Now a dual citizen, Scranton's Cimini about to suit up for Team Italy
Jul. 30—Vince Cimini stepped up to the plate Saturday like he's done thousands of times before, took a pitch for a ball like he's done thousands of times before, looked for any directions from the third base coach and then waited for the next offering from the guy on the mound, like he's done thousands of times before.
When he connected on that next pitch and sent a drive over the wall in left field, Cimini heard something brand new blare over the stadium speakers.
"Fuori campo per Vincent Cimini!" the voice boomed. A home run call for the Scranton native, only this time, it was in Italian.
For a few games, Cimini is playing for the Grizzlies Torino 48, a Serie A professional baseball team in Turin, Italy. It's a warmup for the next two weeks, when the Scranton Prep grad and Boston College infielder will join the Italian national team for the U23 Baseball European Championship, the culmination of a journey years in the making that required him to obtain Italian citizenship. In many ways, it's also only the beginning of the excursion, as he'll go abroad again in September to play in the senior Baseball European Championship, when Hall of Famer Mike Piazza again will manage the Italian team.
"I feel like it's a completely unique situation," the 22-year-old Cimini said. "I've never played for a national team, but when you put a country's name on your chest, I feel like it means something more than just playing in a high school game or even a college game. Playing with a country's support behind you seems like it's going to be an unbelievable experience."
Offer of a lifetime
It's the summer of 2021 and Cimini is playing summer ball for a team in Montpelier, Vermont.
He had just wrapped up his first full season at Boston College after his freshman campaign lasted five games before being canceled because of the pandemic. He played in 45 games as a sophomore for the Eagles and became such an integral part of the program that, when he returned for his junior year, his teammates honored him with the No. 8 jersey. In memory of former Boston College star Peter "Sonny" Nictakis, the number was essentially given to the player who embodied everything it meant to be part of the program.
Sometime around Father's Day, his dad recalled, Cimini received a message from Gianmarco Faraone, a representative from the Italian national baseball team. His question: Would Cimini be interested in playing for the country's growing baseball team?
"First I thought it was a joke, somebody was pulling a prank on him," his dad, Vince, said.
Cimini didn't know much about the team, other than Piazza was the manager — "And pretty much in every Italian baseball household, he's a very notable figure," the longtime New York Yankees fan said — so, he jumped at the offer.
There was one major issue, however.
"(Faraone) said, 'OK, I just need to see your Italian passport.' And I was like, 'Well, I don't have that,'" Cimini said with a laugh. "So, that's where it kind of began."
Working the case
Cimini's grandfather, Vinicio Cimini, was born in Patrica, Italy and came to the United States in 1956 at the age of 19. He spent a couple years in Detroit, then eventually settled in Scranton, where he worked as a coal miner before he and his brother John bought a restaurant called Roma Pizza at the Viewmont Mall.
"I'd say the qualities of my family, a lot of them are rooted in their heritage and my heritage: Hard work, honesty, respect — all those, I feel like, are staples of an Italian household," Cimini said. "First of all my grandparents, and then through my parents and now me and my brother, it means a lot to us."
It meant Sunday dinners with family and homemade sauce and homemade pasta. It meant the traditional seven fishes meal on Christmas Eve.
Getting Italian citizenship was something that crossed Cimini's dad's mind many years earlier. He looked into it, but then came, well, life — marriage to Michele, then sons Vince and Andrew and a career as a lawyer.
He resurrected the idea once the baseball team reached out to Vince, and figured it wouldn't be too hard considering he was a direct descendant of someone born in Italy.
"My father was born there, I'm first generation American — this should be a walk in the park," he said. "But boy was I wrong."
He's spent years working on cases, and this was going to take just as much effort. He needed birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates and naturalization papers, and everything would need to be properly certified and also translated into Italian.
While going over the family history with Faraone, he found his first road block.
In 1962, Vinicio married Frances Georgia Giovannoni, a girl from Scranton whose family coincidentally came from a neighboring town in Italy. Vinicio was naturalized as an American citizen in 1964, and then in 1965, Vince Sr. was born.
"When I gave him (Faraone) those facts, he said, 'You're not eligible to be a citizen because the chain was broken. You were born to an American. Your father was American,'" Vince Sr. said. "And I was dejected."
Luckily, he found an old Italian law that said because Vinicio was still an Italian citizen when he was married, it technically made Frances an Italian citizen, too. A new chain started.
"I researched it and sure enough, that was true and that loophole applied and we were able to get through," he said.
After months of gathering the correct paperwork, another roadblock. In the summer of 2022, the office dealing with dual citizenship requests at the Italian Consulate in Philadelphia was essentially shut down, greatly impacted by effects of the pandemic. If the Ciminis could demonstrate some kind of special reason for the citizenship, maybe they could push it through.
