April 29, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Compete in everything you do. It's one of the football program's four core values, and it's the mantra head coach James Franklin lives by.
He took that competitive energy onto the mound at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night prior to the Yankees-Tampa Bay Rays game and delivered a strike during a ceremonial first pitch as part of a celebration of the team's Pinstripe Bowl championship.
Upon arrival in the Bronx, Franklin and a small group of staff members toured the stadium and some of the organization's most prized artifacts, including holding a 45-ounce bat used by Babe Ruth in 1927. The leader of the Nittany Lions presented Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who is a college football fanatic, with a signed Penn State helmet on the field during batting practice.
The group watched the Yankees take batting practice from behind home plate while mingling with members from the Pinstripe Bowl and Yankees organization. From there, Franklin shifted into prep mode for the opening pitch. He used just four practice tosses into the batting cage nets in the Yankees clubhouse before walking onto the mound to a rousing cheer.
"I have tremendous training for this. I played highly competitive Little League baseball about 30 years ago," Franklin joked before the pitch.
As promised, Franklin worked from a wind up and tossed the ceremonial pitch with some heat on the corner of the plate before a "We Are" chant rang through the area behind home plate as the mit popped.
"I had an awesome experience," Franklin said. "They've been great to us since we arrived in town, and really the whole bowl experience carried over. I went out on the mound, let it fly and had some fun...It felt good. I tried not to think about it a lot and just let it fly. It went somewhere near the plate and had a little bit of velocity on it."
Much like the bowl week in New York, the Pinstripe Bowl and Yankees staff members were tremendous hosts and first class for the Nittany Lions on Tuesday. Fans heading to Yankee Stadium will find a mural documenting Penn State's thrilling 31-30 win over Boston College in the 2014 Pinstripe Bowl.