The center fielder watched the ball arcing towards the outfield fence. He raced after it, his legs churning.  When the twelve-year old crashed into the wall in pursuit of the ball, he asked his Little League coach, “Is that enough hustle?”

For twenty years that intensity propelled Dario Pizzano towards his goal of playing major league baseball.  Twice he was one step away, but now the 31-year old is working full-time far from the baseball diamond. Still, as 2023 dawns, baseball is calling Pizzano again. But this time it’s different.  The summons originates from across the Atlantic Ocean in his family’s homeland of Italy.

Italy is assembling an elite national baseball team for international competition.  Pizzano is aiming for a spot on the squad.  No, it won’t be major league baseball. It will be more. 

In March baseball around the world will stop for the sport’s true World Series, the World Baseball Classic.  Pizzano hopes to be in uniform for Team Italy when it faces Cuba in the opening round in Taichung, Taiwan.

Bill Goggin grew up in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, not far from the Bunker Hill Monument.  He belonged to the Charlestown Boys Club whose members served as batboys and more for the Boston Red Sox, including Hall of Famer Ted Williams.  Pizzano has an autographed picture of the given to his grandfather with an appreciation: “To Bill. Thanks for shining my shoes. Ted Williams.” 

At Malden Catholic High School in 2006, Pizzano hit almost .700 for the freshman team.  As a sophomore he started in the outfield, batting third in the lineup, but the season had sour start. “I was 0-for-18 and the coach said he was going to move me down in the order,” he said.

Contact lenses saved Pizzano. “The next game I hit my first varsity home run and had three hits,” said Pizzano. “I could see the baseball. I could see its spin.” He became the centerpiece of the Malden Catholic lineup and relentlessly pursued results.

At one baseball showcase a coach told sophomore Pizzano, “We all know you can hit, but you can’t run and you can’t throw.”  So the outfielder focused his workouts on his sprint speed and arm strength.

Pizzano trained for baseball, even when he played varsity basketball for the Lancers.  After class and basketball practice, Pizzano worked out at the fitness center. Next, his parents drove him to the Extra Innings baseball facility in nearby Middleton.

“I would hit on the extra fast machine until my hands started to hurt,” said Pizzano.  “I would move myself around the batter’s box. Inside. Outside. Up and back. I would do that for an hour and half four times a week.”  The facility staff was so inspired by Pizzano’s dedication, they gave him free rounds on the pitching machine. Meanwhile, his parents drank coffee at Dunkin Donuts.  “Then I would come home,” said Pizzano. “Eat dinner and do homework until midnight.”

After a junior baseball showcase, a college coach emailed Pizzano. “If you work really hard, you might be able to crack a Division 3 roster,” the coach wrote.  As motivation, Pizzano tacked the harsh evaluation on the wall of his room. “I always had that chip on my shoulder,” he said. “I was a 5-11 Italian kid from the Northeast who shouldn’t be able to play at that high level.”

Pizzano’s academic and baseball credentials generated interest from Ivy League colleges.  He chose Columbia, coached by Beverly, MA native Brett Boretti.  Pizzano recalled Boretti “liked guys who played hard,” and was told, “If you show me you can play, I’ll start you freshman year.”

Pizzano was Columbia’s designated hitter batting eighth to open the 2010 season.  For the first time in a regular season game, he tested a new batting stance. During fall baseball, Coach Boretti recommended that Pizzano move back from the plate.

“Sometimes that happens because kids don’t get pitched inside if they are that good in high school,” said Boretti. “They have to figure out how to handle the ball away so much, then at our level the pitching is better, the location is better, the velocity is better. They can get in there.”

“He backed me off the plate six inches,” said Pizzano.  “I still had plate coverage and now I could handle the inside pitch.”

This was the second and last adjustment Pizzano would make to his batting stance.  The first one occurred at ten years old when he imitated Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. “I was wiggling the bat and I was late,” said Pizzano.

Pizzano’s grandfather advised, “Stop with all the extra movement. Put the bat on your shoulder, lift it up and have it right there. That’s what Ted Williams and Stan Musial used to do.” Pizzano incorporated a simple movement instead. “I began to do a bat tap off my shoulder as my timing mechanism,” he said.

