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AMARCORD. MONTEFIASCONE AND THE TRADITION OF BASEBALL

Baseball is so passionate that it often attracts entire families. In Montefiascone several times more brothers have practiced this sport at the same time: the Alesi and Meola were even three in the team! Without considering the participation of parents in the company’s management team.

But the case of the Carletti family is exemplary: Pietro was part of the regional champion team of the Youth Games in 1976. Then he remained in the company continuously for forty-three years, playing and coaching, both the youth and the first team, always generously making available their seriousness and competence.

Together with him, his father Carlo joined the management group. And he could not miss his wife Laura, who played softball and coached young people, while today she is a referee.

His daughter Flavia played in the Boys category, and then in softball around Italy, as well as in the various youth national teams.

Today, at only nineteen, he is one of the strengths of Sestese, in A2 Softball, after having played in the Italian top flight. The sons Matteo, twenty-two, and Michele, seventeen, started very early: in 2019 they are among the best pitchers of the team, several times called up in the regional selections. Pietro’s passion – and generosity -, combined with his enviable physical shape, also led him, in 2017, at the age of fifty-two, to make his contribution on the mound. A sort of beautiful family monopoly in the team: dad and two sons who play simultaneously in Serie B, forming a third of the formation on the field, Pietro in 1B, Matteo at the shortstop and Michele on the mountain.

Who knows that we will not see a management of pitchers with Matteo “departing”, Michele “relief” and Pietro “closer”! It would perhaps be a record to make all fans happy under the Rocca.

Each story also has a corner in which, looking inside, there are also those who are no longer with us. To them, those of baseball always address a special memory, with the hope – or the conviction – that they can continue, in some way, to cheer Montefiascone, Baseball and Softball.

On the grave of Celestino Paoletti – for many years a player and coach of the Etruscan Baseball teams, and then also a referee, whom the disease has stolen prematurely – there is a photo of him in uniform.

The request was expressly made by Celestino, who wanted, in this unequivocal way, to express his eternal and visceral love for the Montefiasconese Baseball. His was a gesture of great attachment, appreciated by all, a sentiment reciprocated by all those who have lived the same earthly experiences.

Paoletti was among the enthusiasts who saw the “first stone” laid, that is, when the municipal administration built the long-awaited baseball field. In 1991 the European Championships gave a strong push to those jobs that Montefiascone Baseball had always dreamed of.

Finally the stadium, then! A great party for all the yellow-green baseball, which returned to look to the future and dream even more of Serie A.

A year later the Cuban Primitivo Diaz arrived who, together with the American Queen Gregory, led the team in a good championship. At the end of the season a tour was organized in America, in Chicago, playing friendly matches with college teams and visiting the White Sox stadium, the historical museum, fraternizing, on the pitch, with the Major League champions in the pre-match. An experience considered by all, in many ways, truly exciting!

In 1993 the team matured for the leap in category, and the Cuban coaches Luis Carton and Primitivo Diaz, together with two players, Verni and Luongo (who are added to Paolo Minozzi, in Montefiascone since 1989), give the necessary push to win the championship.

The play-offs are played against top-level teams, such as Livorno and Roselle, the latter beaten in a memorable fifth match. Serie A2 is no longer a dream and to celebrate it – together with the whole country – a party is organized in the square.

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