Local News in Brief : Newport Beach : ‘Stu Fine Field’ to Be Dedicated Today

Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials today will formally name the varsity baseball playing area at Newport Harbor High School for Stuart W. Fine, a parent and longtime volunteer umpire who died last year.

Noon ceremonies at the school will designate the baseball area as “Stu Fine Field.” Fine, a Newport Beach real estate broker and former teacher, died Jan. 24, 1988, of a heart attack.

Fine, a former varsity baseball player for Pepperdine University, spent much of his spare time as a volunteer coach and umpire for the Newport National Little League, the Boys Club of the Harbor Area and Newport Harbor High.

After graduating from Pepperdine in 1959, Fine was a junior high teacher in Bishop and Tustin. He entered the real estate business in 1963.

Fine’s wife, Esther, said she is pleased and proud that her husband’s memory is being honored by the high school. “This would have meant so much to him,” she said. “Baseball and youth were his loves.”