Dear umpires, athletes, scorers, managers, parents, coaches and lovers of Italian baseball and softball,
Another year has come to an end, one which has brought with it an alternation of exhilarating and disappointing moments. The historic fifth place in the World Baseball Classic in March placed the Azzurri of Italy in the spotlight on the global baseball stage but was diminished by the ninth-place finish at the European Championship in September. Despite settling for a U12 European Baseball Championship bronze and placing fifth place in the U23 Baseball, we were redeemed with a U15 Baseball Championship silver-medal finish, which qualified us for the 2024 U15 Baseball World Cup.
The Italian Elite Softball team gained access to the 2024 Women’s Softball World Cup FInal on our home turf in Friuli Venezia Giulia by passing through the main qualifying door, while the U18 team took home the European silver and qualified for the U18 Softball World Cup Group Stage in 2024. The U15 girls competed in the World Cup in Japan with their heads held high.
The young and talented Italian Baseball5 team achieved sixth place at the Senior European Championship, while the BXC national team once again imposed its supremacy by winning the title at the first European Baseball for the Blind Championship.
At club level, Parma Clima, Inox Team Saronno and Rheavendors Caronno reached the second step of the podium in the three European competitions they competed in.
Two softball teams represented Europe/Africa at the Little League World Series at the end of a journey which began in Tuscany with a Regions Tournament that set the record for participating teams.
The journey will continue in a challenging 2024 on the field, with three World Cups to face, starting with the softball 'Finals' which will bring the yellow ball superpowers to Italy for the first time to compete for the world title, and four European Championships, gradually through the championships, up to the hundreds of hours that our coaches and educators will spend in schools to spread knowledge and passion for our game.
But 2024 will be a year of demanding changes even outside the pitch: above all the sport reform, which imposes a revolution in the management of relationships in which the Federation is committed to being as close and supportive as possible to those who have the responsibility to lead our Companies; or the mandatory adoption of a strict Safeguarding Policy to protect above all our girls and boys.
Just as in the times of Covid, we will be called to face problems that are new to many and, now as then, we will have to do it together, with trust and competence, each one looking well beyond their own backyard and 'working as a system'.
A system that will increasingly have to be a shared culture, through the care of skills in each of the sectors in which we are all called to operate.
The help of experts, in-depth knowledge of the issues, training are the tools that will allow us to face tomorrow peacefully together, between the foul lines and outside of them, and it is the Federation's task to offer growth opportunities to all the components of the movement, starting with the CON-X in Rimini, the initial moment of the annual training program, to which I would truly like to invite everyone, just as I am particularly pleased, on the occasion of these holidays, to invite you to 'take a tour' of the new section of our FIBS website, where everyone will be able to inform themselves and find all the Social Responsibility projects of the FIBS partners together.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas together with your loved ones and a 2024 of great baseball and softball.
Andrea Marcon
(Photo by FIBS President Andrea Marcon before the Team Italy-Hungary game at the 2023 European Baseball Championship by Corrado Benedetti/Duck Foto Press)
