Officials are set to break ground Friday on Hit King Baseball Academy in Katy.[/caption]After nearly a year of development, owners are set to break ground on Katy’s Pete Rose 'Hit King' Baseball Academy.
Named after Pete Rose, who holds Major League Baseball’s all-time career hits record, the owners of the future facility will host a ground breaking and ribbon cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. on Friday, September 23. The 20-acre plot of land is located at 4256 Hit King Parkway, FM 2855, Katy—the address being a nod to Rose’s cumulative hits tally of 4,256.
Johnny Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer, said the nearly 20,000-square-foot facility is projected to cost between $11 million and $14 million and is anticipated to open in the spring prior to next baseball season.
According to Johnson, several community leaders and former professional baseball players will be on hand at Friday’s event. Tony Perez and Gerald Young will be present, while statements from Rose, Steve Garvey and Ivan Rodriguez will be read.
“[Rose is] with FOX Sports getting ready for the playoffs and the World Series coming,” Johnson said. “But he has prepared a statement which I’ll be reading on behalf of Pete.”
Johnson said Rose developed an attraction for the Houston area through former Cincinnati Reds teammate Joe Morgan.
“The Astros traded [Morgan] to Cincinnati, and he became part of the Big Red Machine,” he said. “Pete has always had sort of an affinity for Houston and the Astros because ‘hey, we got Joe Morgan from them.’”
Johnson will run the facility with co-owners Ryan Baker and Derek Hurley; all three are former ballplayers. Hurley—a former member of the Pittsburgh Pirates organization—founded The Bull Pen Scouting and Training Facility in Cypress, a facility that now operates in conjunction with the Hit King brand.
Johnson said the academy will consist of several different amenities, including four field turf baseball fields—two of which will meet MLB regulations—an indoor training facility, 10 indoor batting cages, a film and meeting room, locker rooms and a golf driving range. The academy will field its own teams from age six through college-level, he said.
The facility will also contain a food truck court and an indoor-outdoor sports bar called The Rose Garden where guests can watch sports and drink No Label Brewing Co.’s new Pete Rose beers, according to Johnson. Hit King American Blonde Ale—the first beer in the Pete Rose line—was released last month.
Johnson said Rose and other former players will be highly involved with Hit King Baseball, which has already begun fielding teams in several states.
“[Rose is] actually invested in this; real money,” Johnson said. “All these guys are doing very strategic things for us to keep the momentum at our academy. So, it’s not just a name only; there’s actual bodies that people can look [at] and feel and touch and get quite a bit of useful information about the game of baseball from these guys.”
Hit King Baseball plans to open additional academies around the country and has set the goal of having a presence in all 50 states within the next 10 years, Johnson said.
“We are in the midst of a public offering for this business that we’re doing; we’re going to be rolling these academies out across the United States,” he said. “The next one we’re going to work on is in Cincinnati, which is obviously where Pete’s from.”
