HOUSTON — Ned Colletti was back in his downtown Houston hotel room late Tuesday night, his voice hoarse, his eyes reddened, his heart pounding, and 250 text messages on his phone.
Colletti, general manager of Team Italy, was still emotional, his voice cracking. He has helped lead teams to five World Series appearances, winning two championships, but this night, this game, was one that will forever be cherished.
Not just by him, but by all of the proud country of Italy.
‘This is what you call a sports miracle,’ said Marco Mazzieri, president of the Federation of Italian Baseball and Softball.
It was the Miracle on Ice becoming the Miracle on Spikes.
It was Rocky Balboa knocking out Apollo Creed.
It was Team Italy, in one of the most stunning upsets in World Baseball Classic history, putting down Team USA, 8-6, in what will go down as the greatest victory in Italian baseball history.
‘It was emotional, it was remarkable,’ Colletti told USA TODAY Sports, ‘and I’m not ashamed to say I cried. We played one of the greatest teams ever assembled, and won. We did it.’
Colletti wasn’t alone, joining thousands of Italian baseball fans rejoining, celebrating a team that was considered little more than an afterthought.
‘This is one of the greatest days of my life,’ Italy manager Francisco Cervelli said. ‘You know, everybody in Italy should see this. We’re doing it for them, for the kids. It can happen. It’s possible.’
They are doing it for everyone’s ancestors, too, the immigrants who came to the United States for a better life. They didn’t have jobs, didn’t know their future, with no guarantees of even survival in America. Now look.
‘I reminded these guys that their great grandparents, their grandparents, their parents, came to America for a better life,’ Colletti said. ‘The Italians, for most of their existence in that period of time, were afterthoughts. But look who helped dig out the New York subway system. It was Italians who helped build the Empire State Building. It was Italians who cut hair, who made shoes. Italians would take on anything they could take on to assimilate and to have a chance of being in this country.
“And I said, ‘You are the sons of those people. Carry that proudly with you. If we win enough games, we will never be an afterthought again.’ ‘
Win one more game on Wednesday, March 11 (7 p.m. ET) against Mexico in their final pool game in Houston, and they’ll never be an afterthought again, advancing to the WBC quarterfinals. They could even lose, provided they don’t allow Mexico to score more than four runs, and still clinch the final quarterfinal berth on the tiebreaker, knocking out USA.
They already pulled off one miracle, why not another?
‘Anytime you can make history is incredible,’ said Italy starter Michael Lorenzen, who pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings, permitting just two hits in the victory. ‘An upset like that for an incredible country like Italy … I know everyone is probably going nuts right now, which is awesome to get people fired up.’
Italy’s players, including 21 from the United States, are taking great pride wearing ‘Italia’ across their chests. They have stars such as Aaron Nola, Vinnie Pasquantino and Lorenzen; rising stars like Jac Caglianone and Kyle Teel; bench players like Miles Mastrobuoni, Jon Berti and Dominic Canzone; and prized infield prospect Andrew Fischer. Their coaching staff, including Colletti, is filled with World Series champions who won 23 championship rings, along with All-Stars from manager Francisco Cervelli to coaches Jorge Posada, Dave Righetti, Ron Wotus, Sal Fasano, Frank Menechino, Lipso Nava and former Kansas City Royals GM Allard Baird.
They all gathered Tuesday night, hugged, cried and vowed to do it all over again.
‘I didn’t do it for my résumé,’ said Colletti, who also is an NHL scout with the San Jose Sharks. ‘I did it to pay respects to my heritage. That’s why this is so emotional. You know, without them taking a chance and coming from Sicily 120 years ago, I don’t have the life I’ve had.
‘So, it’s just a thank you to my grandparents and my parents for making the sacrifices and taking the chance, or my life would have been completely different. I’d be learning to speak English instead of learning to speak Italian.’
Now, with a victory against Mexico, Italy would be on baseball’s world-wide map, reaching the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals for the first time in its country’s history.
i festeggiamenti
“Are we underdogs, absolutely,’ Colletti says. ‘Do people expect us to do this? Absolutely not. But as I told them, ‘Hey, you have a chance to write history.’
