Jim Saccomano — everyone calls him “Sacco” — completed his quest Saturday evening.
Before the Yankees-Brewers game at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Sacco threw out the ceremonial first pitch. With that, Sacco’s pilgrimage was complete at last.
At age 73, Saccomano, with his wife, JoAnn, at his side every inning of the way, has now watched his beloved New York Yankees play at every major league ballpark.
Saturday night, he wore a Brewers jersey with “Saccomano” on the back, along with the No. 22, which happens to be the number of Milwaukee left fielder Christian Yelich. More on that connection in a moment.
Saccomano, the longtime public relations vice president for the Broncos, is a giant of Colorado sports. He started working for the Broncos in 1979 and was a team constant before he retired in 2013, though he’s continued to work as the team’s historian.
OK, now onto the Yelich connection.
As it turns out, Yelich’s maternal great-grandfather is Pro Football Hall of Famer Fred Gehrke, who was the general manager of the Broncos from 1977 through 1981.
“Fred Gehrke hired me all those years ago, so I thought it would be a nice connection to Yelich,” Sacco said.
So why did he get to throw out the first pitch?
“About 20 years ago, Dan Larrea, the Brewers’ traveling secretary, was my intern with the Broncos,” Sacco explained. “He knew JoAnn and I were coming to Milwaukee for this and he set us up at a hotel and set us up for tickets. It was all very nice.”
On Wednesday night, Larrea called up Sacco.
“How’s your arm?” Larrea asked.
“My arm’s fine, why?” Sacco replied.
“How about you throw out the first pitch?” Larrea asked.
“Why me?” Sacco asked.
“Why not you?” Larrea responded.
In his illustrious career, Saccomano worked 27 Super Bowls — six with the Broncos and 21 with the NFL’s public relations team. This year, he was one of the inaugural recipients of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Award of Excellence. He’s enshrined on a plaque in Canton, Ohio.
During his career, Sacco was a friend and confidant with owners Gerald and Allen Phipps, Edgar Kaiser and Pat Bowlen. He worked with coaches Red Miller, Dan Reeves, Wade Phillips, Mike Shanahan, Josh McDaniels and John Fox. He was the media conduit for John Elway.
But baseball was always Sacco’s first love. In fact, Saccomano thought at first he would build a career in baseball. His first adult job was with general manager Jim Burris and the Triple-A Denver Bears in 1977.
The Yankees have been Sacco’s passion ever since he was a kid growing up in Welby, a small farming community north of Denver. Sacco still lives on the site where his grandfather, Francisco Saccomano, first farmed.
“I live on the last acre that my grandfather bought when he came over from Italy,” Sacco said.
Which helps explain his love affair with the Yankees.
“Growing up north of Denver there were these 5-10-15 acre farms raising table vegetables,” he said. “There were a lot of Italian-Americans. And every single person, every uncle, every family friend, every friend of my dad’s, was a Yankees fan. So I became an enormous Yankees fan. And I’ve read that as people from Italy tried to assimilate in America, it wasn’t about cycling or soccer anymore, it was baseball. And the biggest city was New York and the biggest team was the Yankees.”
Sacco’s father, Ralph (Americanized from Rafael), didn’t follow the box score closely, but he knew he was rooting for Yankees players such as Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Tony Lazzeri and Phil Rizzuto.
Through the years, when he wasn’t working for the Broncos, Sacco followed the Yankees — literally. He and JoAnn would go to Florida to see them play in the Grapefruit League during spring training. Sacco would venture down to the desert to see Yankees prospects in the Arizona Fall League.
On Saturday, July 9, 2011, Sacco and JoAnn were seated in Yankee Stadium when Tampa Bay’s David Price hung a 3-2 curveball that Derek Jeter lifted into the left-field seats for a home run, becoming the 28th player in MLB history to record 3,000 hits.
“Yep, we were there,” Sacco said. “Jeter went 5-for-5 that day. Remarkable. Memorable.”
As for his Saturday night in Milwaukee, Sacco admitted that he was nervous in the day leading up to his pitch.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Are you going to throw a fastball or a slider?’ ” he said. “I said, ‘I’m going to throw an eephus pitch and just make sure I get it in the air.’ I want to make sure I don’t spike the ball.”
No worries. He didn’t.
“It went great,” Sacco said on the phone a short time after he delivered his pitch. “I got it to the plate, but near the first-base side. It was a pretty darn remarkable experience.”
