FSN Bay Area Teams up with Emerald Snacks for Inaugural Baseball Skills Clinic; Three Baseball Skills Clinics Scheduled for Northern California Youth; Oakland, San Francisco & South Bay Baseball Fields to Host Free Clinics

Business Wire, May 25, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO -- Former MLB Players Bip Roberts and Mike Norris Among Coaches for Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic; Registration Begins May 24th at www.fsnbayarea.com and www.emeraldnuts.com

FSN Bay Area and Emerald, the snack brand of Diamond Foods, Inc. (Nasdaq:DMND), announced today the first annual Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic. Created for children ages 9-12, the Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic will take place as a free one-day, three-hour event in three different locations: Oakland, San Francisco and the South Bay. The announcement was made by Jeff Krolik, Senior Vice President and General Manager, FSN Bay Area, and Michael J. Mendes, President/CEO, Diamond Foods.

The clinics will take place Saturday, June 17th in Oakland; Saturday, July 8th in San Francisco; and in August (Date To Be Announced) in the South Bay. Notification of the specific baseball field locations will be sent to legal guardians of the participants via e-mail once the on-line registration is complete. The Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic will be offered to children ages 9-12 at no charge. Each clinic is strictly limited to the first 300 registered children.

Beginning Wednesday, May 24th, enrollment for the Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic will be available on www.fsnbayarea.com and www.emeraldnuts.com. Legal guardians must register their child and are required to provide all necessary information on the on-line registration.

The Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic will be headed by Coach Chris Kyriacou, varsity baseball coach at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, CA, and his staff. Former Major League Baseball players Bip Roberts and Mike Norris will provide assistance to Coach Kyriacou. The clinics will consist of three 45-minute instruction stations: pitching, fielding, and hitting. Clinic attendees will rotate among the three stations, each of which will be led by a professionally trained staff of coaches.

"FSN Bay Area is proud to partner with Emerald Snacks for the inaugural Baseball Skills Clinic," said Krolik. "We look forward to providing young ballplayers with this fun and unique opportunity to work with former Major League Baseball players and a superb coaching staff. It should be both memorable and a great learning experience for all who participate. We thank Emerald Snacks for making these youth clinics possible."

"Diamond Foods and its Emerald snack brand are committed to promoting healthy, active lifestyles by sponsoring events like the New York City and Los Angeles marathons and the Emerald Across the Bay 12k and the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco," said Mendes. "Now we are proud to team with FSN as the title sponsor of the Emerald Baseball Skills Clinic, an event which promotes physical fitness for Bay Area youngsters."

About FSN Bay Area

FSN Bay Area reaches more than 3.6 million households in Northern California and Northern Nevada. FSN Bay Area's programming includes Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants baseball, Golden State Warriors basketball, San Jose Sharks hockey, San Jose Saber Cats football, and San Jose Stealth lacrosse, The Best Damn Sports Show Period, The Sports List and Beyond the Glory. FSN Bay Area is owned and managed by Rainbow Sports Networks. Visit www.fsnbayarea.com for more information.

Rainbow Sports Networks is a division of Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC). Rainbow Sports Networks owns and manages Fox Sports Net regional networks in three of the nation's largest markets: Chicago, New England and San Francisco. FSN reaches more than 81 million households nationwide.

About Diamond Foods

Diamond Foods, Inc. is a leading branded food company specializing in processing, marketing and distributing culinary and snack nuts under the Diamond of California and Emerald brands. Diamond's products include walnuts, pine nuts, pecans, peanuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, cashews, Brazil nuts and almonds. Diamond Foods is listed on the Nasdaq National Market as "DMND." For more information visit diamondfoods.com.

The Emerald product line, which was introduced nationally in August 2004, now has 20 products, including traditional lightly seasoned snack nuts in handy on-the-go canisters, unique sweet and savory glazed nuts and three new Emerald Trail Mix blends. Emerald snack products are sold in approximately 60,000 U.S. retail outlets. For more information visit emeraldnuts.com.