Press releases are posted on Independent.com as a free community service.
Do you miss baseball? With spring training just around the corner, get a jump on the 2025 baseball season by attending the annual Santa Barbara Foresters Hall of Fame event, February 2 at 3 pm at the Cabrillo Pavilion.
The Foresters will be inducting two well-known and successful former players who continued to make their mark on the sport. In 2023, Josh Jung became the first former Forester to win an MLB World Series ring as the starting third baseman for the Texas Rangers. (Of course, the Foresters have earned 10 National Baseball Congress World series titles themselves!) Josh will be joined in the Hall by Luke Ritter, a two-year Forester and member of the 2018 NBC-winning team; Luke is now in Triple A with the New York Mets.
“We’re very excited to welcome both of these great players back to Santa Barbara,” said longtime Foresters manager Bill Pintard. “They represent our organization so well and we’re very proud of their success.”
Pintard also hopes to see lots of Foresters fans at the event, which will also include news about the team’s ongoing Hugs for Cubs cancer support program. The annual dinner is a key fundraiser for the Hugs.
“It’s so important to what we do as a team that we help our players and coaches and volunteers understand how much of an impact the Hugs has on people,” said Pintard, who founded the Hugs for Cubs in 1994 with his son Eric, who later passed away from cancer himself.
Along with meeting stars like Jung and Ritter, fans can touch base (pardon the pun) with other Hall of Famers, talk baseball with Foresters coaches, and enjoy great food and drink provided by local sponsors.
For more information and to get your tickets (or sponsor a table or donate to the Hugs for Cubs), visit sbforesters.org or write to info@sbforesters.org.