Vince reached out to his contacts with the Italian baseball team, and shortly thereafter had a letter from Andrea Marcon, president of the Italian Baseball Softball Federation.
"I ask you to kindly interest in order to complete the citizenship procedure and obtain an Italian passport as soon as possible," Marcon wrote, "an indispensable condition to be able to summon the athlete Cimini to represent Italy in July and for subsequent international events."
Two months later, Vince and his dad had their passports.
"(My dad) loves this country, but he never forgot where he came from," said Vince Sr., who intends to get citizenship for Michele and Andrew, too. "He was always so proud of being Italian and everything Italian. He instilled that in us till the day he died, which was not that long ago (January 2022). He knew we were doing this. He knew we were attempting to get the citizenship. He knew that Vince was hopefully going to play for Italy, and even though he wasn't a big baseball fan, he was so happy, he was so proud, he was so excited."
New ballgame
Those wheels were all in motion ahead of qualifying for this past spring's World Baseball Classic, but Cimini wouldn't have been able to play as he was still rehabbing from surgery stemming from an elbow injury that ended his junior season after just four games. He was ready to go by the time his senior year started, and went on to bat .277 with a .685 OPS as Boston College enjoyed one of the more successful seasons in program history, making it to an NCAA regional final. He still has two more years of eligibility with the Eagles.
Cimini played nine games with Brewster in the Cape Cod League to stay sharp, and then July 17, he boarded a plane to Italy.
"At first, it was definitely a little culture shock, just because ... I don't speak the language," Cimini said. "And I look the part, so everyone assumes that I speak the language. And then I have to then explain that I don't."
Because the other players on the Grizzlies team have jobs outside of baseball, Cimini explores Turin, the city in northwest Italy that hosted the Olympics in 2006, on his own during the day. He's visited churches, seen ruins that are thousands of years old and, of course, is sampling as much food as he can. Pizza with prosciutto, fresh pasta, gelato, more pasta, tiramisu — it's all on the menu.
"I take pictures of everything and I send them to my mom, dad and brother," he said. "I don't post them anywhere (on social media) because I'm sure nobody really cares enough to look at my every meal. They would probably, honestly, be concerned with how much I've eaten if I posted everything."
Though he's half a world away, he still feels at home on the baseball diamond. The team practices at night, and the infield and outfield drills all look the same. Batting practice is the same. Coaches and umpires butt heads the same way. Game play is the same — for the most part.
"It's virtually no fastballs here," he said. "It's pretty much all junk, so like screwballs, knuckleballs, lot of curveballs.
"I haven't seen a radar gun since I've been here. Everyone's just — I think it's like a movement contest. Who can make the ball move the most?"
He's been impressed with the level of talent, even though it's a sport that is still trying to gain a foothold in a country where soccer reigns supreme. Italy is ranked 12th in the world rankings, second best in Europe behind the Netherlands at No. 8, which traditionally has drawn some of its best players from the island of Curacao.
Cimini said there aren't as many resources for baseball in Italy, with no Rapsodos or Trackmans or the Hawkeye technology common in the analytical era stateside. The lack of players means a lack of pitchers, so they're limited to two or three games per week. But the passion is there. Young kids come to the stadium to watch practice, and throw a ball around while emulating the players on the field.
"It's refreshing to see a pure brand of baseball being played, where it's just guys going out there having fun and enjoying it," Cimini said.
His time with the Grizzlies ends Monday, when he'll take a train to Ronchi dei Legionari, a city in the northeast of Italy where he'll meet up with the national team. After a week of workouts and scrimmages, they'll head to the tournament in Austria, which begins Aug. 8. Italy, the No. 2 seed, opens with a game against France, which will air on YouTube at 4 a.m. EST. Their pool play continues with games against Belgium and Germany.
"This has been great, being here playing for this team (in Turin)," Cimini said. "But I feel like the real reason I came here is to try to leave with a medal that says Italy on it. Hopefully a gold medal. But a few of the guys on this team have talked to me about playing for the national team because they had played in years in the past. And they said putting that jersey on — especially for them because they live here and grow up here — it's the most meaningful thing they've done in their life. So, maybe I won't be able to relate to that as accurately, because I didn't grow up here. But it still means the world to me, being able to represent my family first and foremost, and myself."
Contact the writer:
570-348-9125;
@RailRidersTT on Twitter
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.
User Legend: iconModeratoriconTrusted User
Tags
*
Sports
*
Baseball
*
Gastronomy
*
Food
*
Medicine
*
Job Market
*
Education
*
Games And Toys
*
Politics
*
Linguistics
*
Law
*
Sociology
