In 2012, Riccardo Fraccari President of the Italian Baseball and Softball Federation (now also President of the World Baseball Softball Confederation - WBSC), launched the idea of re-establishing Softball tournaments which could capture the interest of all softball fans, while being fixed events in the national competition calendar.

Rheavendors Caronno Softball Club promptly accepted the challenge and proposed to introduce a softball tournament named Torneo della Repubblica (Tournament of the Republic), to be played in the days preceding the Italian Republic National Celebration, the 2nd of June.

This event is a dual logo competition, being linked to the club tournament, which is among the oldest softball tournament worldwide, being continuously played since 1978.

The Torneo della Repubblica opened in 2013, with the participation of two Italian National teams, Germany, and the hosting team, renamed Caronno & Friends, with players coming from other teams of the Italian Softball League (the Italian first softball division).

The French National Teams participated to the edition of 2014, underlining the international character of the event.

In 2015 the third edition of the tournament, and the 37th edition of Torneo Città di Caronno, are gaining even more importance with five national teams, plus Caronno & Friends and Bollate team. In fact the clubs of Caronno and Bollate established a partnership since a long time toward organizing international softball events, among which the Coppa delle Prealpi, a pre-season tournament since 1995.

The 2015 edition of the Torneo della Repubblica is going to be one of the leading European softball events of the entire season, because of the importance of the participating teams, in view of the preparation of the Softball European Championship.

Czech Republic will participate with two teams: the National team and a team named Czech All Stars. Italy, Germany and France will be present with their National teams.

Since 2014 the Torneo della Repubblica is dedicated to Aldo Majer, founder of Rheavendors, historic sponsor of the Caronno Pertusella softball team; the first prize being Coppa Aldo Majer.

On Monday June 1st, the tournament will host the first Italian Softball All Star Game, together with the Home Run Derby. Players for the All Star Team were chosen through a vote on the Italian Federation website, this team will play against the Italian National Team.

Manager of the All Star is Maria Grazia Barberis, named coach of the year in 2014, having won the Italian National Championship and the European Cup Women with La Loggia team. Barberis will be assisted by coach Argenis Blanco, manager of Rheavendors Caronno.

The entire All Star Game will be available on the internet: for details see the Rheavendors Caronno website www.abcaronno.it.

On May 31st and June 1st a parallel tournament will take place, named Torneo Città di Bollate, with the Italian Under 16 National Team, two Under 19 teams and the Division 2 team of Rescaldina. This competition is aimed as preparation for the European Championship Cadette Girls.

For schedule, results and standings of the tournament, see:

http://www.scorekeepers.org/tornei/2015/repubblica/schedule.php

-office Caronno-