In Columbia’s March 5 opener against the University of Las Vegas, Pizzano went 1 for 4 with a double and RBI.  Not bad for a freshman.  And that’s how the season continued.

After 21 games, almost halfway through the season, Pizzano was hitting .250 with just 8 RBIs.  Nine of his sixteen hits were for extra bases, including two home runs, so his bat had some pop.  Not bad for a freshman, but Pizzano recalled “I was trying to do too much, so I was pressing.”

After an early April double header against Yale, Pizzano had just two hits in his last thirteen at bats. Co-captains Jason Banos (of Lynnfield, MA, which borders Saugus) and Dean Forthun convened a pep talk.

“You don’t have to prove to us that you should be in the lineup,” they reassured.  “We all have 100% confidence in you. Just let your game play.”  The captains’ words “unlocked something,” said Pizzano. On April 4 Columbia hosted Brown University for two games. “The Brown doubleheader turned my career around.”

In the next two years Columbia’s record fell below .500, but Pizzano remained an offensive force. He hit .359 with an OPS over 1.000 and led the Lions in most major offensive categories in one or both seasons.  His senior year, he walked 30 times in 44 games and hit just four home runs.  “I really didn’t get much to hit,” he said. Still, Pizzano tied early 1980s Lion Gene Larkin (a seven-year major league veteran) with 25 career home runs.

The awards accumulated for Pizzano.  Two-time team MVP, three-time first team All-Ivy League Team, and Ivy League Player of the Year.  As of 2022, Columbia’s baseball record book lists Pizzano in the top ten in seven career hitting and five single season lists.

Columbia’s 2012 season ended on April 28.  Major league scouts had been following Pizzano for two years and he was eligible for the draft as a college junior.  He was prepared to delay the last year of his Ivy League education. The 40-round major league draft was scheduled for early June. 

After his sophomore season at Columbia Pizzano caught the attention of the Seattle Mariners.  In the summer of 2011 he hit .365 with an OPS of 1.001 for the North Shore Navigators in the wood bat New England College Baseball League.  He was a first-team all-star.

Seattle’s interest stood out among the many teams following Pizzano. Perhaps it was due to his score on an at-home computer vision evaluation administered by a Mariners scout.  His score was nearly off the charts. 

On paper, the progression through minor leagues --- Single-A to Double-A to Triple-A --- looks arithmetic.  It’s actually logarithmic. It takes more effort to move up each level. It also takes more effort to remain at each level.

Pizzano started the 2014 season with the High Desert Mavericks, the Mariners’ upper level Single-A team in the California League.  His hitting profile --- a discerning batting eye and power to the outfield gaps --- produced again. Twenty-one extra base hits plus 23 walks generated an OPS of .862 with 21 RBIs. After 35 games, in mid-May, he was promoted to the Double-A Jackson Generals.

At 23, Pizzano for the first time faced extended adversity on an adult-dimension baseball field.  The Southern League was filled pitchers with Triple-A and major league experience. “They really knew how to pitch backwards in any count, throw a 3-1 change up or an advantage count off-speed pitch,” he said.

Pizzano was hitless in his first ten plate appearances. “I started pressing,” he said. After 12 games he was 5 for 41, and the Generals’ big screen scoreboard showed his low batting average every at bat. “I couldn’t not look at it. I was fixated on the stats,” he said.

On July 4 he was hitting .152.  “The thing that saved me,” said Pizzano, “was every time I got a hit it was a grand slam or a three-run double.” He had 22 RBIs with only 18 hits. It took a village to raise his average.

“The Mariners coaches knew I could hit well, too,” said Pizzano. “They knew I was crazy in the best way but it was working against me because I was so stat-oriented.” They reinforced, “We know what you can do.”

When Pizzano realized it was statistically impossible to hit .300 for the year, he narrowed his focus. “Now I’m going to take it one at bat at a time,” he said.

Pizzano hit .285 after July 4. He finished the season with 55 RBIs, third on the team. His on-base percentage was .342, walking more than he struck out for the second year in a row.  In the off season, Pizzano completed his degree at Columbia and his intense drive was fully restored.

