April 28, 2005

WACO, Texas - The Houston Astros announced that the club will host the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Champion Baylor Lady Bears on Friday, April 29, 2005, when the Astros face the Chicago Cubs. Prior to the 7:05 p.m. game, the Baylor team will be honored for its 2004-2005 accomplishments.

Head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson will throw out the ceremonial first pitch. In addition, at the end of the second inning Mulkey-Robertson will be the guest engineer on the Astros' historic train which train runs some 800 feet along the low roof track on the west side of the ballpark. Also, she will join Fox Sports Network television analysts Bill Brown and Larry Dierker in the broadcast booth at the top of the fourth inning.

The Baylor Lady Bears soared to new heights in 2004-2005, winning the second national championship in any sport in school history and first basketball national championship, men's or women's, for a Big 12 conference team. Down the stretch in the NCAA tournament, Baylor defeated three consecutive No. 1 seeds en route to ending the season on a school-record 20-game winning streak. On April 5 in Indianapolis, Baylor defeated Michigan State in the NCAA Finals, 84-62, the second-largest title game margin of victory ever.

With the win over Michigan State, Mulkey-Robertson became the first woman to capture a national basketball championship as a player and a coach and just the third person ever (along with Bobby Knight and Dean Smith). She is the first person - male or female - to win a national basketball championship as a player (starting point guard for Louisiana Tech in 1982), assistant coach (Louisiana Tech in 1988), and head coach. In five years, she took a team that went 7-20 and was last in the Big 12 and led them to the national championship.