The Baseball Cats will see many historic landmarks during its 10-day, 4-game trip to Italy this coming summer.
Baseball is America’s game, but it is quickly becoming an international sport. The Saint Ignatius baseball team will experience the sport abroad this summer.
The Baseball Cats will travel to Italy to play a 4-game exhibition series with the Nettuno Baseball Club during a 10-day stay from July 19-28. Baseball is quite popular in Nettuno, located 40 miles south of Rome, where U.S. servicemen introduced the game in 1944 and 1945. Nettuno’s team competes in the Italian Baseball League and plays in the 10,000-seat Stadio Steno Borghese.
Head Baseball Coach and Assistant Athletic Director Brad Ganor plans to take the Wildcats to a host of historical sites during the team’s trip to Italy. The Baseball Cats will visit Pompeii, Rome, Vatican, Coliseum, and participate in Mass at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Rome.
“It has been a dream of mine to take an international trip with our baseball program, that dream will become a reality when we travel to Italy in July 2018,” Ganor said. “I feel my job is to coach baseball but more importantly provide opportunities for kids to create memories that will last a lifetime. I think this trip will do that.”
Global education is an important part of a Saint Ignatius High School education. Saint Ignatius offers seven mission trips, including ones to the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. Other programs, such as the Irish Studies program, allow Saint Ignatius students to study abroad.
The school’s global education initiatives increasingly include international trips through the Athletic Department. Most notably, the Saint Ignatius rugby team has previously traveled to Ireland in 2015 and to France in 2017, and will head to South Africa in April.
“Travelling abroad through sports gives our student-athletes an amazing opportunity to experience different cultures, come face-to-face with history, and acquire new perspective,” said Athletic Director Rory Fitzpatrick ’88. “The baseball team’s trip to Italy is a great chance to expose our students to history, and in the process expand their worldview.”
Beyond the chance to simply play baseball on a different continent, the baseball team will have the opportunity to visit many Catholic landmarks and explore European history. The trip presents a once-in a-lifetime opportunity for the Baseball Cats. The trip’s timing also allows the Wildcats to still travel to South Carolina in the spring and play all its regular season games as scheduled.”
“I have been blessed to coach at Saint Ignatius for the past 20 years and God’s blessings have brought us very talented players and teams over that time,” Ganor said. “We now have a chance to offer the blessing of memorable experiences to our students.”
*** Press Release Via Joe Ginley with St. Ignatius Academics ***
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