Figurines and solidarity. An evening to talk about sport and to hear, above all, authentic legends of national and local baseball. Players who also went to the United States (Alberto ‘Toro’ Rinaldi) and, more generally, men who wrote pages and pages of beat and run. Often and willingly wearing the Fortitudo Baseball uniform.
The appointment is on Friday, at 6pm, at the Bacchelli Auditorium in via Galeazza 2, in Casteldebole. The idea is to raise funds for the Leoni field in Casteldebole, the facility which, like many other facilities in the Due Torri, had to deal with the damage of the flood.
The Leoni field, built almost half a century ago, has always hosted the youth sector of the Fortitudo Bc 1953. It has given shelter to the Blue Girls of softball and, for more than a couple of decades, it has been the designated home of the Fortitudo White Sox, the of baseball for the blind, coached by Lauro Lazzarini who, no later than a year ago, was Italian champion.
“The damage caused by the flood is truly extensive, but there is the will – say the organizers of the evening – to restore the sports center as soon as possible, a real meeting place not only for sports, surrounded by greenery, a structure which constitutes a real island of tranquility in the city of Bologna. Let’s help them restart!”.
The project was born from an intuition of Figurine Forever by Emiliano Nanni: it will be possible to raise funds through the celebrated and supportive stickers dedicated to the world of baseball.
There will be Toro Rinaldi (sticker number 12, updated and in colour), Angel Argentieri (variant of number 47) and Vic Luciani (variant of number 50). And again Sal Varriale (59), Dario Bazzarini (48) and Claudio Di Raffaele (53). Not only solidarity, but also chatter and epic stories, such as the victory against the United States, which went down in history, in the now distant 1973. There will also be Fortitudo Baseball products, there will be the possibility of taking selfies and getting autographs. And listen, in particular, to the stories of the players and staff of the Fortitudo White Sox.
If you have never seen a baseball game for the blind, know that the show, before the flood, was staged right at Leoni, the cradle of a discipline which, invented by Alfredo Meli and carried forward by Umberto Calzolari (both deceased), is trying to get to the Paralympics thanks to the determination of Alberto Mazzanti, Stefano Malaguti and Eva Trevisan.
Evening organized in collaboration with the Borgo-Reno district, Auditorium Bacchelli, Fortitudo Bc 1953, Fortitudo Bologna White Sox, Fortitudo youth sector, Parma Baseball and Il Bar del Baseball-Museo del Baseball di Nettuno (Rome).
