m. dedication ceremony at 6 p.m.