Bringin' Bocce Back
Saratoga's resident bocce pro is on a quest to keep the sport of his ancestors alive. PLUS: Kids in da club, Saratoga movie news and more.
When you ask Saratogian Michael Scialdone Sharkey what he does for work, he’ll barely mention his full-time job (he owns his own restoration company) before launching into a soliloquy about his two passion projects, both of which relate to bocce. Yes, bocce—the game you used to play in your grandparents’ backyard.
“Everybody that I talk to about bocce, they know what it is, but they know it as a lawn game,” Michael says. “They don’t realize it’s an actual sport with courts and a tournament circuit and national championships and world championships.”
For those who need a bocce refresher course, the point of the game, which came to America from Italy, is to get your balls closest to the one tiny ball—the pallino. The backyard game isn’t all that different from the sport played on actual courts, but in the latter, more strategy tends to be involved.
Michael plays bocce locally in leagues at the Italian Community Center (ICC) in Troy (he invited me to witness the last night of the indoor winter league this past Wednesday) and the West Albany Italian Benevolent Society. But he’s also a member of an elite group of bocce players from this region that travels throughout New York State, Ohio, Michigan and even as far as Las Vegas to play in tournaments. “I’d put up the top dozen teams from this area against the top dozen teams from anywhere,” Michael’s dad, Lew Scialdone, told me between turns at the Wednesday night league. “We always play for prize money, so we tend to be pretty good. As a proud father, Michael and his brother are two of the best young players in the country. Michael especially.”
While there are young players at the tournaments Michael travels to, many bocce players are aging out. “A lot of the guys are passing,” Steve Fillipone, another member of the Wednesday league, told me. “I’m 65 and I’m considered a young guy.” Indeed, Michael and his friend Anthony, whom he introduced to bocce, are the youngest members of the Wednesday night league by a good quarter century; one Italian immigrant, Tony Maiello, is 88 and still the most competitive guy in the league. “The generation before my father—they were pretty exclusive,” Michael explains. “They made the kids go play by themselves and didn’t include them. And then as families stayed here longer, they became more Americanized and the kids started playing American sports.” The biggest change Lew says he’s seen in the bocce world over the years is a decrease in the amount of Italian spoken during games as many first-generation immigrants stop playing or pass away.
Another problem the sport is having is the fact that when Italian immigrants originally settled in America, they formed their own bocce clubs, each with their own unique court, style of gameplay and rules. Members of different clubs got to know one another, and tournaments started popping up, but there has never been a unified bocce governing body in the US that all clubs recognize.
That’s where Michael’s passion projects come in.
First up is the Bocce Broadcast Network (BBN), a centralized network of bocce broadcasts from around the country available on YouTube. “The goal is to grow an audience and expose people to bocce,” says Michael, who travels to tournaments to live stream games and provide commentary. “The idea is to make that high-level, competitive tournament circuit accessible to people, because right now, if you wanted to go watch one of these tournaments, you basically have to know somebody who’s playing in it.” Michael ran his first BBN broadcast on Black Friday 2022, and his live streams are already getting hundreds or thousands of views from bocce fans all around the world. He’ll be broadcasting from the National Championships in Chicago in June and the World Series of Bocce in Rome, NY in July.
The other venture, Michael says, is much more complex. “Me and this guy Alex Gara from Chicago are creating what the PGA is to golf for bocce,” he says of what he’s dubbed the Unified Bocce Association. “The goal is to unify the sport, unify players and clubs and tournaments across the country.” The ultimate goal, though he admits it’s pretty far out, is to create a champions league. “I’d have a standard for these regional leagues where if you do well enough, you could qualify for a champions league, which would have a sponsor, and those teams would get paid to travel and play each other.”
In the meantime, Michael will continue promoting American bocce through the BBN, as well as on the home front; he recently volunteered to paint the walls of the bocce courts at the ICC, which is on a quest to get more members. (A yearly membership is only $70.) And for now, he’ll continue playing bocce with members of the generation that brought the sport to America.
When an argument broke out between 88-year-old Tony and his opponent at the end of a game on Wednesday, the old timers quickly slipped into Italian to better express their frustrations. “This is the fun part,” someone said to me. “The good news is they’re not swearing. Yet.”
—Natalie
Quote of the Week
“You know what goes perfect with a slice of cake? A cigarette.”
—Overheard at the ICC’s Wednesday night bocce league
Save the Date
SPAC has always been known for performing arts, but in recent years the organization has ventured into the world of food programming with its CulinaryArts@SPAC series. Next up in the popular series is Eric Asimov: Wines of the Finger Lakes, a tasting event hosted by the New York Times’ chief wine critic. The event, going on April 20 from 6-8:30pm, will include a wine reception with hors d’oeuvres by Lily and the Rose, a guided tasting of six wines from the Finger Lakes Region, and a Q&A session with Asimov. Tickets are $125 and are on sale now.
Club Kids
On the way to UConn’s big win Monday night, Putnam Place and Saratoga Living celebrated March Madness last Saturday with an all-ages event that included the showing of the Final Four double-header on the biggest screen in the area (for the adults) and shooting hoops and running around the club (for the kids). VIP booths were decked out as board game areas, kids scooped up every last basketball-shaped chocolate made by Uncle Sam’s, Anthony Jones of the Nitro youth basketball camp helped the kids shoot hoops, and West Avenue pizzas kept the young athletes fueled—all while the moms and dads drank half-off beers and relaxed. “Saturday was a breath of fresh air,” said Sam Guerra, mom to two (!) sets of twins, ages 11 and 8. “To be able to enjoy fun moments with your friends and kids is priceless.” Added Seana Mosher, whose son Brody played with bubbles while his little brother, Gavin, shot hoops with (much) bigger kids: “Food, drink and activities that kept both of my kids busy while I got to mingle with adults? Monday Night Football needs to be a thing here!” Amen.
Above Average Screen Time
The moment is finally here, Saratoga. Two years after Owen Wilson descended on the Spa City to film for the indie film Paint—developing a devoted following a local fans who kept tabs on his every move—the movie has reached the big screen. As of Thursday evening, Paint has been playing at the downtown AMC. “I don’t want to spoil it other than I liked it,” Saratoga Report’s Dan De Federicis told Saratoga Living after seeing it Friday. “And it has one of the best soundtracks I ever heard in a movie.” Missed our spring issue cover story on Owen and his experience in Saratoga? Read it here.
Monkey See
Paint’s release isn’t the only movie news to come out of Saratoga this week. Local filmmaker Spencer Sherry has begun selling tickets for The Monkey, the first-ever adaptation of Stephen King’s short story of the same name. The 60-minute movie will premiere at Saratoga Arts on May 6; the 3pm time is already sold out, so don’t wait to get your tickets for the 4:45pm screening. How did a Saratogian land the exclusive rights to turn one of Stephen King’s works into a film? We’ve got a story about that, too.
This Week in Saratoga Living After Hours
On Monday, we published a pre-Easter mini crossword.
And on Tuesday, we recapped AIM Services’ first event of the year—Carnival—and shared party pics by Zach Skowronek.