MINNEAPOLIS – UND President Andrew Armacost put it near the plate on Thursday, July 8, when he tossed the first pitch at Target Field when the Twins took on the Detroit Tigers. And he did it with his off hand.
Armacost and a cadre of folks from UND – some alumni, some employees – attended the game to celebrate UND Night, back this season at Target Field after having been canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Armacost had been practicing his form in recent weeks – videos on his social media accounts showed him throwing into a net on campus. But a mishap in late June has the president wearing a UND-green cast on his pitching arm.
After a tumble at home, Armacost held off till the Fourth of July to get it checked out, and the diagnosis was clear: He had broken his left wrist. With that arm out of commission, he didn’t have much choice.
“I'm going to totally throw with my off hand,” he said to the Herald a day before UND Night. “I'm convinced that this is where the nerves come in.”
He didn't have to worry. When it came time to head out to the mound, just after 7 p.m., Armacost tossed it low and outside. It took a bounce and a photographer near home plate caught it. He had the distance, but not the accuracy – understandable for a guy not throwing with his dominant hand.
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Tossing out the first pitch at a big-league game fulfilled a fantasy for Armacost, whose history with baseball goes back a long way. He wasn’t going to let the cast stop him.
“Just like every kid, you grow up wanting to become a professional baseball player,” he said. “This is that dream come true, to throw a pitch from a professional mound, albeit at age 53. It took a lot longer to get here than I would have thought.”
The Glendale, Wis., native played baseball for Nicolet High School, and was a pitcher when the team won the state championship in 1985. He went on to pitch at Northwestern University for a short time, where he briefly played with future major leaguer Joe Girardi, a multi-World Series winner who now manages the Philadelphia Phillies. Armacost decided to focus on his education after a sore shoulder and elbow took some of the heat off his pitches.
But this week's trip to Minneapolis isn’t all about baseball. Armacost had meetings scheduled throughout Thursday and Friday. It’s a chance to connect with alumni, celebrate what UND means to them, and hear their memories of the university.
“This is a way to thank them and to also broadcast the UND name in the Twin Cities, and hopefully on a national stage as well,” Armacost said.
The UND Alumni Association and Foundation has been teaming up with the Twins to host UND Night since 2009.
