The batti has withstood time by permeating the local culture
(by Francesco De Filippo) (ANSA) – TRIESTE, 14 JUN – That strange and unknown sport in which sudden accelerations alternate with pauses and whose players wear uniforms more suited to a restaurant chain than to a sporting discipline, was called batti & corri by the people of Trieste, with a perfect athletic-semantic synthesis.
The US soldiers, on the other hand, who practiced it with enthusiasm and passion, called it baseball. When it left Italy, the US liberation army left four of these fields in the city, one of which, the Soldiers field of Villa Opicina, was considered the most beautiful ‘diamond’ in Europe. Sport is permeated in Italian culture and today this facility celebrates its 70th anniversary.
Built between 1951-52 by the TR.UST (Trieste United States Troops) for the administration staff of the Allied Military Government, the facility is managed by the ASD Junior Alpina Baseball Softball. With the permanence of the American teams stationed on the Karst, dozens of young Julians had in fact approached the game and perpetrated its actions between the Valmaura field, the Yankee Stadium in Zaule and the Heroes field in Borgo Grotta. Then, precisely, in June 1952, the American general stationed in Trieste, EB Sebreè, inaugurated the jewel, the Soldiers field of Villa Opicina. In the same year, the newly born Italian national team played in a collegiate meeting in preparation for the first international match in its history, against the national team of Spain.
Today, with the blue orange colors of the Junior Alpina baseball softball, about a hundred Italian kids, divided into categories from minibaseball to national Serie B, are still stepping on the clay and the grass of the Soldiers field. (HANDLE).
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