© Olemisssports.com
Among the participants in the prestigious Haarlem Baseball Week (from 8 to 15 July) there will be, after an absence of a few years, also the USA representative made up entirely of university players not eligible for the MLB draft which will be staged in about ten days. Head of the expedition coach Mike Bianco who a few days ago led to the victory of his first national Mississippi title. Team USA since 2000 has won the tournament 4 times, certainly the main event in the world that takes place in Europe, the most recent in 2014 on the occasion of the last participation.
The list of the 26 selected was made official after a week of training camp in North Carolina which saw the dispute of five preparation games in which Mississippi shortstop Jacob Gonzalez stood out, as well as winger Enrique Bradfield Jr. of Vanderbilt and Jack Hurley of Virginia Tech and above all second baseman Jacob Wilson of Grand Canyon (.467 batting average and 2 home runs) also excellent protagonist during the 2022 NCAA season. Curiously Wilson comes from Thousand Oaks High School in California, one of the most prestigious baseball programs at high school level in the United States from which Roc Riggio, second base of Oklahoma State, has also come out, now engaged with great success with the Chatham Anglers jersey in the Cape Cod League, one of the most famous Summer Leagues reserved for NCAA players.
Moving on to the mound we point out the starting couple of Wake Forest composed of Teddy Mc Graw and Rhett Lowder, Carter Holton of Vanderbilt and left-handed Ross Dunn of Utah and Hunter Elliott protagonist at the College World Series with Mississippi. Among the reliefs we also find the left-handed from Stanford with Italian origins Ryan Bruno.
Team USA will begin its adventure on Dutch soil with the always fascinating challenge against Japan on Saturday 9 July at 1pm at the Pim Mulier Stadion in Haarlem and then, the following day, face the Italian national team led by coach Mike Piazza. The path will then continue with the matches against Cuba, the Dutch hosts and to close Curacao which at the last replaced Taiwan.
Andrea Palmia was born in Bologna on April 4, 1968 and lives in the Emilian capital with his wife Aurora and two-year-old daughter Lucia. Graduated in Pedagogy with an experimental thesis on ultras groups, he has been working since 1995 as a professional educator with mentally and physically disabled users. Passionate about sports in general and in particular the American ones, he has always had a dream in the drawer to be a sports journalist. From baseball played in the courtyard of the condominium with a discolored bat to matches at the Gianni Falchi stadium with Roberto Bianchi and Pete Rovezzi’s home runs, the step was short. Fortitude in his DNA, he nurtures an irrational passion for the “losers” or better for the “tormented” sports stories made up of few highs and many lows.
