The ‘Yankees’. When Trieste was the homeland of baseball

03.06.2023 – 07.01 – Trieste has always been home to countless sports, with particular attention to the so-called ‘minor’ disciplines which have always had an audience of passionate fanatics right in the Julian capital, still evident today from the multiplicity of sports clubs and associations. In this context, however, remains largely unknown Trieste’s contribution to baseballwhich can be placed in a period of time, such as the fifties, temporally limited, but fertile in victories and sporting ‘glories’.
When European journalists and reporters visited Japan in 1964, on the occasion of the ‘historic’ Olympics in Tokyo, they were surprised at how, alongside traditional disciplines, the Japanese had become great supporters of American sports. Golf, in particular; despite the shortage of space in Japanese cities making it comically unsuitable for the land of the rising sun; and of course baseball, still one of the most practiced sports today.
American sports had been able to spread as a result of Japan’s military defeat and subsequent cultural colonization; although it should be noted that the US-Japan proximity was already present in the nineteenth century, with the first cultural exchanges. The American presence, especially the military, is expressed through its national sports; just like other nations use other cultures, such as coffee, food, automobiles, high technology and so on. It is therefore not surprising that Trieste, being a Free Territory at the time and under the management of the Allied Administration, experienced a period of exceptional baseball luxuriance precisely in the 1950s, then disappearing just as quickly in the 1960s. It was the American presence that had favored the spread of baseball; and once the American ‘terrain’ was removed, the new Italian Trieste let the ‘foreign’ sporting discipline wither.

The Trieste baseball formations were formed, with the support and (sometimes) the presence of regularly registered American players, in theindustrial area: in fact they were all young sons of workers and/or coming from the large industrial conglomerates undergoing reconstruction.
There was a special sports facility, the ‘Yankee Stadium‘, placed inside the ‘Zaul Country Club‘. The Trieste teams bore the names of Major League Baseball American (eg Giants, Red Sox, Indians, etc etc) with only the variant of some local names (for example Inter-Zaule, Valmaura, Aquilinia etc etc). The Yankee Stadium it was also usable for American football. The first team that played in the Italian tournament was in 1950 the Royco Trieste BC, which, however, did not access the last round. The matches later moved to the Soldier’s Field of Opicina. Even the Italian national baseball players trained here in 1952; in fact, Italy’s first European match was scheduled for 31 August, against a Spain that was unbeaten at the time.

A 1953 brochure well describes the collaboration with American forces:
“Trieste had the honor of welcoming the players, thanks above all to the passion and generosity of the American military commands, who wanted to host the players, making two emeritus technicians available to them: Sam Corallo and Alberto Vada. On the plain of Opicina he spent the eve of the meeting briskly. Pitchers and hitters in the middle of the pine woods experimented with their game maneuvers, guided and corrected by the coaches.
When it was deemed appropriate, the individual preparation gave way to the collective one and a training match was started, against the team of Giants. The Trieste public discovered baseball on that occasion; a few thousand spectators came to Opicina by all means, to observe, applaud and be amazed…”

What was the pinnacle of Trieste baseball? Probably the greatest achievement occurred when the ‘Yankees Trieste’ team won the 1952 Serie B National Baseball Championship and qualified for the Serie A Championship the following year. There were high hopes for this team which had demonstrated an all-American finesse and dynamism, thanks to the help of the local military. He didn’t win the Serie A championship, but he qualified third in ’53 and fourth in ’54. Overall a good result; however, it is striking how, with the passage of Trieste to Italy and with the demobilization of the troops, the team disappeared from the radar of Italian baseball, with Giants BC in ’55 and little else. And yet, for the experts and sports journalists of the period, Trieste as the ‘home of baseball’, breeding ground for future champions, seemed an established fact.

The Yankees Trieste Baseball Group was formed in February 1952; the debut for Serie B was triumphal, with a chain of victories interrupted only by a single defeat in Turin. The white uniform had the inscription of the “strongest team in the United States representing the ‘ne plus ultra’ of baseball in the country”, i.e. the Yankees. The aforementioned 1953 booklet provides some more information; thanks to the ‘Special Service’ and the presence, for an exceptional home run, of Mackenzie ‘club number one’.
The team manager was Umberto Magris and the coach Alberto Vada, defined as the ‘fox of Italian baseball’. It seems that the great success of the team was mainly Vada’s responsibility. In 1953, this numbered the following players: Attilio Malmusi (First Base), Paolo Secchi (Fuller), Bruno Dodich (Right Fielder), Giordano Turina (Fuller), Stelio Bazzara (Fuller), Livio Misich (Pitcher), Raffaele Del Zio (Caughter, Team Captain), Luciano Scolz (Outfield – Third Base), Bruno Canziani (Third – First Base), Lester H. Johnle (Infield), Romano Toros (Pitcher), Donald Mackenzie (Inter Base), Mario Dell’Orfano (Second Base) and Adriano Trabucco (Third Base).
The team, under the banner of sporting brotherhood, also received compliments from two exceptional cyclists: Coppi and Bartali.

Sources: People of our house, Yankees Trieste. Information/advertising brochure from 1953, present in the memoirs of coach Ferruccio Ghietti. I sincerely thank the Ghietti family for allowing the use of the brochure.

[z.s.]