San Francisco Giants Pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and Giants Legend Dave Dravecky Help Bay Area Students Take a Swing at "Financial Baseball"

San Francisco, CA – September 3, 2011 – In advance of tonight's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and Giants legend Dave Dravecky joined Visa Inc. at AT&T Park to help Bay Area students improve their money management skills.

During the event, Vogelsong and Dravecky shared personal experiences on the importance of money management. The players then rolled up their sleeves and led the students in a lively game of "Financial Baseball," using financial education questions from Visa's popular Practical Money Skills for Life program.

As part of today's event, Visa helped the middle schoolers learn the importance of budgeting, with Vogelsong and Dravecky tutoring the students in making their own personal budgets. Once tutored, the kids – part of the San Bruno Junior Giants baseball program – used the information they had learned to play a game of "Financial Baseball," with Vogelsong and Dravecky "pitching" personal finance questions to the students. To advance around the bases, the kids had to answer the questions correctly.

The foundation for this exercise is based on Visa's well-known financial literacy games – Financial Football and Financial Soccer. In recent years, these two video games have been showcased and distributed to schools around the country, including California. Both games have been embraced by government officials, teachers, parents and students.

"Kids need to know how to make smart money management decisions early in life," said Vogelsong. "It takes the creative and combined efforts of parents, teachers, and mentors within the community to give students a strong background in personal finance."

"It doesn't matter whether you make minimum wage or millions of dollars," added Dravecky. "If you don't learn to budget, save, invest and pay bills on time, the consequences can be overwhelming."

"For over a decade, Visa has been committed to promoting financial literacy, and we are proud to have Ryan Vogelsong and Dave Dravecky with us as we work to promote the importance of financial education," said Jason Alderman, senior director of financial education, Visa Inc.

Practical Money Skills for Life is a free, award-winning financial education program that reaches millions of people around the world each year. Launched in 1995, the program is now available in ten languages in more than thirty countries. At Practical Money Skills for Life, educators, parents and students can access free educational resources including personal finance articles, games, lesson plans, and more. Visa also runs What's My Score, a leading higher education consumer awareness program.

About Visa Inc.
Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency. Underpinning digital currency is one of the world's most advanced processing networks–VisaNet–that is capable of handling more than 10,000 transactions a second, with fraud protection for consumers and guaranteed payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visit usa.visa.com/about-visa/our_business.html.