(Story & Photo by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Veteran Coach John Noce honored with Lefty Gomez Award
Nederlands
 NASHVILLE, Tennessee (USA) -
Veteran American baseball-coach John Noce, who has been active for many years in Italy as a coach and scout, was honored with the ABCA/Wilson Lefty Gomez Award on Friday-evening (January 6).
The Award was handed out during the Hall of Fame Banquet at the 79th annual Convention of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), which is held through Sunday at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee (USA).
...John Noce as scout for Italy during...
...the 1990 World Championship...
...in Edmonton (Canada)...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
The 90-year old John Noce was honored for his longtime contributions to the game of baseball, both nationally and internationally.
Together with Noce, last years Lefty Gomez Award-winner Ron Maestri was also honored.
John Noce has been the longtime Head Coach of the baseball-team of the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, California for 31 seasons (1962-1992).
San Mateo is located 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco.
In those seasons, the Bulldogs won 772 games and captured 13 Conference-titles.
Through the years, 72 of Noce's players went on to play professionally, eight of whom reached the Major League.
John Noce also has been very active internationally as a coach.
In Italy, he led the baseball-teams of Novara and Parma in the early seventies.
Thereafter, Noce was named a member of the coaching-staff of the Italian National Team and stayed with the team for many years.
From 1977 through 1996, he was closely involved with the team, mostly as an Assistant Coach, but later also as scout.
John Noce was one of the coaches of the Italian Team during the Olympic Games in 1984 (Los Angeles, USA), 1992 (Barcelona, Spain) and 1996 (Atlanta, USA).
In many of those years, wellknown Silvano Ambrosioni was the Manager of the Italian Team.
Another wellknown longtime member of the coaching-staff was Giampiero Faraone.
He was the Manager in 1982, then was one of Ambrosioni's coaches when he led the Italian Team in 1985-2000.
Ambrosioni first led the team in 1977 and 1978.
Later, Faraone returned as Manager.
As coach of the Italian Team, Noce also was very known in the Netherlands.
And through the years, Noce also became a familiar face in another way, as he frequently attended international tournaments, such as the Haarlem Baseball Week and World Port Tournament, to scout the Netherlands Team in advance of European Championships.
Noce also gave instructions and conducted coaching clinics in Austria, Canada, Italy and Romania.
In 2011, he was still active as coach in Lithuania.
As son of Italian immigrants, John Noce grew up in the San Francisco-area.
He played professionally as catcher in 1952 and 1953, but shortly thereafter, he turned his attention to coaching.
His son Paul Noce played professionally in 1981-1991 in the organizations of San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs, Montreal Expos, Seattle Mariners, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants.
In seven seasons, he played at the Triple-A level.
In 1987, the infielder played in 70 Major League-games for Chicago, in 1990, he appeared in one game for Cincinnati.
Paul Noce then also turned to coaching.
In 1992 and 1993, he was a member of the coaching-staff of the Major League-team of Pittsburgh Pirates.
Three other sons of John Noce also became a baseball-coach.
In 1994, John Noce was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame.
Noce also is inducted into the College of San Mateo Athletic Hall of Fame (2011), the California Community College Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the San Mateo County Hall of Fame.
The Lefty Gomez Award was first handed out in 1962.
Amongst the winners through the years, there are several coaches who are also wellknown in the Netherlands.
Either as Manager of the Netherlands National Team, participant as coach at the Haarlem Baseball Week or instructor during the annual coach-clinic.
They include Dutch Fehring (1968), Lee Eilbracht (1972), Tom Petroff (1975), Danny Litwhiler (1976), Jack Stallings (1979), Rod Dedeaux (1980), Chuck 'Bobo' Brayton (1983), Robert Smith (1984), John Scolinos (1987), Ron Polk (1988), Ron Fraser (1989), Archie Allen (1993), Sam Suplizio (1994), Jerry Kindall (1999), Bill Arce (2001), Charlie Greene (2010), Duane Banks (2017) and Tom O'Connell (2020).
Allen, Arce, Fraser and Petroff all have been Manager of the Netherlands Baseball Team and participated with the Orange Team in the Haarlem Baseball Week.
Arce, Fraser and Petroff also coached for other teams during this international tournament in the Netherlands.
Other coaches that participated in the event in Haarlem are Banks, Brayton, Kindall and Polk.
The Award is named after legendary lefthanded pitcher Lefty Gomez, who played in fourteen Major League-seasons (1930-1943), thirteen of them with New York Yankees.
He closed his career in 1943 with Washington Senators.
Gomez, who passed away in 1989, won five World Series with New York, played in seven All-Star Games and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
(January 7)
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