CON-X 2024 presents a trio of MLB speakers

It is a trio of new faces make their CON-X 2024 debut for the National Technical Committee and speak at the Italian Baseball and Softball Convention at Palacongressi in Rimini from January 26-28, 2024.

We start with Brett Sullivan, Team Italy catcher at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, who worked in tandem with starting pitcher Matt Harvey and the Azzurri bullpen to defeat favored Kingdom of the Netherlands and advance to the quarterfinals against Japan in Tokyo. After eight seasons in the minor leagues, Brett Sullivan made his MLB debut with the San Diego Padres on April 18, 2024 and went on to appear in 33 games.

Brett Sullivan will offer his experience and expertise for all three days of CON-X 2024. He will speak about catching the ball and framing pitches with the knee on the ground. In addition, Sullivan will elaborate on the mental aspect of the game.

Pitching coach Felice Phil Cundari, who pitched for Fiorentina in the 1983-1984 Italian Baseball Championships while still a college student and made three appearances for Team Italy at the 1983 European Baseball Championship (which qualified the Italians for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics) was signing by the Oakland A's and posted a 17-21 record during his four-year stint in Single-A and Double-A ball. He returned to Italy in 1990 to coach in Milan before embarking on a long career as a pitching coach. Cundari won the 2011 Collegiate Baseball National Pitching Coach of the Year Award while coaching at Seton Hall University. Most recently he has served as pitching coach in the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies organizations. In addition to coaching, Cundari is a psychotherapist, who will assist pitchers attending CON-X 2024 on their strengths and self-confidence.

The young and talented Anthony Lucchese, in his sixth year of work as the Toronto Blue Jays Advance Scout, has been promoted to become the Quality Assurance Analyst for the 2024 season. In the era of game analysis with the use of data for pitchers, defenders, hitters and base stealers for the competitive edge, Lucchese will explain his daily routine for the the Canadian franchise and how he applied his knowledge for Team Italy during the 2023 World Baseball  Classic. A synergy between technique and statistics is increasingly fundamental at the highest level to identify the players' strengths and weaknesses at all times of their development.

Felice Phil Cundari

Born in Cliffside Park, New Jersey in 1964, he started a successful career in baseball as a player, primarily at the college level, and later became a coach and sports performance consultant.

As a player, he shined especially in the early 1980s at Seton Hall University, where he stood out as a pitcher, winning 26 games between 1983 and 1985 and earning All-American honors in 1985, as well as the league's best pitcher.in the Big East Conference.

He became an Italian national team hero in the triumphant European Baseball Championship in Florence in 1983 and later with Fiorentina Baseball won the Italian Cup in 1984. He was selected in the fourth round of 1985 MLB Draft by the Oakland Athletics, He pitched for four seasons and reached as high as the Double-A level before an arm injury ended his playing career.

The doors to a career as a coach immediately opened for him. For seventeen years he served as pitching coach at Seton Hall University, working with several players, including Jason Grilli, who later move on to MLB . In 2011, he was named Coach of the Year for his work with pitchers. He subsequently embarked on a coaching career at Rutgers University, helping to significantly improve the performance of the pitchers and lower the team's ERA.

He returned to Italy and won the 1990 Italian Cup as part of the Mediolanum Milano coaching staff.

Since 2019 he has worked with several MLB organizations. After coaching in the Toronto Blue Jays minor league sytem through the 2022 season, he moved over to the Philadelphia Phillies organization In 2023 season and served the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (Single-A+) pitching coach and helped Italian-born twenty-one year old left-hander Samuel Aldegheri become FanGraphs top best 26 prospects in the Phillies organization.

His experience and successes as a player and coach have earned him entry into three different Halls of Fame: Cliffside Park High School Hall of Fame, Seton Hall University Hall of Fame and New Jersey Sportswriters Hall of Fame.

Off the field, Cundari runs his own private practice as a sports performance consultant. He is a licensed psychotherapist and specializes in training for peak performance and developing mental toughness for athletes of all levels. Building physical strength in pitchers and growing confidence in the pitcher will be the main points of his talk at CON-X 2024.

National team appearances: 3

Anthony “Cheese” Lucchese

Born in 1995, a native of Toronto, graduated in Economics and Business Technology Management in 2018 from Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada, he is now in his sixth season in the Toronto Blue Jays organization, his fifth in the Advance Scouting section and his first as a Quality Assurance Analyst , Advance Scouting. He started in 2019 as an intern for Vancouver, in Single A, then, after 2 seasons with the first team, he entered permanently in the analysis area of the Ontario franchise in 2022.

Brett Sullivan 

Born in Stockton, California, on February 22, 1994, he attended the University of the Pacific before starting his professional career in 2015 in the Tampa Bay Rays organization after being selected as a 17th round pick of the MLB Draft. In the winter of 2022, he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers and later to the San Diego Padres in exchange for veteran catcher Victor Caratini. After a successful season in Triple-A, Sullivan represented Team Italy in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, where he went  7-for-19 (.368) in five games. He made his MLB debut on April 18, 2023 and made 33 game appearances. In eight seasons in the minors, he played 767 games and 2906 innings with 806 hits, 74 home runs and 459 RBI.

National team appearances: 5

Forza #Italia!

by Marco Landi, Luca Giangrande and Roberto Angotti