Baseball-The Museo Italo Americano Way

When I was down at Fort Mason, I saw a place called Museo Italo Americano and saw that they had an exhibit called At Bay-The history of Italian Americans in baseball. Being the baseball nut that I am, it was free and I decided to check it out. Man, it was cool. They did such a great job presenting on how Italians have shaped and become part of fabric of the game. It is one of those things where I need to come back and see it again just to get the scope of it, since they did such a great job:

A Louisville Slugger Bat 1916-1929

Ping Bodie's glove 1912-1919

Ken Aspromonte's San Francisco Seals jersey

Oakland Oaks Bill Raimodi's catcher's mask

The Bay Area has produced many Italian big league heroes, but one family stands above all others and that is the DiMaggio's:

Dom DiMaggio 1950 Glove

Joe DiMaggio autograph ball and card

A Life Magazine Cover from 1939

And they do a great job of weaving the current day into the exhibit:

Billy Martin's 1981 Oakland A's jersey-I used to sit in bleachers a lot that year and watch them

Tony LaRussa's 2011 World Series jersey

So if you want to learn a little more about baseball-The Italian Way, catch the exhibit at the Museo Italo Americano at Fort Mason, it is well worth it.