Another example of a youth of Italian Immigrants in the Americas that once shunned his Heritage, because of the denigrating Media, finally rediscovering his roots.

The author, Dave Bidini, is guitarist in the Ontario,Canada band, the Rheostatics.

It is an informative and amusing account that explores Baseball in Italy.
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RHEOSTATICS GUITARIST DAVE BIDINI DISCOVERS ITALIAN ROOTS
IN "BASEBALLISSMO"

Canadian Press
Shi Davidi
May 4, 2004

(CP) - Growing up in Toronto during the 1960s and 70's, just about the last thing Dave Bidini wanted to be was Italian.

Like many teenagers, Bidini struggled to carve a niche in high school's complex social strata. Creating a balance between his ancestral heritage and the culture of his adoptive homeland only complicated matters. Eventually that led Bidini to push away all things Italian and envelope himself in Canadiana, which is evident in the music he's made during the past decade with the Rheostatics.

Over time, however, Bidini has found a way to balance the old world and the new, a reconciliation that comes through in his latest book, Baseballissimo.

Set in the town of Nettuno (an hour south of Rome), Bidini takes his readers through a season with the Serie B Peones, interspersing stories about baseball, his childhood and the Italian heritage he once shunned.

It's a book that will resonate strongest with first- and second-generation Canadians who have gone through the same things.

"Being a country of immigrants, when the new world and old world collide you're forced to deal with it," Bidini said in a recent interview. "I guess this was my way of dealing with that and coming to terms with what I'd had to go through as a kid. . . .

"It was a neat prism. I'm 40 now, my kids are named Cecilia and Lorenzo, I thought it was important for me at least to understand a bit about the land of my grandparents just so that they (his kids) could learn about it through me."

That Bidini accomplished this through sports should come as no surprise. Baseballissimo is Bidini's third book and follows his well-received Tropic of Hockey.

For that book, he travelled around the globe to explore how Canada's game had taken root in remote corners of the world.

This time, he based himself in colourful Nettuno, which is an hour south of Rome with a population of around 40,000. Baseball took hold there in 1944, when locals picked it up from Allied soldiers stationed in the area. In 1957, Joe DiMaggio visited the town and awed the crowd by hammering balls off Nettunese ace Carlos Tagliaboschi.

"I didn't want to make a pilgrimage back to the homeland, I didn't want to knapsack around," said Bidini. "I needed that vessel and over the course of my life sports has proven to be my vessel in terms of understanding cultures other than my own.

"I know about Mongolian culture through having gone there to play hockey so it only stood to reason I could learn about Italy through baseball and I was lucky it worked out."

Much of Baseballissimo's charm comes from snippets about Italian players adapting the American pastime to fit their culture.

Forget peanuts and Cracker Jacks, picture biscotti and espresso. Instead of spitting sunflower seeds or chewing tobacco in the dugout, players swallow whole packets of sugar. And their style is always impeccable.

"They would only wear their hats during games because they didn't want to mess their hair," Bidini recalled with a laugh. "If there was an argument between pitcher and umpire, or pitcher and catcher it was protracted and dramatic, the hands were waving, the chins were jutting, the fingers were flying.

"At one point somebody said it was like I pulled the characters from central casting. I almost wished I could have toned it down a little bit, but they were in a lot of ways Italians in the truest sense."

Bidini says baseball in Italy is about as popular as soccer is in Canada. It's played from Trieste to Sicily and receives decent amounts of news coverage in sport dailies.

At the 2000 Olympics at Sydney, the Italians held the Americans to a 4-2 loss, an achievement that was celebrated. Italy will also field a team in the 2004 Athens Games.

The hotbeds are in Nettuno, around Naples, and up north in Rimini and Bologna.

Bidini practised with the Peones, the team he follows in Baseballissimo, an experience he describes joyously. In his first pickup game with them, he swung and missed the first two pitches he sees before blooping a single.

It was an at-bat he'll cherish when things get crazy for him this fall.

The Rheostatics are due to release their first new album in three years late in the fall with a tour to follow.

Bidini also has a book aimed at aspiring young musicians coming out and he has plans to film a documentary on hockey in Russia.

He'll no doubt be longing for the tranquillity of Nettuno by then.

"Baseball is a fun game to write about. For me, the whole process of writing about hockey was a bit heavier and a little bit more dramatic," says Bidini.

"Baseball has always been a game of a little less levity, a little bit freer and a bit more fun. Baseball is a bit more inclusive, too. You can be fat and have a gammy leg, baseball allows for that, for a real fallibility."

Edmonton Journal - canada.com network
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/
story.html?id=079193ab-d0f9-43e1-9866-5be60171a11e
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Artists:The Rheostatics  Untitled Document
http://www.drog.com/artists/rheostatics.htm
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