Poor Ivan. Unfortunately he couldn’t do it anymore. We knew one of these days it would happen, but we always hoped it would be tomorrow. And instead we have to talk about Ivan Guerci‘s surrender. Just turned 62. At the end of an ordeal lasting almost five years, faced with courage, optimism, but also realism. Since he was struck by the cowardly disease he hasn’t thrown a day away. He fought as he did on the pitch, leaving us a great example. Perhaps thanks to his courage he managed to get this far: only the last blow, in September, forced him to retire. But from his hospital bed and then at home he always tried to look ahead, to participate, to follow everything.
He worked to the hilt, even when he found it difficult to get out, because he felt a duty towards his family, his wife Barbara and the two children who accompanied him with love until the end: Aurora, who Ivan always accompanied with a protective soul , and Samuele, in which he saw his sporting passion again by following him on the football fields. He came to the Kennedy for the last time on September 1st, last home game against Crocetta: he never left his Milan completely. Because Ivan was also this, because baseball and his club were in his blood. Like fishing, his other great passion.
After all, Ivan always told us that the Kennedy was his second home and he would drop by whenever he could. And when he realized that he was ill he told us with a sporting image: “In a little while I will have to go to the middle of the field and say hello…”. And unfortunately the moment has come that, together with him, we were trying to push away as much as possible.
But it is difficult to describe Ivan in a sad way, because he has always been the symbol of joy. And we must remember Ivan for what he represented for Milan. Because few others, like him, have embodied the spirit of our team. It is no coincidence that he is the symbol of loyalty to this shirt, the player who wore it the most times: 718 league games alone plus various cups, 2426 shifts at bat, 741 valid hits, 23 home runs, leader in almost all the rankings of the team, between 1982 and 2003. At this moment they might seem like only dry figures, but behind these numbers there was all his pride, his sense of belonging, “because – he said – this still remains one of the most successful teams of Italy and Europe. I achieved these goals because I was lucky enough to play in seasons in which three games a week were played, but also because I always had an immense passion and lived for years on bread and baseball.” Since he arrived from Inter Mars, accompanied by his father Gino, another unforgettable pillar of our club, welcomed as the rookie in a group of more experienced and seasoned players, who however soon realized the value of this boy who within a few games convinced Carlo Passarotto to give him a starting place in that Milan which dominated the A2 championship and regained its place among the big teams. Then a career in constant growth, a great winger, supported by excellent legs and a good arm, also appreciable in batting: passing through the CEI and the BKV, he became one of the fundamental players of Mazzotti’s great Mediolanum and the first Cup Winners’ Cup, in Skelleftea , in Sweden, gave him the most magical moment of his career, when he hit the ball that turned the game on its head in the last inning, giving everyone the joy of the triumph over Rotterdam.
He suffered the traumatic dissolution of that team, of which he had become captain, in ’94, but he rolled up his sleeves by convincing others to help Milan recover. He had no problem dropping down to the third series, because Milan needed him too and in ’97, with Paolo Re on the bench, he celebrated his promotion to Serie A on the field, still experiencing an ephemeral parenthesis among the greats in ’98 . Then another corporate crisis, the merger with Ares, again the B, the A2, and he was always there until he was forty, transformed into a first baseman but always fearsome with the bat. Even a brief experience as a coach, after Borroni’s resignation in the middle of the season, in 2002. And again a sporadic appearance on the pitch in 2003 to lend a hand to Raoul Pasotto, his lifelong brotherly friend, to once again bring the Milan from the minor leagues.
He missed the championship, and it was his great regret, just as he never entered the national team, which perhaps he would have deserved no more or no less than others who, despite not being phenomena, had that satisfaction. But he never made it a problem, aware of certain hierarchies. And he never made it a cause for controversy, he who was a master of this art, especially in his last years, a good-natured grumbler but always critical. Because he would have liked to see the Milan of his time again and encouraged today’s players to commit as he did. “Milan is a family, but also a way of life,” he said, addressing the younger ones, when he came to collect the 2020 Donnabella award.
In recent years he also often followed training sessions, despite not being able to contribute physically, he even sometimes served the youth team, and was also very critical of those who didn’t see as well on the pitch as he would have liked. As an old captain he had targeted a player who played the same roles as him, but then when the statistics proved him wrong, he was the first to send him a WhatsApp of compliments, complete with apologies. And after all, he took the promotion to Serie A last year, when he was already ill, as a great gift and celebrated it at Kennedy with the team, certain that there would be a future. If not for him, at least for his old Milan.
Goodbye Ivan, we prefer to think about how much fun you made us, on and off the pitch. Anyone who has lived with you for more than forty years can only thank you for the time spent together, for what you gave us and for what you could still have given us.
Ivan Guerci’s funeral will be held on Wednesday 6 November at 3.15 pm in Rho at the Church of San Vittore, in Piazza San Vittore.
The Director and the entire editorial staff of Baseball.it join in the pain of his wife Barbara, his children Aurora and Samuele, his brother Sandro and Mrs. Ivana, expressing their deepest condolences for the passing of dear Ivan
