Every year the baseball club I play for in Austria, the Attnang Athletics, holds a four day spring training near Grado, Italy. The past couple of years I decided to stay after spring training and do an Italian baseball tour.

For the first tour, imports Jimmy Jensen and Melvin Perdue accompanied me. Out first top was the beautiful San Marino, an enclaved microstate surrounded by Italy. Not a member of the European union, San Marino has a comparable standing of living index to Denmark, the top ranked country in Europe in 2017. When entering San Marino from Italy, we found that there was a noticeable improvement in wealth and infrastructure.

During our stay in San Marino, we visited the Guaita fortress, the oldest of the three towers constructed on Monte Titano overlooking San Marino. Originally a prison, the 11th century Fortress was registered as one of the World Heritage Sites in 2008.

San Marino baseball club GM Mauro Mazzotti was kind enough to invite us for a tour of the ballpark and participate in an off-day open batting practice.