“The game we love”, a book about the history of the IBAF

02/12/2011

During the XXVI Congress, the IBAF will introduce to the delegates the first ever attempt to write a history of the organization. The 222-page “The game we love”, a book illustrated with dozens of pictures, takes the reader from the 1930s to the current term of President Riccardo Fraccari.

During the XXVI Congress, the IBAF will introduce to the delegates the first ever attempt to write a history of the organization. The 222-page “The game we love”, a book illustrated with dozens of pictures, takes the reader from the 1930s to the current term of President Riccardo Fraccari.

“The idea behind this book” writes Fraccari himself in the foreword “Is that we need to know where we come from”. Fraccari adds: “This book is a first step to portray our history. We expect the contribution from the National Federations to work on an improved edition in the near future”.

Author Riccardo Schiroli explains in the preface: “This book does not aim to be an encyclopedia and I realize there’s room for in-depth research on the single tournaments or the single era. What I tried to write is something that makes an enjoyable read and helps the baseball community to know the history of the organization”.

Schiroli also credits the book as a team work: “Together with Ezio Ratti (credited for the graphic project and the photo editing), Emma Roberts (the editor to the original text in English) and Xavier Mateu (who translated, adapted and edited the text for the version in Spanish) I think we made a great team”.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, plus a section dedicated to bibliography and acknowledgements. There are 7 chapters (‘The early days and the John Moores trophy’, ‘From post war to the sixties’, ‘The Old World claims its role’, ‘The Olympic dream becomes reality’, ‘Professional players in international baseball’, ‘The first attempt at Olympic reinstatement’ and ‘Towards the future’) that tell the story of the Federation following a time line.

Each of the major tournament sanctioned by the IBAF has been told in a dedicated chapter, enriched by as many photos (as the author writes in the preface: “Sometimes we have decided to pick the photos that were instrumental to tell the history, instead of the ones of better quality”) as possible.

The main characters of the history of the organization are portrayed with detailed profiles.

Going back to Riccardo Fraccari‘s foreword, the book is dedicated: “To the people who built our history and to those who are working to build our future”