Rich Marazzi, of Ansonia, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Southern Connecticut Diamond Club, Inc. at a dinner on October 17, 2012 at Monticello’s in Meriden.
Marazzi is the baseball rules consultant for the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays. He has also served the Houston Astros, Arizona Diamondbacks and Cleveland Indians in the same capacity.
His Ruleball program which teaches players and coaches about the nuances of the baseball rule book, is the first of its kind and he is the first known baseball rules consultant in baseball history. He umpired baseball for 23 years from 1966 – 1988 working high school, college and some independent professional games.
He is a past president of the Valley Umpires Association and the New Haven Board of Approved Umpires.
Rich had the privilege of umpiring the Old-Timer’s Day Game at Yankee Stadium for 16 consecutive years from 1989 – 2004. In 2012 he received the Umpire’s Appreciation Award from the Connecticut High School Coaches Association.
Rich has made many spring training presentations to the staffs of the major league teams he is affiliated with and is a national clinician.
He has been a presenter at the Texas High School Coaches Baseball Clinic, the Pennsylvania High School Baseball Coaches Clinic, The Las Vegas Baseball Show, the Mohegan Sun World Baseball Coaches Convention in Connecticut and the Danbury Westerners baseball clinic. He is also a regular presenter and consultant for the Sacred Heart University baseball program.
Marazzi is a national rules columnist for the USA Today Sports Weekly, Baseball Digest and several other publications including the Amateur Baseball Umpires Association, Collegiate Baseball and the New England Baseball Journal. He has authored five baseball books including The Rules and Lore of Baseball and Aaron to Zuverink: A Nostalgic Look at the Baseball Players of the Fifties.
Marazzi is currently the host of Inside Yankee Baseball, heard weekly on 97.9 ESPN in Hartford and ESPN Radio 1300 in New Haven. He is also currently writing a book titled, A Bowl Full of Memories. It is an oral history of Yale football and the Yale Bowl to help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Yale Bowl in 2014.
He is married to the former Loisann Kelly. They have two sons and two grandchildren.
Tickets are $55 per person. They may be obtained by contacting Rose Mentone at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or for further info, go to southernctdiamondclub.org.
