“A sort of ambassador, the best face of our baseball,” it was said of him. In the sporting environment, 39-year-old Alessandro Maestri, from Viserbe, is one of the most successful Italian pitchers, having played in the Italian championship and with the Italian national team, but also with major teams in the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Mexico . Yet, for many in Viserba, he is simply the boy next door, the doctor’s son (his father Paolo is a well-known sports doctor). “I started at the age of 6 in the Torre Pedrera youth team”, says Maestri, leafing through the album of memories. From there, an uphill career: in 1997 with the team that won the national title in the ‘boys’ category; at 17 years old in Serie B, again with the Torre Pedrera Falcons; in 2005 with San Marino, in the Italian top flight. At the same time he attended the baseball academy at the Coni center in Tirrenia: his first experience away from home, after graduating from Serpieri high school. At 20 he signed a professional contract and went to the United States, staying there for five years. Then, a real world tour. The last experience abroad was in Australia in 2019. In between, the meeting with Gema, the Argentine wife he met in Japan, and the birth of little Asia, in 2016, in Korea. “In 2020 I was supposed to return to Australia, but Covid blocked everything. With the lockdown, however, I had the time to follow the advice of a dear friend, who suggested I write a book about my career”.
The friend is Stefano Belisari, aka Elio of ‘Elio e le storie tese’ and the book will be published in 2021 with the title “They called me Maesutori” and is enriched by a baseball glossary edited by Elio himself. “I’m not a writer, but I wanted to tell my story especially to younger people, to make them understand that baseball, like life, isn’t always roses and flowers and that to reach your dreams you need to know how to face obstacles and get back up from all the falls.” His last season as a player is in 2020 with San Marino. Then Alessandro dedicated himself full time to the business he manages with Gema: the sale of baseball materials which, initially only online with the ‘Dominate’ brand, led him to open a shop in the central square of Viserba, right under his house” The evolution to coach is in 2023, with ten months in the Dominican Republic to prepare the US team of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Having returned to Viserba at the end of the year, he is preparing a trip to Osaka, where he will coach a selection of European players who will meet the national team of Japanese baseball. The appointment is for March 6 and 7 with the Global Baseball Games, a competition in its second edition which on a commercial level is called the Carnext Samurai Japan Series. And the future? “We’ll see.”
Maria Cristina Muccioli
2024-02-18 05:56:07
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