"Penso come tanti avete capito tanti gli ultimi due mesi sono stati molto difficili x la squadra lo staff e me in primis per troppe situazioni extra campo che ci hanno destabilizzato io personalmente in parte sono rimasto ferito nn da voi che siete giovani e tante manipolazioni ancore nn le capite però vi posso assicurare che mi ha fatto male dentro perché spero di aver capito che in tre anni ho dato l anima x voi insieme a Pietro e nell ultimo si sono aggiunti Claudio e Fabio che allo stesso modo vi hanno dato tantissimo con il cuore ieri nn sembra ma è stata la vittoria di un gruppo perché in quella situazione che stavamo se nn si è uniti nn si porta a casa nemmeno una partita. Ringrazio i lanciatori che si sono messi al servizio della squadra in primis jordan che ha giocato due partite interbase e max che ha lanciato i suoi ultimi due inning con il cuore anke se aveva il braccio a pezzi e questi spero per tanti sono le cose che sono tre anni che vi voglio far capire giocare con il cuore e dare tutto solo così potete crescere e diventare giocatori Come ho detto gli allenamenti riprendono il 16 agosto però chi vuole venire lo stesso ad allenarsi noi tt le sere siamo al campo basta che me lo fate sapere chi su vuole riposare lo faccia e cerchiamo ora di fare bella figura in coppa italia"....
Thanks to Lauro Bassani for the great photos of Max in Bologna....
Last home game! Thanks to Cinzia and Alessio for coming to the game!!
Another great game from the Moose - After Beating Bologna with 7 innings of great pitching - Nettuno Academy is again in Serie A!!!
After six years of no competitive pitching, Max had an uneven start... But now has pitched back to back gems of 8 innings with STANDING OVATIONS each time!!!
Crowd getting rowdy after the umpires - just like here...
Taking Max his glove - it sits in First Class!!
New glove, Practice and Wine for Birthday...
Practice, Practice, Practice
Opening day starter for Nettuno Academy Orange
A rough day with 5 errors behind him in two innings but he found a rhythm and ended by striking out the best opposing player. Lets hope they find some defense after 15 errors in two game.....
Max Smith Plays Again.....
Max had not played in a real game in almost six years, coaching at the professional and high school level and remaining in shape. During Covid years, Max coached with the Castelfranco Dragons and joined the Nettuno Academy last year in practices. They liked what they saw and asked him back this year as a player. His debut went very well and we are looking forward to a great season. I will be posting articles, pictures and other relevant information here as the season progresses.
Winning and elevating to Serie A... The Castelfranco Dragons!!!
The Castelfranco Dragons - How my son became a professional pitching coach
So how does it happen? How did my 26 year old son become the pitching coach of a professional baseball team in Castelfranco, Italy? How did he go to Italy on about a week's notice with about 15 words of Italian at his disposal (including pasta and spaghetti) and help take the team to the National Championship of Serie B and help elevate the team to Serie A?
It is all tied to my Italian adventure and required a few strange and unusual occurrences along the way - A series of unpredictable events that started on a trip to Napa.
Yes - Wine started first and Betsy and I were are on our way to meet some friends in Napa. I am guessing but it was probably our seventh visit or so to the region. My mother is elderly and has a mind that would amaze you. At 97, she can talk about all the players on the Colorado Rockies and might mention their families or where a certain player went to college. My father has passed and he had dementia. This is important because I was reading a magazine article that discussed the concept of learning a language after 50. The article purported that learning a language at this point of life rewires the brain and eliminates, or at least significantly reduces, the incidence of non-alzheimers dementia. I started learning Italian that very day.
I have read, studied, listened to, spoken, and practiced something with the Italian language on every singe day since.. and in the process I met some of the best people of my lifetime. A group of Italian friends that have challenged me, supported me, corrected me, and taught me about their beautiful language and country. I have helped them with English when the need was there and have learned that the world is indeed a very small place.
Along the way, I spent more than a month in Italy alone and talk about that adventure in another blog. When I returned, I had an increased passion for Italy and a greater interest in pursuing the study of wine. The combination took us to a wine tasting event in Nashville with an Italian winemaker. After his wonderful presentation, I surprised him and congratulated him in Italian, thanking him for a wonderful event and offered compliments on the wines. He was shocked with my Italian (in a positive way) and the wine store owners took notice. On future trips to buy wine at this particular store, I developed a relationship with the owners and they often mentioned the night I spoke Italian.
It turns out that more and more of their clients wanted to know more about (and hopefully buy) Italian wines. So the Cool Springs Wine and Spirits hired Gianluca Brill - from Rome. A dual citizen but recent transfer from Rome, Gianluca was now the face of Italian wine in Franklin, TN. At our first meeting, we stood in the middle of the store speaking Italian. What a great opportunity to speak Italian and share ideas and knowledge of wine and Italy with a Roman. We became immediate friends and have remained so since. What I did not know is that Gianluca had played baseball and softball in Italy and knows almost everyone in the Italian Baseball Federation. He was soon to become friends with our son, Max.
Max also likes wine and has a few certifications himself. He would routinely buy wine from Gianluca and their friendship grew. When Gianluca's family visited from Rome, Max took his daughter on a tour of the local high school where he is a pitching coach. As a result, Gianluca and Max added baseball to their topics of conversation.
Shortly after, Gianluca Moccia - the General Manager of the Castelfranco Dragons called Gianluca Brill (yes there are a few Gianlucas in this story) asking if he knew anyone that could help them with pitching. The team was doing well but they needed a pitching coach if they were going to make it to Serie A. Gianluca B. offered the opportunity to Max and after a very short negotiation, we were on our way to Italy. I went with him to translate and was happy to find several players with decent English skills, a team that had a lot of talent, a wonderful arrangement for Max and a great group of owners and investors. I stayed just a few days but Max stayed for the season and the team won it all.
He made amazing friends and had a very significant impact on the team, One pitcher that had been struggling for at least a month was able to turn his season completely around. Two weeks after Max arrived, Filippo threw a complete game shutout and averaged just 10 pitches an inning. It turns out that Max is quite the coach. He returns again this year for the entire season and is taking the language a bit more seriously. I cannot wait to visit....