Anthony Lucadello was a professional baseball scout for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.
20 Facts About Tony Lucadello
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Tony Lucadello was born in Thurber, Texas, to native Italian parents, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois, where his family moved so his father could work in the area's coal mines.
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Tony Lucadello travelled to Fostoria to try out for the team and ended up spending two years as a shortstop and player-manager in the league with the Redbirds and the Tiffin Mud Hens.
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Never a major league prospect as a player, Tony Lucadello eventually took a factory job with the Fostoria Screw Company, met his future wife and settled down.
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Tony Lucadello began running tryout camps, assembling teams and borrowing equipment to outfit them, and playing his finds against some of the best amateur talent in the Midwest.
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Tony Lucadello was offered his first full-time scouting position by Cubs owner Philip K Wrigley after bringing two pitchers in two years to the attention of Cubs manager Charlie Grimm who were signed immediately to the Major League roster.
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Tony Lucadello worked without a radar gun or stopwatch and believed in dubious but unimpeachable homespun theories, such as the idea not to sign any players who wore glasses.
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The four kinds of scouts, according to Tony Lucadello, start with the letter 'P':.
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Tony Lucadello estimated that five percent of scouts were poor, five percent pickers, 85 percent performance scouts and five percent projectors.
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Tony Lucadello tried to keep his interest in Schmidt from other scouts by hiding behind dugouts or bushes or watching from a nearby rooftop.
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Tony Lucadello scouted me from the time I played Little League Baseball all the way up through high school and college.
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In 1987, Tony Lucadello told The Chicago Tribune that players were no longer developing in the United States because athletes were no longer growing up learning the game on sandlots.
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Tony Lucadello claimed, along with many of the coaches and part-time scouts he worked with, that his success in signing players was due largely to the close relationship he built with prospects and their families while he scouted them, sometimes over a number of years.
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Tony Lucadello would write regular letters to his signees as they made their way in the pros, and scour box scores every morning looking for their names.
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Tony Lucadello came down every weekend to watch me play.
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In one case, Tony Lucadello was able to sign a player who had offers of at least $100,000 from seven other teams while all Tony Lucadello could offer from the Cubs was $4,000.
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Tony Lucadello was inducted into the All Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago in 1976.
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Tony Lucadello was named "Midwest Scout of the Year" by The Scout of the Year Foundation in 1986.
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Tony Lucadello was inducted into the Ohio Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.
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Tony Lucadello was found by the local high school baseball team, who found him lying on the ground shortly after he had shot himself.