Back in Serie A three years after his last fleeting experience. Milan returns to the start with a team not very different from that of last time, but with a little more experience in their baggage and with the hope that the group of young people who faced that taste of the first series in 2021 will be matured in the meantime. Above all through a B championship like last year’s, always conducted at the top, until the final promotion won without defeat. Indeed, the Milan of the confirmed Marco Fraschetti (in his 8th season as manager: equaled by a great like Mauro Mazzotti) arrives at the start of the championship on the strength of a streak of 15 consecutive victories which in the history of the club is the fifth ever, after those of ’60-63 (39 games, Italian record), ’66-67 (34), 2003-04 (23) and ’95-96 (18).
The restart in the major series will not be easy, even if the initial group with Settimo Torinese, Verona, Collecchio, Poviglio and Modena will serve more than anything as a test in view of the second phase, presumably in the salvation pool, which will be decisive. However, the valorisation of the young people of Milan and the territory remains at the basis of the rossoblù philosophy. No upheaval of the squad after the promotion (the team remains centered on players who now have some experience such as captain Nicola B Ancora, Marco Pasotto, Luca Fraschetti, Massimo Sanguedolce, Giacomo Fraulini, Milan’s best batsman in 2023, Lorenzo Ambrosioni, Andrea Capellano and the Venezuelan Angelo Torrellas), but rather the search for talents in Lombardy, such as Gabriel Dall’Agnese, a 24-year-old pitcher from Bergamo who in recent seasons has played with good results in Serie B for Piacenza. With Dall’Agnese, two other youngsters who grew up in our academy, but have come back from experiences in other clubs, have returned: Andrea Pasotto, also 23 years old, winger, son and grandson of art (of our director Raoul and coach Thomas ), who comes to join his brother Marco and his cousin Samuele, and of Alessandro Garavaglia, catcher-third base, another very young boy (16 years old in May) who comes with a family of baseball tradition behind him, if we consider that his father Roberto and his uncle Osvaldo played for the rossoblù in the 1980s and his grandfather Mario was responsible for our youth sector for years. Andrea Pasotto returns from an unlucky experience at Parma, which culminated in a wrist injury from which he is recovering, while Garavaglia last year went to gain experience at Seveso with which he made his debut in Serie B.
The picture of the new arrivals is completed by the Cuban pitcher Randy Cueto Perez, also born in 2001, coming from three good seasons in the Cuban Liga Nacional with the Santa Clara team. Cueto was also an Under 23 national team, with whom he participated in the World Championships and the Panamerican Championships. He will be the spearhead of a pitching team that also includes the veteran Mattia Varalda, Milan’s best pitcher in 2023, Davide Pizzi, Dalberto Polo and Alessandro Persico. Cueto is the sixth Cuban player in the history of Milan (Conrado Silva and Ernesto Wong, who tragically passed away in recent days, the most present at the time of the United franchise), but the first to arrive directly in Italy from the Caribbean championship, after it was granted the possibility of playing abroad for the island’s athletes.
Milan is in the 77th championship of its history (the only Italian team to be able to boast such a long-lasting activity), the 41st at first series level. The rossoblù arrive there with a precise balance of 2400 matches played from 1948 to today, of which 1302 in Serie A1. The victories are 1412 with 985 defeats and 3 draws. One of the objectives of Fraschetti’s team will therefore be to avoid the thousandth knockout in our history…
Of the five teams included in our group, Collecchio is the one faced the most times (43) with an extremely balanced balance sheet of 22 victories and 21 defeats, only one match ahead of Verona (42) with whom however the balance sheet is better (28 at 14). 14 comparisons with Poviglio and Settimo Torinese, only 8 with Modena. Verona is the team with which we have the oldest tradition (first meeting in 1960) but also the one we haven’t faced for the longest time (2011). By far the team we have met the most times in our history is Parma (131 matches) ahead of Nettuno (122) and Fortitudo Bologna (109).
The player with the most appearances for Milan is Ivan Guerci (718 games for the rossoblù) ahead of Piero Allara (644), while Andrea Lo Monaco, who holds the role of player-coach, is the active rossoblù with the most appearances (223; 27th all time among the Milan faithful). Roberto Bianchi is the striker with the most home runs (49), while among the active rossoblù Marco Pasotto and Angelo Torrellas have scored two. Among pitchers, the highest number of shots thrown is held by Carlo Passarotto (1112.1), while Davide Pizzi is the active record holder (223.1).
YOUTH ACTIVITY – This year too, Milan is among the top Italian clubs in terms of overall number of members, around 220, of which 170 are under 18 years of age. A figure that allows us to enroll 8 youth teams in the championships of all categories, both male and female. Among these is the pre-competitive minibaseball group which includes around 40 children aged 5 and up.
CUBAN STAFF – Working on this large group of kids are mainly three Cuban technicians, to whose methods we have entrusted the growth of our young people. Carlos Franco Cruz is the longest-serving of the group, arriving at Milan in 2010 after an experience at Cervignano. Franco, in addition to being coach of the first team, takes care of the Under 12 sector. The Under 18 and Under 15 sectors are entrusted to Jose Luis Cueto, the neophyte of the technical group, who arrived in Italy this year for the first time as a pair with his son Randy, a first-team pitcher. The softball sector is instead entrusted for the third year to Rayner Ramirez who is positively developing the women’s activity which until a few years ago was entrusted solely to Italian coaches.
