Baseball without Borders: The International Pastime

13. Italy: No Hotdogs in the Bleachers

Known for Renaissance art, fabulous opera, and unparalleled cuisine, Italy has far less illustriously fielded professional baseball teams for over fifty years. Following the introduction of the game by American servicemen during World War II, small numbers of young Italians began forming teams in various cities up and down the boot. By league play began with five teams from Milan and one from Bologna each playing a game a week. The following year two leagues emerged, the Federazione and the Lega di Baseball Italiana, with teams from Rome, Milan, Bologna , Firenze, Modena, and other cities. By these evolved into the Federazione Italiana Baseball Softball ( ), which is still in existence and governs men’s pro baseball and women’s softball from its central offices in Rome and several regional of- fices. Throughout the s and early s, eight to twelve teams competed in , playing a game a week through an eighteenweek season. Though a few players received a small fee for their services, the league in those years likely resembled a recreational or semipro league more than the professional organization of teams playing today. By the s each team’s schedule increased to or so games a year, and by the s teams played between and games, usually with a -game series each weekend. Despite this heritage, professional baseball attracts minimal attention in Italian sporting culture, with crowds counted in the hundreds attending regular season games in ballparks about the size of college or spring training facilities. The game receives scant coverage in local newspapers; in the country’s national ฀ 13 | Italy No Hotdogs in the Bleachers ฀ sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, it is often easier to find scores of American . This lack of popularity can to some degree be attributed to Italy’s status as a single-sport nation, with soccer as the undisputed center of every sports fan’s consciousness. Nearly all Italian men (and many women) support a soccer team with the same passion they have for their families. The popularity of soccer, however, does not fully account for baseball’s failure to gain a foothold in Italy. Auto racing (meaning Ferrari on the circuit), basketball, boxing, and even volleyball garner more media coverage and fan interest than baseball, though all lag well behind soccer. Some signs of progress are evident. In the Federazione entered into an agreement to have a “Game of the Week” broadcast through a paid package to fans in cities with “major league” level teams. In addition , the league has begun holding national baseball camps for youth. Nevertheless, baseball in the bel paese remains a “boutique sport,” about as popular as professional lacrosse in the United States. As such, it attracts few casual fans. The fans who do follow the game tend to be appassionati (die-hards). They are knowledgeable about the rules and zealous about their team. While the quality of play certainly falls short of that in the United States, Latin America, or Asia, fans enjoy a game that boasts a strong history of native-born players and teams, attracts a small group of foreign players, and offers a richly satisfying experience at the ballpark. La Lega Maggior In the men’s “major league” is divided into levels and . The league, the higher level, presently fields ten teams, but over the years the number has risen as high as twenty when assimilated several teams during the early s. In the past ten years or so, the league has settled on eight teams playing a -game regular season, with single games on Friday nights and doubleheaders on Saturdays during the months paralleling the American professional season. Games are not scheduled on Sunday to avoid competing with soccer in April, May, and late September. To a U.S. fan the use of the designation “ ” is unintentionally appropriate because the play in these leagues approximates No Hotdogs in the Bleachers that of the -level minors in the States. Still, the leagues offer exciting baseball. Each year the top four teams of the league enter the playoffs (two best-of-seven series) to determine the winner of the championship, called the scudetto, which literally means shield or escutcheon and describes the shape of the patch the champions wear the following year. The awarding and wearing of the scudetto originated in soccer and has been adopted by other Italian team sports as well as baseball. Following the playoffs, the champion and runner-up...