Pepe met Pizzano for lunch during October and together they watched the Giants-Nationals N.L. Division Series playoff game. Pepe recalled, “He points to the TV and tells me, ‘Put me in that game right now and I’ll get three hits.”

Listach advised Pizzano he’d get about 300 at bats for the season. “I know what kind of player you are,” said Listach. “Don’t press to try and get two or three hits every day because even if you do, you’re still not playing.”

For the first time, at 25, Pizzano was not in the everyday starting lineup.  When he was, he played left field or designated hitter. He searched for rhythm.  “I had to find it every time I played,” he said. “Almost every pitcher we faced had big league time.” On May 10 he had three hits.  The next day he was on the bench.  His power suffered.

“It was nice to be that close to the big leagues,” Pizzano said. “But it was disheartening.”  Instead of walking more than he struck out as he did during the first four years of his career, strike outs outnumbered walks more than 2 to 1.

Pizzano returned to Tacoma in 2017, but was advised he was the last guy on the roster, and he might shuttle between Triple-A and Double-A. “I figured out how to handle it better,” he said.

In two stints with both Tacoma and Arkansas, (the Jackson franchise had relocated to Little Rock) Pizzano hit .272 with a career high 13 home runs and .348 on base percentage. In Tacoma, where he played less regularly against tougher pitching, he hit. 229. For Arkansas, he was two hits shy of batting .300.

Professional sports had to thread a needle to exist in 2020.  Major league baseball played a 60-game season with no fans in the stands.  There was no MLB-affiliated minor league baseball.

Despite the pandemic, Pizzano did not give up on his quest to play major league baseball. His body had healed from surgery, but he was being worn down by the relentless emotional demands of professional baseball.

For ten years baseball had required extreme dedication every month of the year. The intensity Pizzano brought to the field twice delivered him to the Triple-A threshold of major league baseball.  That same force took a toll on his body and mind.

“I was always defined as a baseball player,” Pizzano said. “Once I lost the game, was released and injured, I realized I’m 28 years old with a Columbia degree and no work experience and I’m not a baseball player anymore.”

Pizzano started having panic attacks and physical symptoms from anxiety.  “I was getting scared,” he said, “I am so in tune with my body, I knew things were wrong.”

Off-season therapy and mental exercises helped. “The chip on my shoulder and proving everyone wrong always worked until it didn’t,” he said.  Pizzano learned to relax and realized, “Even if you don’t make the big leagues, you still succeeded more than 99.5% of players. I don’t need to define myself based on if I do or don’t make the big leagues. My perspective on everything became a whole lot more mature. I became grateful for everything.”

With the minor leagues shut down, Pizzano, like many other free agent professionals, turned to the independent American Association in the Central United States. The league contracted to six teams with a sixty-game schedule in five hubs.  With two teams, Pizzano’s new perspective generated results on the field. “I had a whole new outlook on being grateful to play again and I raked.”

Pizzano hit .290 (20th in the league) with a .393 on-base percentage (seventh) in 50 games for Fargo-Moorhead (ND) and Winnipeg (Manitoba). Players wore masks in clubhouse and dugout, but were unmasked on field.

“They called a couple of the Italian names over after the game.” said Pizzano.  Team officials, including Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza, explained the process for obtaining Italian citizenship to become eligible to play for Team Italy.  Since this was Pizzano’s second professional season, his goal was to reach MLB. Still, international competition had appeal.

Playing for Team Italy re-emerged in 2016, this time from Mariners mental skills coach Rafael Colon, who held the same position with Team Italy.  Pizzano, now at Triple-A Tacoma, didn’t hesitate.  If Pizzano could hit for Team Italy like he did in the United States, perhaps he’d earn a spot on the World Baseball Classic roster.  In 2013, WBC Team Italy included five minor leaguers. 

The international paper chase began. Pizzano was instructed to trace his Italian lineage through his mother.  The search for vital records and immigration documents in the United States and Italy uncovered the required information, but they contained bad news.  His last Italian-born maternal ancestor had left Italy too long ago.  Pizzano did not qualify for Italian citizenship through his mother.

