The Madison Mallards have announced Hall of Famer and Milwaukee Brewers legend Robin Yount will headline the team’s fifth annual MLB Alumni Game presented by West Bend to be held Friday, August 13 at 7:35 p.m. at Warner Park.
Yount will begin signing autographs at 5:30 p.m. and will only sign one item per fan.
The event’s list of former headliners is impressive, including Harmon Killebrew (’06), Rollie Fingers (’07), Ferguson Jenkins (’08), and last year’s appearance by Yount’s former teammate, Paul Molitor.
Said Mallards President Vern Stenman, “We knew only one person could top last year’s appearance by Molitor, and couldn’t be more ecstatic to bring Robin Yount to the Madison area and continue this event for our great fans.”
Widely regarded as being Milwaukee’s most beloved star athlete, Yount played his entire 20-year career with the Brewers and holds team records in at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, total bases, walks and strikeouts.
He was the third pick overall in the June 1973 MLB Draft and made his major league debut the following April, just over 36 years ago, at the age of 18.
No one had more hits in the decade of the 1980’s than Yount, leading the American League with 210 hits in 1982. Accolades kept piling up that year for “the Kid” as he was named to the American League All-Star Team, won his first and only Gold Glove Award at shortstop, and earned AL MVP honors. Of course he also led the Crew to within a game of winning the World Series in an epic seven-game affair against the St. Louis Cardinals.
When Yount won a second MVP award in 1989, only this time as a centerfielder, he became the first AL player to win multiple MVP’s in over a quarter century, since the New York Yankees’ Roger Maris (1960, 1961) and Mickey Mantle (1956, 1957, 1962).
On September 9, 1992, Yount collected his 3,000th career hit, becoming the 17th player to reach that mark. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999, his first year of eligibility.
In recent years, he served as Brewers bench coach for two seasons from 2005-06, and a second stint in September of 2008 when then-interim Manager Dale Sveum brought Yount out of retirement one last time as the team made the playoffs for the first time since that magical ’82 season.
This past January he appeared and signed autographs at the Brewers On-Deck event held at the Midwest Airlines Center.
Yount is not expected to participate in the exhibition game.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks as the team announces the full list of former big leaguers and Mallards expected to attend and play alongside each other in the contest.
The Madison Mallards are members of the 16-team summer collegiate Northwoods League and have led the nation in attendance each of the last four summers. Opening Day is slated for Wednesday, June 2, at 7:05 p.m. against the Wisconsin Woodchucks.