A choice, that of the three Cuban coaches, also dictated by the difficulties in finding coaches in Lombardy, but combined with the full awareness that, at least at a youth level, the Cuban school still remains at the forefront. And it is no coincidence that we relied on technicians who come from experience at the Cuban youth national team level.
IT SOFTBALL – Speaking of softball, one of the objectives of “Chino” Ramirez will be to make our first team make a leap in quality, leading them to rise to the A2 series for the first time, a goal that has always been narrowly missed in recent seasons. This year however, led by the veterans Gaia Polce, Chiara Pizzi (sister of the rossoblù pitcher Davide) and Ilaria Varsi, and thanks to the return of Sabrina Monti and Camilla Giamminola, who played on loan in the higher categories, in addition to the precious addition of Federica Trunk coming from A1, the Milan girls can really do it. Opponents to beat are the usual Bovisio and Cernusco.
KENNEDY’S 60 YEARS – The tormented history of our field continues, even if the times of the ongoing work are truly biblical. In a few days the Municipality should finally complete the renovation of the large changing rooms, as regards the plumbing and heating part. Work lasted two years but should finally allow us to return to using these premises which have been out of use since 2008. A small step forward towards what should be the future use of the Kennedy, with the organization of some important events. However, the stadium still incredibly lacks an adequate scoreboard, necessary to fully follow the matches. Especially at Serie A level. However, a second batch of works should start by the end of the year which will include the renovation of the stands, the dugouts and, indeed, the scoreboard.
In the meantime we are ensuring the best possible usability of the facility, trying to animate it with various events and initiatives. Our clubhouse offers good hospitality and in this regard we are organizing an appropriate celebration of Kennedy’s 60th birthday which will fall on August 29th, the anniversary of the opening match of the ’64 European Championships. In the first weekend of October we intend to organize two events: an amateur one on Saturday, with a tournament between the consular representatives of the countries most similar to our sport, from the United States to Japan, from Venezuela to Mexico, to Cuba; and a competitive one with a celebration match to be hosted on Sunday.
CHILDREN IN THE FIELD – On 12 May, however, on the occasion of Milan-Modena, the Kennedy will host the “Children in Serie A” event organized in collaboration with the regional Fibs committee with the aim of bringing the little ones (Under 12 and mini) closer to the protagonists of the first series: the kids will have the opportunity to enter the pitch accompanied by the Serie A players and then cheer from the stands.
COLLABORATIONS – An important chapter concerns the collaborations with the Rookies Milano club which, in addition to carrying out amateur activities, allows us to enroll a team made up mainly of our Under 18s in the C series, in order to allow the boys to play two games a weekend. However, the partnership with the two blind baseball teams, the Thunder’s Five and the Lampi, which regularly carry out activities at Kennedy and also count on the support of some of our former players and coaches, has continued for years.
SRAFFA FIELD – The project to transform the former football field of the Sraffa-Marie Curie Institute in via Fratelli Zoia into a multipurpose field that can host the first diamond for the blind in Italy and finally a regulation softball field for the our first team, given that Kennedino does not have the sufficient size to move up in category and, moreover, Milano ’46 continues to play on that ground in derogation. We hope that the Metropolitan City can finally endorse our project and that the operation can materialize as soon as possible.
SCHOOLS AND CAMPS – Milano ’46 has been operating for years in several schools in the Baggio and San Siro area, but also in other city institutes, thanks to the commitment of the head of the school project Giovanna Rosselli, Massimo BANCA and Luciano Prina, as well as some young people and girls baseball and softball. A job that will lead, as usual, to the traditional “kid’s festival” in September. In recent years this event has led to the enrollment of several young people in our youth sector.
Also very important is the camp which is organized in the summer at Kennedy immediately after the schools close: five weeks of activities for children under 15 from 8am to 5pm, with sports, games and after-school activities, a great help for families.
CAMERONI TROPHY AND DONNABELLA AWARD – These are our classic beginning and end of season events to remember two characters who made the history of Milan and Italian baseball. The first is an event named after the great Gigi Cameroni, now in its 18th edition, held last weekend and won by Torino. The second is an award dedicated to the founder of the club and for many years the soul of Milan, Doriano Donnabella: it is awarded by all our members and supporters to athletes, technicians or managers who have made a particular contribution to the club’s activity. The last edition, in 2023, saw our president Alessandro Selmi awarded, while the memorial plaque went to Angelo and Robert Fontana, father and son, united by a great passion for baseball and for Milan, but also by two lives too short. This year we would like to bring forward the voting times for the Donnabella award so that we can present it in our Kennedy clubhouse by the end of the season.
FOUNTAIN CUP – Speaking of Robert Fontana, it should finally be remembered that since 2022 Milan has been organizing an important end-of-season Under 21 tournament, dedicated to him, in which teams from Piedmont, Emilia and Liguria, as well as Lombardy, participated and saw the successes of Piacenza and Codogno in the first two editions. It is an event that is receiving a lot of support and allows the competitive season to be extended even into the month of October.
2024-04-17 22:26:54
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