Ripken Signs Three-Year Exclusive Turf Care Equipment Deal with Jacobsen

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Jacobsen®, a Textron company, will continue to be the exclusive supplier of turf care equipment to baseball superstar Cal Ripken, Jr. and his Ripken Management and Design clients. A three-year agreement was signed between the company and the future Hall of Fame inductee.

"Our partnership with Jacobsen has allowed us to maintain our facilities in a first-class manner," Ripken explains. "Ripken Stadium as well as our youth academy includes some of the finest playing fields in the country and we would not be able to achieve that without the quality machines like the ones we receive from Jacobsen."

Jacobsen products are used exclusively to maintain Ripken Stadium, home of Cal's team the Aberdeen Ironbirds, located just outside of Baltimore and the Augusta GreenJackets in Augusta, Ga.

Ripken played 21 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles and was one of only eight players to achieve 400 home runs and 3,000 hits. In 1995, he broke Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played which was 2,130. He voluntarily ended the streak in 1998 playing 2,632 consecutive games.

The Sports Turf Managers Association honored Ripken Baseball's Aberdeen Ironbirds in 2004 by awarding Superintendent Chad Olsen with Sports Turf Manager of the Year for short season or rookie minor league baseball.