(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by FIBS)
IN MEMORIAM
...Luciano Miani...
(1934 - 2020)...
(© Photo: FIBS) |
 Italian baseball-icon Luciano Miani passed away
Nederlands
 TRIESTE (Italy) -
Italian baseball-icon and pioneer Luciano Miani passed away on Sunday (March 29), three days after his 86th birthday after a long illness.
Luciano Miani, who was nicknamed 'Giaguaro' (Jaguar), has been active in baseball for more than sixty years as a player and coach.
Miani coached teams until he was almost eighty years old.
Due to his illness, for the first time, he missed the annual coach convention of the Italian Federation earlier this year.
Luciano Miani was born on March 26, 1934 in Monfalcone.
At an early age, Miani was active in soccer, basketball, rugby and boxing, but then became very successful in baseball, as a player and a coach.
While he always kept a great passion for rugby, he was most active in baseball, the sport he also loved.
As a player and coach, Miani was very driven and several times argued umpiring decisions, but while he was very direct, he always stayed correct in addressing the officials.
His approach of the games, the umpires and his attitude earned him the nickname Jaguar.
For many years, he was simply known by this name.
While being a coach for many years, he always attended coach conventions to learn more.
Through the years, Luciano Miani coached many clubs at several levels.
He was very successful and created a winning tradition.
Always, he left a positive and great impression, was closely involved with his teams and the club-leaders and simply wanted the best from and for his players.
At age 25, Luciano Miani started playing baseball in 1959 for Pellicana in Trieste, which played in Serie C.
He learned himsefl to play baseball and two years later, he led the team as pitcher to the championship in Serie C.
In 1965, he went on to play for Ronchi dei Legionari Black Panthers, with whom he won a championship title three years later, resulting in promotion to the top league.
Thereafter, he was the team's playing coach for four years.
In 1977, Miani became coach of Alpina Trieste, whom he led to a championship-titel in 1977 and 1978.
Two years later, he was active in Venezuela, a country he visited frequently to coach teams.
In that period, Miani was also shortly involved as a coach of the Italian National Junior Team.
However, he wanted to continue coach teams at the club-level.
As he was successful, he got offers to coach at top-teams Grosseto or Parma, which played in the highest division.
But Miani kept on coaching teams in lower division to learn baseball to younger players.
After returning to Italy in 1982, Luciano Miani coached at Scavolini Pesaro, Cupramontana, Ponte di Piave and Castelfranco Veneto.
He then returned to Ronchi dei Legionari.
In 1990, he won the title in Serie A2 with Verona and a year later, he was named Coach of the Year by the Italian Federation.
Early 2000, Miani was back at Ponte di Piave.
Thereafter, he coached at Buttrio and in 2004 at Trieste, which in that season promoted for the first time in twenty years.
In 2008 and 2009, he again was coaching at Ponte di Piave.
Approaching his 80th birthday, Miani then led Ducks di Staranzano in Serie B in 2011-2012.
Miani coached the baseball-team of Ponte di Piave in different periods and was successful each time.
Since the club was founded in 1969, the team promoted twice
In 1984, his first year as its head coach, the team promoted from Serie B to Serie A2.
Twenty-five years later, Miani was back as head coach.
The year before, the results weren't so good, but in 2009, with Miani as its head coach, the team promoted again, this time to Serie A.
In recent years, he still remained active as a coach.
At Trieste, he coached pitchers of youth teams.
On November 25, 2017, at the Salone d'Onore della Prefettura di Trieste, Luciano Miani received the Benemerenza Sportiva, the Sports Merit Award during the annual sports awards ceremony from the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano for executives, players and coaches in the Province of Trieste.
Luciano Miani, the Jaguar, the Giaguaro, was a colorful person on the baseball-fields, who will surely be missed.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to the family of Luciano Miani and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
(March 30)
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