Quotes by Matt Galante

“We quickly learned each player would have to qualify for an Italian passport, which meant some of them had to go back in their heritage as far as we could go.”

“This was an important game, not in the sense of winning, but it was important to get a game under our belt just to see how we fit. I was very encouraged.”

“Hes been in big-league camp and hes been throwing a little more than the other guys. He can probably give us more innings at this point than most of the guys. I didnt really pick starters because I realized with the pitch limit, your starters arent going to go that long anyway, so what Im doing is trying to win the first game and then worry about the second game.”

“Im holding that back because if I need him the second game, Im going to use him to try to win.”

“I asked him to do this and see if this is what he wanted to do later on, and hes just done a fantastic job.”

“We showed that we can play with the big boys. We gave it as good an effort as we possibly could.”

“You look at that lineup, its an all-star lineup at every position.”

“They told me ... well, Im not exactly sure how it was chosen.”

“You have to understand that was the first outing hes had all spring. Youre probably not going to have your best command in your first outing. I thought he kept us in the game and thats all we really wanted from him.”

“We proved to the people of Italy and to the Italian federation that we can play at this level. We can play with the big boys.”