Battista Perri

Battista John Perri

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 176 lb.
• School American River College, University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
• High School Oak Ridge High School

• Born November 13, 1974 in Santa Clara, CA USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Battista Perri pitched in the minors and in Italy and appeared in the Olympics.

The San Francisco Giants took Perri in the 46th round of the 1992 amateur draft but he went on to college. Perri was 7-2 with a 3.62 ERA for the 1997 Evansville Otters. He was 9th in the Frontier League in ERA. With the Otters in 1998, he went 7-5 with a 5.07 ERA, walking only 18 in 110 innings.

Perri next went to play in Italy. In 1999, he was 12-2 with a save and a 2.57 ERA for Rimini, then was 2-1 in the postseason as they won the Serie A1 title. He tied former major leaguer Tom Urbani for the league lead in wins. The next year, Battista moved to Rimini's bullpen and was 3-1 with a save and a 2.36 ERA, holding opponents to a .209 average. He was 1-0 despite a 5.40 ERA in the postseason, and Rimini won another title.

The Californian joined the Italian national team for the 1999 European Championship, giving up 3 runs in 5 innings for the Silver Medalists. He remained with Italy for the 2000 Olympics. In his lone game, he faced his homeland's Team USA. The USA lineup included Brent Abernathy, Brad Wilkerson, Ernie Young, Doug Mientkiewicz, Adam Everett and Mike Kinkade. Perri allowed two runs in the first, but then shut down the USA for the next six innings. In the meantime, Italy scored twice off Ben Sheets. Perri and Italy entered the bottom of the 8th with a 2-2 game intact, with a chance at an upset still, but the USA got two more in that inning and Todd Williams went 1-2-3 in the 9th to end the upset bid. Jason Simontacchi relieved Perri and got the last two outs. On the day, he had pitched 7 2/3 innings with four runs (two earned), six hits (all singles), four walks and four strikeouts in presumably the most notable game of his career. Perri's pitching career ended that year.