Don Landolphi, a baseball player and coach with more than 60 years’ experience, is now coaching a team of blind athletes and otherwise visually-impaired athletes. Photo courtesy of Andy Furman
Luck? Perhaps. Fate? Maybe.
More like divine intervention — at least for Don Landolphi.
“I was watching a baseball team practice back in ’06 or ’07 while I was in Italy, coaching the top Italian team,” the Hall of Fame former baseball coach at Brooklyn College told the Brooklyn Eagle last week.
“I realized,” he continued, “the gentleman instructing that team was a former player of mine — Valerio Raineri. He was coach of a visually-impaired team.”
And so, the seed was planted for Don Landolphi — a man who has been involved with baseball for close to 60 years as a player and coach, both nationally and internationally.
“Just watching those youngsters play and perform,” he said, “I learned so much from it. Blind people can do so many things. They can play baseball — of course with limitations — but they can play.”
The bug hit Landolphi while in Italy about 11 years ago, he says. “I was helping the Italian visually-impaired ballclub,” he remembers. “And before I knew it, one of the organizers, Lorenzo, asked me if we could start a program like this in America.”
Fast forward to Central Park, circa 2015. “Some people did come from Italy to help,” says Landolphi who grew up at Avenue U and West 7th Street, right above the Sea Beach subway line. “We had our first clinic,” he said, “and attracted some people.”
With the help of the Lions Club, Landolphi was able to fund the program, purchase equipment and become competitive.
How competitive?
The Blind Baseball Tournament was staged in the Netherlands two years ago. Italy won it. The Holland trip in the WBSC Blind International Cup was sponsored by Lions Inc., according to Landolphi. “It was the first time the World Baseball Conference sanctioned this tournament,” he…
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