After 5.2 million mile space trip, home plate returns

Baseball fan tweets from space

Mike Massimino took home plate from Shea Stadium. He’s returning it to the Mets new ballpark on Friday.

A shuttle astronaut, Massimino took home plate with him on his most recent trip on the space shuttle. It was with him, aboard Atlantis, when he serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

Although he lives in Houston now, Massimino still thinks of New York City as home. And, he’s throwing out the first pitch at Citi Field on Friday—and presenting the home plate back to the team.

The astronaut made another kind of history. On that same flight (STS-125) Mike became the first person to tweet from space. Using his Twitter account, Astro_Mike, he posted 20 tweets.