OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Baseball season is inching closer with pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training this week, but it’s the history of college baseball that will be celebrated Thursday night in Overland Park.
“This is a highlight, if not the highlight, of our year — the induction of the annual Hall of Fame class,” College Baseball Foundation and Hall of Fame CEO and Executive Director Tom Jacobs said. “But even more so now and moving forward, because we have the permanent home that's been identified and selected here in Overland Park.”
The College Baseball Hall of Fame was founded in 2004 in Lubbock, Texas, but it will finally have a physical home next year at the Museum at Prairie Fire. Kansas City-based Populous is designing the space.
“We've just finished phase one of the project with them, which we've been working on for about the last nine months,” Jacobs said. “It’s really the whole ideation, the conceptualization of what the space is going to look like. We have just under 10,000 square feet of space that'll be the College Baseball Hall of Fame that'll sit within the Museum at Prairie Fire.”
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There will be 11 players, coaches and contributors to college baseball — from all levels of college baseball, junior college to NAIA to across NCAA divisions — inducted as part of the 2025 class during the College Baseball Night of Champions.
The festivities kick off at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Marriott Kansas City Overland Park, 10800 Metcalf Ave. A limited number of tickets are still available and can be purchased at the door.
The 2024 Hall of Fame class includes Roger Clemens, Mark Teixeira, former Kansas City Royals first baseman Jeff King and Mike Schmidt, who will be unable to attend.
Jac Caglianone, the Royals’ first-round pick last year, also will be honored with the John Olerud Award as college baseball’s best two-way player.
“It's an incredible class, and it's humbling in a good way to be going in with guys like Mike Schmidt and Roger Clemens — two legends of the sport,” Teixeira, a 2009 World Series champion with the New York Yankees, said.
For King, it came as a shock nearly 40 years after he starred at the University of Arkansas, who Pittsburgh would pick in the first round.
“It's kind of out of the blue,” King said. “It happened such a long time ago. I don't know what I think about it. It's quite an honor, though.”
Teixeira — who hit 409 home runs in 14 big-league seasons with Texas, Atlanta, the Los Angeles Angels and the Yankees — was pleasantly surprised when he learned of his selection.
“It's something that you never really think about when you're playing college baseball — one day you'll be a Hall of Famer,” he said. “But I look at my college experience as one of the greatest things I've ever done.”
Teixeira’s three children are old enough to remember the end of his MLB career, but his days as a Yellowjackets came well before he and his wife, Leigh, started a family.
“Seeing me in some pictures at Georgia Tech — and I met my wife there, so their mom and I were in college together — I just think it's going to be a really cool experience for them to be there in Kansas City with a bunch of people that love college baseball and know that their dad was a small part of history,” Teixeira said.
After playing at Georgia Tech and later for the Braves, Teixeira hopes the College Baseball Hall of Fame can become a repository for history and draw along the lines of the College Football Hall of Fame.
“This is great,” he said. “I've spent a lot of time in Atlanta and I've been to the College Football Hall of Fame a handful of times. It's always packed.”
The College Baseball Hall of Fame hopes to open its doors in early 2026 — in time for next year’s induction.
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