UC Irvine dedicated Cicerone Field on Tuesday, then capped off the ceremonies with a 5-4, 10th-inning win over UCLA at Anteater Ballpark.

The field was named for Chancellor Emeritus Ralph J. Cicerone, currently president of the National Academy of Sciences. Cicerone was UC Irvine’s founding chair of the Earth system science, and he also served as dean of physical sciences before being named the school’s fourth chancellor in 1998. He left the campus in 2005.

In 2008, the school honored Cicerone and his wife, Carol, with the highest honor given at UC Irvine, The Medal. Cicerone is an ardent baseball fan and was a baseball student-athlete at MIT. He was instrumental in bring baseball back to Irvine after the sport was a victim of budget cuts in 1992. UC Irvine currently is the top-ranked Division I team.

Cicerone helped break ground on Anteater Ballpark in 2001, and threw out the first pitch a year later.