How baseball coach Don Landolphi came to help visually-impaired athletes

September 23, 2024 Andy Furman

Don Landolphi, a baseball player and coach with more than 60 years’ experience, is now coaching a team of blind athletes and otherwise visually-impaired athletes. Photo courtesy of Andy Furman

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Luck? Perhaps. Fate? Maybe.

More like divine intervention — at least for Don Landolphi.

“I was watching a baseball team practice back in ’06 or ’07 while I was in Italy, coaching the top Italian team,” the Hall of Fame former baseball coach at Brooklyn College told the Brooklyn Eagle last week.

“I realized,” he continued, “the gentleman instructing that team was a former player of mine — Valerio Raineri. He was coach of a visually-impaired team.”

And so, the seed was planted for Don Landolphi — a man who has been involved with baseball for close to 60 years as a player and coach, both nationally and internationally.

“Just watching those youngsters play and perform,” he said, “I learned so much from it. Blind people can do so many things. They can play baseball — of course with limitations — but they can play.”

The bug hit Landolphi while in Italy about 11 years ago, he says. “I was helping the Italian visually-impaired ballclub,” he remembers. “And before I knew it, one of the organizers, Lorenzo, asked me if we could start a program like this in America.”

Fast forward to Central Park, circa 2015. “Some people did come from Italy to help,” says Landolphi who grew up at Avenue U and West 7th Street, right above the Sea Beach subway line. “We had our first clinic,” he said, “and attracted some people.”

With the help of the Lions Club, Landolphi was able to fund the program, purchase equipment and become competitive.

How competitive?

The Blind Baseball Tournament was staged in the Netherlands two years ago. Italy won it. The Holland trip in the WBSC Blind International Cup was sponsored by Lions Inc., according to Landolphi. “It was the first time the World Baseball Conference sanctioned this tournament,” he said.

Coach Landolphi’s unit placed third with a bronze medal.

Now the 83-year-old coach is taking his co-ed crew to England for the Second International Tournament.

“We may not be as strong as we were two years ago,” says Landolphi speaking like a true coach. “One of our players can’t go, he does not have his citizenship, and another never applied for it.”

Landolphi’s squad plays on Friday against a team from Hungary in the first-round. Pakistan and Great Britain are also in the same bracket. Cuba, Holland, Italy, Japan, and China are in the opposite bracket, according to the coach.

The top two teams meet in the semifinals, the coach says. And as far as ages are concerned, “You must be at least 15,” he said. “Each team has a roster of eight with two alternates.”

Each game is five to seven innings long, or an hour and a half, explained Landolphi who played his high school baseball at St. Michaels, located at Fourth Avenue and 43rd Street. The school was replaced in 1957 by Xaverian High School.

“Teams are made up of five blind players, one sighted player and one sighted defensive assistant,” the coach said. “The ball,” he said, “has chimes.”

The sighted defensive player and sighted assistant also serve as base coaches at second and third base when the team comes to bat. “The batter puts the ball in play by tossing it up in the air,” Landolphi said, “and hitting it.”

In order for the batted ball to be ruled fair, or in play, it must go beyond the string that starts at the left corner of the defensive second baseman and extends to the third base foul line, behind the base.

Challenging? Perhaps.

More like fate, just like when Landolphi was introduced to the game of baseball.

“It was almost an accident, my getting involved with baseball,” he said. “While attending St. Michael’s Diocesan High School, a friend asked me if I’d be trying out for the team. I said, ‘What team?”

He made that St. Michael’s team as a freshman and never looked back. He played for three years and captained as a senior.

As for his coaching, Landolphi was quick to say, “I’ve learned a lot from it, even at practice. I will tell each of my players their strengths and shortcomings, and they always respond.”

Just think, Don Landolphi’s introduction to coaching the visually impaired started in Italy with a cup of espresso at a meeting.

“That espresso is the only pay I’ve received since starting in 2015,” he said.

For the visually impaired it was a blessing. Perhaps it was fate.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR