Sports

From Backyards to Big Leagues: The Decade Italian Americans Hit the Show

Italian immigrants, knowing only bocce ball and soccer, hated the idea of their sons playing ball.

The following article, written by Mitch Teich, appears on National Public Radio (NPR).

Sharing the Remarkable Stories of Italian-American Ballplayers

Lawrence Baldassaro had been interviewing baseball players of Italian-American heritage for a while when a realization hit him. “Here I am,” he recalled thinking, “the grandson of four Italian immigrants, I teach Italian, I love baseball – why don’t I write about Italians in baseball?

“It turned out that virtually nothing had been written about that subject,” Baldassaro says.

Continue reading at National Public Radio (NPR).