Gilberto Gerali

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Gilberto "Gibo" Gerali inherited the passion for baseball from his father Sante. Other members of the family are also baseball players, such as his brother Michele and son Guido.

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He grew up in various Emilian teams, including Astra, Parma BC, Crocetta, Reggio Emilia, Collecchio.

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Throughout his playing career he has mostly been deployed in the role of pitcher, but sometimes also as first baseman. Between 1985 and 1988 he made 44 appearances in the top flight, of which 33 played as a pitcher.

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In 1989 he began his first experience as a manager, winning two promotions in three years that brought Collecchio from Serie B to A1.

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In 1993 he joined the staff of the  Parma Baseball  with the role of general manager. In 1996 he took over the technical leadership of the team, reaching the championship finals of that year lost in game 6 against Nettuno.

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He then began a long period as manager of Reggio Emilia, which lasted from 1998 to 2006. During this period he led the team to two promotions in Serie A1, respectively in 2002 [5]  and in 2004, interspersed with a relegation. In 2005 he was saved on the pitch, but the club gave up on A1, restarting from A2 following an exchange of rights.

In the meantime Gerali had also started the activity of scouting for Europe for the  Colorado Rockies , held from 2005 to 2009.

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Gerali returned to the reins of Parma Baseball in 2007. Three years later he won the Italian Baseball League 2010  at the end of a hard-fought final series against  Bologna , in what was the tenth league title of the yellow and blue team. The victory in the championship allowed Parma to participate in the  European Cup  the following year, which ended with a defeat in the final against  San Marino . Meanwhile, Gerali had also held the role of bench coach for the Italian national team from  2007 World Cup  until the European 2010  won by the Azzurri.

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After the 2012 season, Gerali left the leadership of Parma. He returned to being manager of the Emilian club starting from the 2015 championship. During these two years, he was still part of the staff of the senior national team of the CT  Marco Mazzieri . Also in 2015 he led the European selection at the Asian Winter Series.

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On 26 April 2017 he was officially appointed as the new manager of the Italian national team, replacing the resigning one  Marco Mazzieri . After winning the silver medal at the 2019 European Championship , in September 2019 he resigned following the failure to reach the qualification for the  Tokyo 2020 Olympics  through the Pre-Olympic tournament in Bologna and Parma.