Baseballissimo: My Summer in the Italian Minor Leagues

Description

348 pages
Contains Photos
$36.99
ISBN 0-7710-8222-3
DDC 796.357'094562

Author

Year

2004

Contributor

Reviewed by Christine Hughes

Christine Hughes is manager, Policy Coordination, Developmental Services
Branch, Ontario Ministry of Community, Family and Children’s Services.

Review

Part travel, part food and local cuisine, mixed in with a generous
dollop of baseball, this book is a fun summer read that will appeal to a
broad audience, but particularly those with a love of the game of
baseball.

In spring 2002, Dave Bidini, a rhythm guitarist for the Rheostatics,
left city life in Toronto for Nettuno, Italy, with his wife and their
two young children, to follow a minor-league ball team over the summer
and into the playoffs. Nettuno, a seaside town of 30,000 on the
Tyrrhenian Sea an hour south of Rome, was his destination because it has
been the baseball capital of Italy since 1944, when the game was
introduced by the American GIs who liberated the region.

For six months, Bidini followed the fortunes of the “Series B” (or
Double A) Peones farm team. In recounting the travails of the Peones
(the team name means “Mexican peasants”) as the season progresses,
Bidini shares stories about the manager and various players
(black-and-white photos scattered throughout the book allow the reader
to match faces to the players’ names). There is also an element of
personal memoir about the book; one learns a lot about Bidini as he
discovers his Italian heritage, something he had largely tried to ignore
during his youth. The book is well written and entertaining, as well as
humorous and poignant. Before the end of the story, I found myself
rooting for the Peones and being reminded of why people around the world
love to play baseball.

Citation

Bidini, Dave., “Baseballissimo: My Summer in the Italian Minor Leagues,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed November 7, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/14526.