Valentine's Day Special Delivery: Diamond Dogs Deliver Season Tickets To Starkville Fans
STARKVILLE, Miss. - The Mississippi State baseball team shared some Valentine’s Day love for its many loyal fans in Starkville Saturday, delivering tickets for the upcoming 2009 season to dozens of baseball season ticket patrons in the Starkville community.
Armed with neighborhood maps, GPS devices, schedule posters and nearly 1,000 baseball season tickets, 18 two-player teams embarked on an early-morning mission to personally deliver the season passes to residences throughout Starkville.
"This is something we’ve done in the past at Kentucky," said Bulldog skipper John Cohen, who launches his MSU coaching career at Dudy Noble Field Feb. 20-22 in the BankFirst Baseball Challenge. "It’s an opportunity for our players to connect with the community and with many of our great Mississippi State baseball fans. These fans have done so much for our program through the years, and it’s important that our players get to meet them personally and let them know how much we appreciate all they have done for this program."
The home delivery of the reserved chairback and general admission season tickets, good for all 32 games this season at Dudy Noble Field, took nearly two hours to complete, leaving the Diamond Dogs a sun-filled afternoon for a final preseason practice game.
With season ticket sales continuing through the MSU Athletic Ticket Office (662-325-2600 /
www.MStateAthletics.com), State’s 2009 baseball season ticket sales have reached 5,320. That total stands as the sixth-largest in school history and a mere 45 away from the No. 3 spot on State’s baseball season ticket sales chart. State sold a school-record 5,596 baseball season tickets in 2002.
The MSU ticket office is also accepting ticket orders for the 12th annual "First Pitch/Meet the Team" baseball celebration, to be held Thursday, Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. in the Palmeiro Center. Coach Cohen will serve as the event’s featured speaker.
Mississippi State ushers in its 119th season of baseball and the John Cohen coaching era Friday at 6 p.m. when State takes on Northern Illinois in its opening game of the BankFirst Baseball Challenge. The field for the three-team, six-game event also includes North Florida, which tests NIU in a 2:30 p.m. contest Friday afternoon.