Italy national baseball team

Italy
Federation	Federazione Italiana Baseball & Softball

Italian (and Venezuelan) caps and jerseys shown at the Rogers Centre for the 2009 WBC

The Italy national baseball team is a national team of Italy and is controlled by the Federazione Italiana Baseball & Softball. It represents the nation in senior-level men's international competition. The team is a member of the CEB. They have generally been the second-best country in Europe after the Dutch national team and finished first or second in the European Championship every time between 1969 and 1999. Since then, their fortunes faded for a spell, as they finished third, fifth, second and seventh in the next four European Championships as other countries gained ground before they rebounded to take Gold in 2010 and 2012. Italy won a Bronze Medal at the 2010 Intercontinental Cup, their first medal in an intercontinental tournament.

Italy was ridiculed for its reliance on Americans with Italian names in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. While this was unusual, Italy has often had a fair number of Latino or American players of Italian descent (taking advantage of Italy's extremely liberal citizenship laws of 1912); in the 2007 Baseball World Cup, for instance, they comprised about half of the roster with native Italians making up the rest.

Managers

• 1954: Horace McGarity
• 1955: ? Rossomando
• 1956-1957: Jimmy Strong
• 1958: Luigi Cameroni
• 1960: ? Stanton
• 1962-1965: Luigi Cameroni
• 1969-1972: Chet Morgan Jr.
• 1973-1975: Bill Arce
• 1976-1979: Silvano Ambrosioni
• 1980-1981: Giuseppe Guilizzoni
• 1982: Giampiero Faraone
• 1983-1984: Jim Mansilla
• 1985-2000: Silvano Ambrosioni
• 2001: Jim Davenport
• 2002-2005: Giampiero Faraone
• 2006 World Baseball Classic: Matt Galante
• 2006 Intercontinental Cup: Giampiero Faraone
• 2007-2017 : Marco Mazzieri
• 2019: Gilberto Gerali
• 2021-2023: Mike Piazza

Career Leaders in Games Played for Italy (through 2013)

• Ruggero Bagialemani - 195
• Roberto Bianchi - 150
• Mario Chiarini - 149
• Guglielmo Trinci - 143
• Davide Dallospedale - 140
• Giorgio Castelli - 124
• Alberto D'Auria - 120
• Paolo Ceccaroli - 119
• Giuseppe Carelli - 116
• Roberto De Franceschi - 109
• Marco Ubani - 105
• Gianmario Costa - 104
• Claudio Liverziani - 103