Marco Mazzieri is the ninth president of the Italian baseball-softball federation. It became so at 3.05 pm on Saturday 16 November, at the end of the ballot with Andrea Marcon, thanks to 56.04% of the preferences, against 42.70% of his rival, after Marcon himself had closed in the first round with 41%, with Mazzieri at 38% and the third candidate Sforza at 17%, while the fourth, Condipodero, had announced his withdrawal at the end of the presentation speech.
Strategically, it was already clear on the eve that in the event of a run-off, it would be difficult for Marcon to confirm himself as president, because obviously if there were three lists present in addition to that of the president in office, it went without saying that the votes of the two excluded lists were unlikely to they would have gone to his, it’s logical reasoning.
In these cases it is customary to say that “discontent” or the “desire for change” won; the writer prefers to think that what won was the personality, the credibility, the coherence of a character who has never compromised, who did not lend himself to under-the-table agreements and who, above all, on the field, albeit in another capacity, has already amply demonstrated with facts that he is a winner, but above all that he is able to change the mentality of a national team that came from fifty ‘years of “honorable defeats” out from Europe and who won one time out of three in Europe, continuously playing for the title in the final with the Netherlands. In ten years he won the European title twice, losing the final at the third attempt, he finished third in the Intercontinental Cup and fifth in the World Baseball Classic, coming within six out of a sensational victory first against the Dominican Republic, then against Puerto Rico. Four years later he led Venezuela to the tenth inning of the playoff game to advance to the quarterfinals.
Now he is called to an even more difficult, but no less fascinating undertaking: the “cultural revolution”, as he called it during the electoral campaign, a real change of mentality, not only on the part of the federation, but from the whole movement.
On the table is the credibility of a sport now on the margins of public opinion and at its lowest in terms of number of members and sporting results. Marco was honest: “We must aim to survive”, he made no promises “because I’m used to being on the pitch and you can’t make promises on the pitch”. He’s used to fighting and that’s what baseball will have to do: fight to survive. There will be no stadiums in Rome, we will not see the MLB on our diamonds, we will start from the base, from the youth activity, from the national teams, from the academies, from the championship formula and above all from clear and logical rules. From the international respect earned in the field over the years by those called to lead the federation. It won’t be easy, but Marco has always liked challenges and has often won them… Good job!
Parma smiles with the election of Ettore Finetti, representative of the technicians, to the federal council, but also brings home the electoral “defeat” of a Parma baseball team that chose to take sides and once again chose the “wrong horse”. The appropriateness of this choice will be discussed for a long time among fans, it certainly has the flavor of an own goal at the most inopportune moment, with the senior team fresh from the title of Italian Champion and destined to do an encore next year. Perhaps it would have been better to focus on what happens inside, instead of trying to “impact” the outside. But for a couple of years now, we have decided to talk about Parma only when he takes the field or when, in the winter, he builds the team. We will continue along this line.
