CITGO Petroleum Commemorating Latino Baseball.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum today unveiled a five-year relationship with the CITGO Petroleum Corporation to salute the unique impact of Latino baseball on America’s national pastime. Titled Baseball! Beisbol!, the Hall of Fame-CITGO celebration will be a multi-faceted campaign, highlighted by a pair of dynamic exhibits that will travel throughout the United States beginning in 2006.

CITGO is the exclusive national sponsor of Baseball! Beisbol!.

Latino Hall of Famers Luis Aparicio, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, and Tony Perez participated in today’s kickoff announcement, held at the ESPN Zone in Times Square. The event was emceed by Roberto Clemente, Jr., the son of the late Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente.

“Baseball has always reflected our American culture,” said Hall of Fame Chairman Jane Forbes Clark. “A great example of this is the increasingly significant role Latinos have played in American life — and on the baseball field — these past 25 years. Today, more than 25 percent of major league players are from Latin America, including many of the game’s biggest stars.

The centerpiece of the Hall of Fame-CITGO relationship is a national touring museum exhibit that will provide fans with a fun and interactive experience recreating the sights, sounds and idiosyncrasies of Latino baseball. The exhibit will include artifacts from past and present Latino baseball greats. A touring schedule will be released later this year.
A smaller panel exhibit commemorating Latino baseball, also designed by the Hall of Fame and underwritten by CITGO, is scheduled to make its debut this spring in markets around the country and will continue to tour throughout 2006.
Among other initiatives, the five-year Hall of Fame-CITGO partnership will also include:

* A special forum to commemorate the legacy of Roberto Clemente during All-Star game festivities in Pittsburgh this July, to be staged in conjunction with the Hall of Fame’s FanFest exhibit, which will include a Latino theme in 2006;

* An exchange program aimed at forging a closer and more productive relationship between curators in Cooperstown and their counterparts at the Caribbean and Latin American halls of fame;

* A multi-cultural advisory panel of experts to ensure that partnership initiatives reflect the uniqueness of Latino baseball; and

* The translation into Spanish of key Hall of Fame documents for Museum visitors, as well as the Hall’s famous plaques on the Hall of Fame’s Web site.

For more information at http://www.baseballbeisbol.com.