(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos courtesy of Lazio Roma Baseball)
IN MEMORIAM 
...Giulio Glorioso...
(1931 - 2015)
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 Italian baseball-icon Giulio Glorioso passed away
Nederlands
 ROME (Italy) -
The European and especially Italian baseball-world mourns the loss of a legendary player, as former pitcher Giulio Glorioso passed away on Friday-evening, June 19.
Glorioso, an icon in Italian baseball, was 84 years old.
To honor Glorioso, a minute of silence was observed before each game on Saturday and Sunday in the Italian leagues.
The memorial service and funeral will take place on Monday, June 22.
Giulio Glorioso was the first Italian baseball-star and made the sport popular in the country.
He set several records, one of which was broken after 50 years, other which will probably never be broken.
Besides being an outstanding and dominating pitcher, Glorioso also was a great hitter.
Giulio Glorioso was born on April 4, 1931 in Udine, but lived most of his life in Rome.
It was near Rome where he first started to play after having seen American military teams play an exhibition game, just after the ending of World War II.
Glorioso was 16 years old and he first started to play softball, later baseball.
When he played baseball, he initially was an outfielder, just as he was in softball.
In 1949, he was asked to pitch and from then on, he not only developed into a great pitcher, but also a dominating pitcher in European competition.
In his long career, Glorioso played for Roma, Milano, Nettuno, Parma and Lazio.
He ended his career after the 1974 season, when he played for Roma.
That came after a period of seven years when he was the star of Lazio, also from Rome, the club where he remained associated with ever since.
After retiring as a player, Glorioso became a board member of Lazio.
There, he also was involved in coaching and instructing youth players.
But the very likable and always smiling Glorioso also was involved in the development in baseball in Germany, France and Italy in general.
...Giulio Glorioso pitching for Lazio...
(© Photo: Lazio Baseball) |
On August 31, 1952, the national baseball-team of Italy played its first-ever international game.
In Rome, the squad played against Spain and Glorioso was the starting pitcher.
Amongst the spectators was famous American actor Gregory Peck, who was in Rome for the filming of the movie 'Roman Holiday'.
In an interview, Glorioso said about that game: ,,That is a moment and an event, I still remember with joy and pride. It was the first game of Italy.
And even though I was the losing pitcher, the game was a great success.''
In the 1952 season, Glorioso became the first-ever Most Valuable Player of the highest Italian league.
He was invited for a scholarship in Florida and during Spring Training of 1953, Glorioso als attended Major League Spring Training of the Cleveland Indians, with whom he played in an exhibition game.
Probably his best seasons came in the early sixties.
In 1961, playing for Milano, Glorioso was 18-0 and struckout 218 batters in 156 innings.
He set a record with an 0.46 ERA.
The next year, when he also played for Milano, Glorioso remained unbeaten again and was 16-0 with a 1.27 ERA.
In the next two seasons, Glorioso played for Nettuno and his ERA again was very low, 0.68 in 1963 and 0.81 in 1964.
Glorioso's ERA-record of 0.46 was broken fifty years later, in 2011, by Venezuelan pitcher Darwin Cubillán, who lowered the record 0.41.
However, there is a big difference between Glorioso's old record and the new one.
Glorioso did it as a starting pitcher.
In the year he set the record, Glorioso pitched in 18 games (16 complete) and threw 156 innings.
Cubillán set the new record as a reliever, pitching in 12 games for San Marino, throwing only 44 innings.
Glorioso led the league in StrikeOuts ten times, including three seasons in a row (1953-1955).
He also had the most Victories ten times and was the Best Hitter twice.
In 1955, he earned his first Pitching Triple Crown (most strikeouts, most wins, best ERA).
In the following years, Glorioso earned a Pitching Triple Crown three more times to bring his total to a record four.
Besides having four Pitching Triple Crowns, he also won a Batting Triple Crown (best hitter, most RBI's, most homeruns) in 1960, which he won not as a position player, but hitting as a pitcher, which makes it even more remarkable.
While not all statistics are recorded official since the start of Glorioso's career, it is noted that the righthander pitcher struckout 2884 batters in a career that spanned three decades.
He must have won some 280 games.
In his career, Glorioso won the Italian championship title with his club seven times.
In 1951, he threw the first-ever No-Hitter in the Italian highest league.
...Giulio Glorioso in action for Lazio...
(© Photo: Lazio Baseball) |
After making his debut in the national team of Italy in 1952, Giulio Glorioso continued to play for the national squad through 1973.
He won the European Championship-title with Italy in 1954.
In the following years, he won seven silver medals during European Championships.
In those years, he played many games against the then-dominant team of the Netherlands.
In those games, there mostly was a pitching match-up between Glorioso and his Dutch archrival Han Urbanus, which always resulted in very interesting and attractive match-ups.
In 1960, Glorioso pitched a No-Hitter against the Dutch Team, but nevertheless was the losing pitcher, as the Orange squad won 1-0.
Thirteen years later, when he was 40 years old, Glorioso pitched another No-Hitter for the Italian squad, this time an 11-inning contest against then West-Germany during the European Championship, which was played in Parma and Bologna in front of a home crowd in Italy.
In 1970, he was a member of the first Italian squad that participated in a World Championship, which then was held in Colombia.
In total, Glorioso played in 68 official games for the Italian national team.
His uniform number 34 was officially retired.
On June 30, 2001, Glorioso threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the 100th international game between the national teams of Italy and Netherlands in Rotterdam.
During that moment, he was joined by his rival and good friend Han Urbanus.
In 2005, Giulio Glorioso was a member of the first class to be elected into the Italian Baseball Hall of Fame.
On a personal note, I have been lucky to see Glorioso pitch when he participated with Italy in the Haarlem Baseball Week in 1972 and have had the honor of meeting Giulio Glorioso in person some years ago, which was a very pleasant get-together.
Giulio Glorioso was a great personality, well-respected and a great icon for European baseball, who will surely be missed.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to Giulio's family and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
(June 20)
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