Oddly, no one suggested researching through his father, and it wasn’t until 2018 that Pizzano started investigating his paternal Italian roots.  The arduous process involved the Italian Baseball Federation, a lawyer in Rome, Ellis Island passenger ship manifests, and locating barely legible paper records in remote Italian villages stretching back two centuries to his great, great grandfather. 

Months turned into years.  Then Covid hit, and the calendar turned to 2021.  The last step in the process was to obtain his Italian citizenship and passport.  In late July, Pizzano was told to report to the Italian Consulate on August 2.  There was no game scheduled for the Blue Crabs. “I flew at 6 a.m. My mom picked me up and we went to consulate,” said Pizzano. “I got my passport and flew back to Maryland.”

As the 2022 baseball season approached, Pizzano and his agent worked the phones, but there were no attractive contract offers.  The Mexican League offered playing time, said Pizzano, but was too many steps from MLB. Back home in Saugus with his parents, he started his a job search for his first, full-time, non-baseball job.

“Ten years is a long time to do this,” he said. “I’ve sacrificed a lot. I had amazing opportunities that I would never trade for the world. But there’s a lot of things I can’t get back that I missed.”

A month after the Honkbal Week tournament, Pizzano started his non-baseball career.  Eight years after finishing college he was hired by First Republic Private Wealth Management. He worked as a Client Service Associate to support financial advisors providing customized investment advice. He commuted to New York City by public transportation --- on a bus from Hoboken, New Jersey to Manhattan.

But to baseball players, even when there is no game being played, there is always a game on the horizon.  “I still train five days a week. And I’ll always train like an athlete,” Pizzano said.  Now, with the 2023 World Baseball Classic scheduled to start on March 8, he said, “I’m going to train as if I’m preparing for the upcoming season.”

Pizzano isn’t on the Team Italy roster right now, but “In my last conversation, I told them I’m playing. I’m ready to go,” he said. “Who knows?  The door is never closed. Stranger things have happened.”

The 20 countries in the World Baseball Classic finalize their rosters in early February.  Team Italy gathers in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 27 before it heads to Taiwan for the first round.

Pizzano is prepared to show up in Arizona as a walk-on and play his way on to Team Italy if needed. “If I have to make the team again that’s fine. I’ve grinded my whole career. I’ve never been handed anything my whole life.  It’s more satisfying that way anyway,” he said.

The competition will be intense, however.  The WBC permits MLB players to represent non-US countries if they are eligible for citizenship, a standard that varies widely from country to country.  Team Italy has snagged many MLB players, but roster spots may open up at the last minute. Mets Outfielder Brandon Nimmo might not play after signing a large free agent contract.  Guardians Catcher Mike Zunino might not be able to play after recent surgery.  “It’s a very fluid situation,” said Pizzano.

The most important factor will be whether Team Italy needs a reliable left-handed hitter with gap power who can get on base.  They called once before.  They might call again. And Coach Boretti knows Pizzano will be ready. “He can roll out of bed and hit.”

Team Italy contacted Pizzano on February 7. “They texted me this morning and said I wasn’t going to be on the roster,” he said.  Was there an outside possibility something could change? “No chance,” said Pizzano.  Team Italy told him, “Be ready for the Euro championship in September.”

The lure of the 2023 World Baseball Classic to younger players with major league affiliation was too much to overcome. Team Italy went with rising outfielders Ben DeLuzio, Dominic Fletcher and Sal Frelick, all high-performing Triple-A players.  And at first base, the Royals’ Vinnie Pasquantino.  Too many good hitters. Not enough non-pitcher roster spots.

In late February Team Italy gathered in Scottsdale, Arizona for workouts and exhibition games. Pizzano was in New Jersey, commuting to Manhattan in the eighth month of his post-baseball career.

A few days later Team Italy was en route to Taiwan.  For 14 hours the plane soared over the Pacific Ocean.  On land and sea below, time zones changed as did the calendar.

About the same time, hundreds of baseball and sports fans gathered a few miles north of Boston.  Malden Catholic was inducting a new class into its Athletic Hall of Fame.  Among them was Pizzano and his Malden Catholic coach Steve Freker.  Seventeen years earlier, in March 2006, Pizzano reported for his first baseball practice with Coach Freker.