A somewhat muted presentation for Parmaclima on an unusual date (“Unfortunately it was an obligatory date”, explained press officer Gianluigi Calestani at the opening), with the city dressed up and the authorities and media busy in the celebrations of the 25th April, but no less important, for a team that openly aims to reconquer the Italian title fourteen years later.
President Luca Meli believes in it, Maurizio Renaud believes in it and General Manager Massimo Fochi believes in it, who together with team manager Marco Campanini navigated the winter between new rules, departing players, competition from other clubs, the construction of a group for which, everyone reiterated, attention was paid above all to team spirit and the sense of belonging, both of those who arrived and those who remained. And of the hard core that has represented the team in the last ten-fifteen years, this year only Stefano Desimoni remains, appointed captain in his last season as a player, who will live mainly on the bench (“The veterans owe the example give from the dug-out, not from the field”, we were told) and in exchange for the fundamental contribution he will give to the team and the technical staff, he will have the opportunity to collect a sufficient number of appearances that will allow him to climb up the rankings appearances in the Parma uniform, those positions still achievable.
We remember that to date, the left-handed winger is the fifth player in terms of number of appearances in the history of the club, of which he did “a review with my teammates, so that everyone is well aware of what it means to play in this team, which represents not only the managers and collaborators of the company, but the entire baseball movement, something that I have been able to learn over the years, having been lucky enough to be born in this city and thanks to my family, chewing and living on baseball every day for thirty-eight years to this part” (2024 is the thirty-ninth season of the Desimoni family in the world of baseball… it would be time for us to step aside…).
Manager Saccardi is satisfied with the availability that the whole group, understood as the club, staff and team, is giving him in this first period of friendlies and training and hopes that this situation can continue, to aim for “that gift to the president” at the end of the season. The manager focused on the characteristics of the championship which, on the one hand allow you to compete immediately with the best teams, avoiding a month of useless victories, on the other, with the seven innings it distorts the characteristics of the game “I believe that with the seven innings are actually missing the first two shots, not the last ones. In this way the whole strategy changes. A team can play the entire game with one pitcher and possibly a closer. But if it’s the price to pay for playing three games, we’ll adapt for the moment.”
The 2024 edition of Parmaclima is undoubtedly a team built with intelligence, following the needs that emerged from the last championship, within the limits of economic availability. Two foreign pitchers, with the returning Casanova and Raymond Figueredo, both from Cuba, who will be the starters of the first and third weekly match, Claudio Scotti and Manuel Santana to support the untouchable Matteo Bocchi from last season in the Italian’s match and the community member, Venezuelan with a Spanish passport, Perez available for the first and third meetings as a relief.
If necessary, the Sardinian “star” Ganriele Angioi, who arrived in Parma after years of courtship, will also be able to climb the mountain and will usually take a position at second base, with the other young Scerrato, from Nettuno, as back-up. At the corners of the diamond two other new additions, both with community passports: in first Manuel Ascanio, who until Giulio Monello returns from the USA will also be the second catcher and in third the team’s heavy bat, Wander Encarnacion, who has caught everyone’s attention at last year’s European Senior Championships. To close the diamond, finally, news from a few days ago is the confirmation of the third foreigner, Luis Gonzales, after the excellent 2023 season, one of the few happy notes to tell the truth. In the external field, the big news, in which the club believes a lot, is represented by the appointment of Tommaso Battioni as starting center back, flanked on the right by Luis Gonzales and on the left by Alessandro Flisi. The designated player will be Cesare Astorri, who will also be able to play first or wide if necessary.
A team defined as flexible, because, according to the management staff, each position is covered by at least two players. All that remains is to wait for the verdicts from the pitch, starting tomorrow, when Saccardi’s team, after the last double friendly in Bologna last Saturday, will make their debut on the Janella pitch in Grosseto, against a strengthened team that makes no secret of aiming to high. We start for a regular season, made up of thirty games which, in reality, will be a sort of competitive spring training, given that all six teams in the group will enter the play-offs. The grid remains to be established, but the position, as we have seen in the past, is not that important.
The home debut at Cavalli, for the seventy-fifth season of the club, which commemorates him with a logo on the cap, is scheduled for next week with the triple match against Unipol Bologna, Italian champions and great favorites again this year. The latest innovation is represented by the third shirt, yellow and blue with a pattern characterized by many large Ps, symbol of the club. Judgment to the fans
