Team Italy's Mission Classic premieres on IABF YouTube Channel

Team Italy's Mission Classic premieres on IABF YouTube Channel
09/03/2023
Created by the Italian American Baseball Foundation and curated by Chris Vaccaro, Team Italy's Mission Classic episode one is now available for viewing on the IABF YouTube Channel

Since taking over the Italian national elite squad at the end of 2019, Azzurri manager and National Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza has been building up a program from the ground up to the first pitch of the 2023 World Baseball Classic Pool A debut game for Team Italy against Cuba in Taichung, Taiwan.

A fundamental stage in this journey, for which FIBS and the Italian American Baseball Foundation (IABF) made possible, was last November's Mission Classic. It was a crucial moment of team building strategically timed at the end of the baseball season when thirteen MLB-affiliated players could visit Italy and get in touch with their ancestral and cultural heritage.

With their respective families, the players touched down on Italian soil and spent a week together to get to know their teammates and coaches so that when they gathered again in Taiwan they had a sense of purpose collectively. Because of Mission Classic, as the players represent Team Italy with beloved Italia stitched across their chest in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, every member of the Azzurri squad now possesses a deeper understanding and love for his country as well as the individual responsibility to make fellow Italians proud.

In association with FIBS, the IABF has unveiled Mission Classic episode one, which recaptures the story of the journey beginning in November 2022 and showcases highlights from the Team Italy Futures Stars Game in Arezzo. Look for future episodes of the upcoming Mission Classic docuseries about Team Italy in the 2023 World Baseball Classic on the IABF YouTube Channel. Forza #Italia!

by Marco Landi and Roberto Angotti

2023 WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC NEWS

(Photo of Team Italy during Mission Classic at CONI headquarters in Rome by IABF)