Four Italian American MLB stars whose families left the Cuggiono area for a better life abroad and settled in St. Louis were honored with a mural depicting the “Quattro cavalieri di The Hill”. The relationship between Cuggiono, with its people, its memory and its institutions, and the Italian Baseball Softball Federation has an important history.
Many left this town in the province of Milan in search of a better future from the second half of the 19th century. Almost as a group they created a neighborhood in St. Louis and from this cluster, which still lives, against all odds, four athletes were born and achieved excellence in Major League Baseball and became pillars of an Italian-American community which grew rapidly throughout the USA.
The mural concept was conceived at Milan Expo 2015 when lovers of Italian baseball, the Municipality and the Ecoistituto della Valle del Ticino, shared the vision of Claudia Pallanca at the Roberto Buganè-curated “Italian Baseball Softball Federation Baseball Hall of Fame Museum” Exhibition at Villa Annoni.
Matteo Gandini was in Cuggiono when the community unveiled the mural on Sunday, June 16, 2024.
Introduction by Marco Landi and Roberto Angotti
A mural was inaugurated in Cuggiono (MI) depicting four former Major League players, including the legendary Yogi Berra, whose parents emigrated to the United States starting from the municipalities of the so-called 'Cuggiono district', a sort of sub-province that included some municipalities in the area, from Lonate Pozzolo, to Villa Cortese, to Bernate.
Thousands of people left these territories to seek their fortune overseas between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Among these were the parents of Yogi Berra, Joe Garagiola, Jim Pisoni and Frank Crespi, 37 seasons of experience in MLB between four and in common the hometown, St. Louis, more precisely the so-called 'The Hill', the neighborhood where the Italian community had been established. The Italian Immigrants statue, one of the symbols of The Hill, is depicted in the first part of the mural.
“The integration of Italian-Americans in cities like St. Louis was more complicated than that of those who, for example, had moved to New York, a metropolis more accustomed to welcoming people from overseas," explained Ernesto R. Milani, scholar of immigration from Lombardy to the USA, one of the promoters of the initiative. He continued, "Sport, in particular baseball, has greatly helped these people to feel an integral part of American society. But they have maintained an important connection with their land of origin, which we want to celebrate with this mural. We are sure that it will become a much visited and photographed corner of the city."
The inauguration of the mural, located in a public park on the corner between via Manzoni and via San Rocco, was attended by Cuggiono Mayor Giovanni Cucchetti and, connected from the USA, the descendants of the players depicted, including Lindsay Berra, the granddaughter of Yogi, very involved in the activities in memory of the famous former player and manager of the New York Yankees, who promised that she will soon be in Cuggiono to see the mural in person.
The Hill: a Cuggiono in St. Louis
by Matteo Gandini
