Ken Schrom to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

CORPUS CHRISTI – Former Hooks President and American League All-Star pitcher Ken Schrom will be presented with the 2025 South Texas Winter Baseball Banquet Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday, January 23 at the American Bank Center.

Schrom, 70, has dedicated 43 years of service to professional baseball, including a seven-year Major League career with the Toronto Blue Jays, Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians.

Posting a 51-51 lifetime record, Schrom completed 22 games while logging a 4.81 ERA over 900.0 career innings. In 1983, he was named Twins Pitcher of the Year after going 15-8 with a 3.71 ERA. In 1986, Schrom was Cleveland's Opening Day starter, and he responded by authoring a 10-2 record in the first half that season, landing the Grangeville, Idaho native on the American League All-Star team.

Schrom retired from pitching in 1989 and began a 16-year run in the front office of the Texas League’s El Paso Diablos. He joined the then-unnamed Corpus Christi franchise in 2003 and went on to become Texas League Executive of the Year in 2005, the inaugural Hooks season.

Under Schrom’s leadership, including 11 seasons as club president, the Hooks were tabbed Texas League Organization of the Year three times in a 10-year span from 2009 to 2018. He concluded his 16-year stay in Corpus Christi at the end of the 2019 campaign.

In a special pregame ceremony on the penultimate day of the season, the club commemorated his many contributions by naming the area outside Whataburger Field’s main entrance as "Ken Schrom Plaza," where Ken was a fixture greeting fans. As part of the festivities, ValueBank Texas presented fans with a Ken Schrom bobblehead, and Corpus Christi Mayor Joe McComb proclaimed September 1, 2019 as Ken Schrom Day in the city.

An Idaho all-state selection in football, basketball and baseball, Schrom graduated from Grangeville High School in 1973. He signed his first pro contract in 1976 after being drafted by the California Angels out of the University of Idaho, where Ken pitched and quarterbacked the football team.

Schrom is a member of the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame, Texas League Hall of Fame, and El Paso Baseball Hall of Fame.

Reserved seats for the 19th South Texas Winter Baseball Banquet, presented by Whataburger, are $75. Click Here, call 361-561-HOOK (4665), or visit the Whataburger Field Box Office for tickets. Two-time World Series Champion Hunter Pence, who led the Hooks to the Texas League title in 2006, is the featured speaker. Doors of the Henry Garrett Ballroom open at 6 PM.