Hit King Baseball officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday for the Pete Rose ‘Hit King’ Baseball Academy, located at 4256 Hit King Parkway, FM 2855, Katy. The complex is named in honor of former Cincinnati Reds player Pete Rose. Former ballplayers Johnny Johnson, Ryan Baker and Derek Hurley own and operate JRD4256 Enterprises LLC—the parent company of Hit King Baseball and The Bull Pen Scouting and Training Facility. They announced plans to construct the roughly 20,000-square-foot academy earlier this year. Johnson and Major League Baseball Hall of Fame member Tony Perez, who is now on the JRD4256 board of directors, spoke on behalf of Hit King Baseball at the event. Also in attendance were Katy Mayor Fabol Hughes and officials from Waller County and the office of Governor Greg Abbott. Johnson read statements on behalf of fellow board members Rose, Steve Garvey and Ivan Rodriguez. “I am very excited about the opportunity to start our first baseball academy in Katy, Texas,” Rose said in his statement. “We are looking forward to doing everything possible to make the city of Katy proud.” Hurley, who once played in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and opened The Pull Ben Scouting and Training Facility in 2013, said he is excited about the unique partnership between his company and several former MLB players. He said he has enjoyed working with a group of individuals as passionate as himself about passing along their baseball expertise and developing upcoming talent. “To come full circle years later and now open an academy like this and being part of it with the big leaguers and kind of stuff like that, it’s stuff you can’t even make it up,” Hurley said. “To sit there and look back now and see the impact that we’re going to have in the community—not only just teaching kids, but having jobs [and] having a nice facility people are proud of in the area—that’s the kind of stuff that’s exciting for us.” Hit King Baseball officials said the facility, which will sit on a roughly 20-acre piece of land, is projected to open early next year. The company will have the option of expanding the complex up to roughly 70 acres in the future, they said.   Click on the slideshow below for more information on the event and the academy. [g-slider gid="186976" width="100%" height="55%"]