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TO THE BASEBALL FIELD After meeting Suzanna Zanolli and negotiating our mutually beneficial contract...her translation skills for 'making conversation' - we were ready to get a job playing baseball in Italy! The problem was that Laerte (Baseball Federation President) didn't really want to talk via a translator. In fact, once I returned with Suzanna in tow it wasn't more than a few minutes before we jumped in his Olive Green Mercedes and went screaming down impossibly narrow alleys to the ballpark in Verona. At this point I had been traveling for nearly 20 hours...awake for about 30 hours and was feeling a bit punchy! However doing 50 mph down a narrow cobblestone alley was enough to get me to put my seat belt on and wake up a bit. We arrived at 'al Centro sportivo Gavagnin' (Gavagnin baseball field) where much to my delight there appeared to be a full fledged baseball practice in progress on a gorgeous baseball diamond. The familiar sounds of balls being hit......

ARRIVING IN VERONA, ITALY to PLAY BASEBALL On the train from Milano to Verona I found myself being suddenly freaked out. My family-heritage-enthusiasm was starting to leave me...and self doubt started to pop up. In moments like this...and in my lifetime I had plenty...I did what I was taught to do on the baseball diamond...stick to the fundamentals and don't try to do too much! So I took a deep breath and kept thinking to myself, 'one thing at a time...and the first thing is to get rid of this HUGE, unwieldy, ridiculously heaving duffel bag!' There are two things everyone should know about Italian train stations: Left Luggage - you can leave your bags with them, thus unburdening yourself for a small fee. Buses - there are lots of buses outside of train stations and if you take Bus #1, it will take you to Il Centro (the center) of town. So with this knowledge I rented one of their changing rooms for 30 minutes...took a shower and sorted through what I needed to begin my que...

Living in Italy is Magical! Living in Italy and playing baseball is even better... Italy is full of all the usual things you have heard/read so much about - cobblestone streets, architecture, food, wine, art, history, beautiful people, gorgeous English teachers at German Schools, hand made masterpieces, gorgeous cars, siestas, loving families and talking with ones hands. What you almost never hear about in Italy is the wonderful sport of baseball. Yes...baseball... I have had the privilege of living in Italy three times in my life...for three baseball seasons. An American finding himself going to Italy to play baseball isn't easy. While there are many roads to Rome, there are shockingly few roads to Italian baseball. This is where my adventure began... I had decided that I wanted to play baseball in Italy and had no idea how to go about it. I had heard of Coach John Noce (pronounced NO-CHEE) of San Mateo Junior College (San Mateo, CA). Coach Noce had sons who had played in Italy a...

Baseball has a rhythm and pace that is like life and unlike any other sport. Baseball doesn’t have a time clock …the game unwinds in an unhurried, meandering pace that is unique and beholden to no one...in its own time. The game progresses at times to appear like an eternity and yet frantic in its final moments…just like life. Baseball is the hardest sport on the planet when one considers these simple facts for an 'average' Major League Fastball - 85 mph is the 'average' major league fastball - many pitchers throw much harder It takes 4/10 of a second for the pitch to go from the pitchers hand to the hitting zone A 'major league hitter' can get the head of the bat to the hitting zone in about 2/10 of a second Translation = a hitter has 2/10 of a second to decide if the pitch is a ball or strike, decide to swing and hit a round ball with a round ball...squarely...on an 'average' major league fastball There is nothing harder than hitting a pitched ball .....