‘We talked about standing on shoulders of those who came before us. Those who came to this country without knowing what would be here, or what they would do here, or how they would do it, and everything it entailed. They’ve embraced that.’
Colletti, who teaches five classes in sports leadership at Pepperdine, focusing on the art of building cultures that sustain success, has assembled an overnight sensation. He can’t believe the team has been together for only nine days, many who had never met each other, and now are closer than a college frat house.
He discovered just how close they were during their flight from Phoenix, after playing two exhibition games, to Houston. It wasn’t even an hour into the flight and there’s everyone breaking breaking into Andrea Bocelli songs, led by 31-year-old backup catcher Alberto Mineo, born and raised in Gorizia, Italy.
The entire team spent the rest of the flight singing, dancing in the aisles, sipping wine, and acting like they just commandeered a Vegas lounge.
‘I’ve been in this game for 40 years, and I’ve been on thousands of charter flights in my life,’ Colletti said, ‘and I’ve never seen anything like it. ‘We’re hearing Bocelli from the back of the plane, the middle of the plane. We’ve got Italian kids singing that from the country, and domestic kids. It was song after song, a little Sinatra, worked in some Billy Joel, everything. It was classic team building.’
They have captivated attention with their unique antics, whether it’s chugging espresso while wearing an Armani jacket after home runs, or having parmesan cheese and olive oil in the dugouts, but they also take great pride in their appearance.
It was Cervelli, who spent parts of seven years with the New York Yankees, including their 2009 World Series championship team, who came up with the idea they should wear suits to every game, just like the Yankees when he played for Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre. So no matter whether the game is at night, or at noon, they all arrive wearing suits. Even Colletti was wearing a blue pin-striped suit Tuesday, and trying to remember the last time he wore a suit to the game.
This is a 71-year-old man who spent nine years as GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and 11 years as an assistant GM with the San Francisco Giants, was part of 23 postseason teams. He helped lay the foundation for the Dodgers’ dynasty, winners of three of the last six World Series championships.
Those memories came flooding back Tuesday when he saw USA pitcher Clayton Kershaw before the game, remembering the days he and his staff picked him with the seventh pick in the 2006 draft. He also was the Dodgers GM who signed World Series hero Miguel Rojas, converted Kenley Jansen from a catcher to a future Hall of Fame closer, and drafted future All-Stars and World Series champions Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson.
There also were those glory days with the Giants, and he plans to be in Cooperstown, New York, this summer when Giants second baseman Jeff Kent is inducted into the Hall of Fame. He could be returning the next summer too, when former Giants managers Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy are expected to be inducted. Brian Sabean, the architect of the Giants’ three World Series championships, could be on the Hall of Fame ballot, too.
‘I’ve been around some of the all-time best people in the history of life and sport,’ Colletti says, ‘and I’m so blessed to have spent time with them. I wouldn’t be were I am without Sabes. He was the best to ever work for. He had the greatest decision-making of anyone I’ve been around. He was uncanny making judgments.
‘We would walk around for hours after games, sometimes until 3, 4 or 5 in the morning. I remember walking on Crescent Street in Montreal, outside the Sir Winston Churchill pub. That’s where we decided to keep Barry Bonds and trade Matt Williams for Jeff Kent. We stopped in for a glass of beer, talked about it, walked outside, and stood on the street corner as the pub closed down.’
The rest is history.
Now, here he is Tuesday, taking the short walk back from the ballpark to the team hotel, trying to clear his mind. He knows what’s at stake. If they win, they could be in Houston for another five days, and perhaps on a flight to Miami this weekend for the semifinals and finals. Lose, and players will be scrambling back to their major league and minor league teams. Some will return to Italy.
They will promise to stay in touch when it all ends, but in time, the phone calls and text messages fade, and eventually stop.
‘Whenever this is over, I can honestly say, it will be hard,’ Colletti said. ‘These players will go their separate ways when we’re finished. I don’t think they’ll ever see each other anytime soon, but never again.
‘But when they do see each other again, they’ll smile, and they’ll say, ‘Hey, how about what we did in Houston?’ ‘