PADUA – The team of baseball local is still Il Bellamio. The name of Mariano Bellamio, who passed away on Monday at the age of 88, in fact remained tied to the Paduan team of batti e corri, of which he was president and sponsor of the denomination for thirty years, from 1979 to 2007. “Dad put all his energy and passion into things he loved »tell his daughters Katia and Sabrina, who mourn him with his wife Paola and many friends. Death came unexpectedly after a brief illness, suspected of being caused by the virus West Nile.
Mariano Bellamio, born in 1934, began his apprenticeship as a boy in a carpentry at a very young age. With his bike he gets on the train from Grisignano di Zocco and arrives in Padua to practice. He is passionate about work and he is committed with all of himself. In 1963 he married Paola and with her he set up a workshop, house and shop. The work grows, the orders are more and more and Mariano opens a real production plant in Limena, where he realizes custom furniture for restaurants, offices, hotels. Even today the company, renewed and with different characteristics, is carried on by the daughters. “He continued to work with great energy until he was seventy” continue Katia and Sabrina, who also tell how he approached the world of baseball: “Gianni Boldrin (still Padua coach, ed) was a neighbor who had started playing in the seventies. Knowing that Dad had a company, he insistently asked for help until he wrote a check: “Now buy the uniforms,” he said. But Bellamio was not just one sponsor, he soon became personally involved in the sporting project: «Little by little he got closer to the club, as he always did he became passionate about. Together with a beautiful team of people he built a company, has created a team known in Italy and abroad. He collaborated with the administration to build a real baseball facility, the Plebiscite. He took the boys abroad, even to Canada, then he called American and Cuban coaches to help the teams grow. He hosted them in our house: for him the doors were always open for everyone. He was so involved that he also became president of the regional committee. He went to Rome for meetings, he participated in the Coni councils, but then it became difficult to reconcile these commitments with work. What he liked the most was taking a lot of kids on the pitch to play sports ».
Although he gradually moved away from direct commitment, he has always remained tied to the world that has influenced so much, at the Paduan level and beyond: “The news has deeply affected us – he says. Marco Flores D’Arcais, who today is the president of the Padova Baseball Softball Club – we met a short time ago, at the Plebiscito. An old coach, Matt Castello, returned to coach in the Verona area and on the occasion of the Serie A derby he came. Mariano was there too, it was the occasion for a nice reunion. He was fine ». The memory remains alive especially in those who knew him directly: “The company has identified with him for a long time, since he has held the role of president and sponsor for many years – concludes Flores D’Arcais – certainly one of the two or three fundamental people for Paduan baseball and softball, without him we would not be here today. He was my president throughout my coaching career and also when I returned as a coach. For me the president remains him ». Mariano Bellamio’s funeral will take place on Friday at 10.30 in the parish church of San Carlo all’Arcella.
