Pittsburgh Pirates director of media relations Jim Trdinich has won Major League Baseball's top annual PR award, the Robert O. Fishel Award for Public Relations Excellence.
Trdinich, a 23-year veteran of the Pirates, started out as an intern in 1985 with the National League ballclub. He left for a National League post and returned to the Pirates in 1989 as assistant director of media relations, taking the director title at age 26 in 1991.
Officials of the 30 MLB teams and league staffers nominate honorees for the annual PR award, named after the late Yankees PR director and American League executive VP Robert Fishel, who died in 1988.
Jay Alves, VP of communications and PR for the Colorado Rockies, won the 2010 honors.
The award, given since 1981, goes to an "active, non-uniformed representative of Major League Baseball whose ethics, character, dedication, service, professionalism and humanitarianism best represents the standards propounded by Robert O. Fishel," according to MLB.