The American Dream of Tomato Baseball Club: Little Unwitting Baseball Heroes

Those who play baseball are, in my opinion, in some ways special persons. Baseball isn't just any sport, it doesn't just form real athletes. Baseball forms particular men. Like Giovanni Tommasini. A baseball player and today a writer. He passed through that field with a particular shape called a diamond. The green grass, the red dirt; put on a helmet, hold the bat and you are about to enter the batter's box. You against everybody: on that little hill is the pitcher ready to challenge you; all around him, his teammates are ready to eliminate you if the pitcher fails to do so.Giovanni Tommasini lived it on his skin, he experienced what it means to slide on that red dirt to get to the base before the opponent's defenders could get you out.An email, a phone call, and I met Giovanni. After exchanging a word or two I immediately understood how much baseball is still part of his life. Then, when I read Tomato, his first story, I realized how special this Ligurian author is. All the beauty and magic of this sport can be found in his writings, getting inspiration from the birth of the team in the city of Sanremo up to the fabulous story of Alex Liddi. The first real professional Italian Major League player. From Sanremo.Tommasini's are not just ordinary stories. With his quotes from great writers, composers and poets, he can make baseball a lesson of life. Baseball not only as a team sport, but like a real gym of life. In every position, from pitcher to catcher, from shortstop to the outfield, this sport has something to give.Tommasini writes about the pitcher in Nine Spearheads: "The trajectory requested by the catcher, a dock for the hitter; the bat meeting the pitched ball, the dreamed land on the new world.Heroes. We can be heroes, just for one day and forever".From there the decision to publish on my website Baseballmania, because I believed right away what Giovanni was proposing me. No one in Italy ever wrote about the baseball the way he did. From the first stories, to those Giovanni wrote later on, something was born also from our exchange of ideas, like the fantastic tale about the life of Agostino Liddi. The origin of Alex Liddi.Then everything happened in a short time, because Tommasini's tales fly fast, like the 90 miles fastball of a Major League pitcher. Up to this book which collects, like a single theme, all the tales of this great Ligurian writer. The first great baseball writer in Italy.Those who played baseball are special persons.When you will get to the end of this book, you will understand why.