BOULDER — Brad Lidge traveled to Italy in March to explore a remote, wooded section of southeastern Tuscany.
“We were surveying this area, looking for Medieval sites, when we came across an undocumented Etruscan tomb,” Lidge said last week, sitting on the patio of his 5 1/2-acre spread near Boulder. “It was amazing. It was like being in Egypt at the beginning of the 20th century. There are so many artifacts in that region. There is stuff buried everywhere, stuff that no one has ever found.”
The excursion, led by Dr. Luca Mario Nejrotti, the Archaeological Institute of America project director, was a field trip out of Lidge’s boyhood dreams.
“It was the most Indiana Jones-like week I’ve ever spent in the field,” Lidge said with a chuckle. “We were climbing up and down the sides of mountains and going into caves. It was really fun. It was awesome.”
The World Series champion, two-time All-Star closer and owner of 18 postseason saves was not playing tourist. Lidge, 47, is a budding professional archeologist. The Cherry Creek High School graduate has already earned a master’s degree from the University of Leicester in England and now plans to earn a doctorate.
As far as Lidge knows, he’s the only major league player or athlete of a major professional sport who’s ever pursued a second career as an archeologist.
“My former teammates, guys like Jayson Werth, think it’s pretty cool,” Lidge said. “Their response is pretty interesting. A, they want to know why the heck I would do it. Then, B, they want to know all about it.”
In June, Lidge, his family in tow, will return to Italy for a monthlong exploration of Poggio Civitate (Italian for “Hill of the Civilization”), a prized Etruscan archeological site in central inland Tuscany, about 16 miles south of Siena.
Lidge has a deep interest in the Etruscans, who flourished in central Italy between the 8th and 3rd centuries BCE. The Etruscan Civilization greatly influenced the Roman Empire and was renowned for its rich mineral resources. However, much of the culture was wiped out or assimilated when Rome conquered the Mediterranean.
Dr. Anthony Tuck, chair of the classics department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, will direct Lidge’s fieldwork.
“I grew up in Philadelphia, so I was pretty psyched to meet someone who was part of the Phillies’ 2008 World Series championship,” Tuck said in a phone interview. “Brad first came to Poggio Civitate in 2022 and already had a pretty deep foundation of experience. He instantly fit right in with our team.
“It’s not surprising to me. He’s somebody who grew up in an environment with the mechanics of a team-based environment. It fits perfectly with what we do with an archeology field project.”
Tuck is impressed by Lidge’s passion.
“What comes to mind immediately about Brad is that he is fundamentally curious,” Tuck said. “He wants to dive into the information and discover what the artifacts and materials can communicate.”
At Poggio Civitate, Tuck and Lidge will investigate the mystery of “Sigla,” which Tuck describes as the Latin word for graffiti. The symbols have been incised or drawn on ceramics, roofing tiles, and, in rare cases, weaving implements.
“The Etruscans carved the symbols into pottery, brick and tile, but nobody really knows what they mean,” Lidge said. “No one has been able to crack that code.”
For baseball fans, the enduring image of Lidge is that of him falling to his knees, looking to the heavens, and embracing catcher Carlos Ruiz to close out Game 5 as Philly beat Tampa Bay to win the 2008 World Series. Including the playoffs, Lidge was a perfect 48 for 48 in save chances during that magical season.
He retired from baseball in December 2012, and he and his wife, Lindsay, their daughter, Avery, and son, Rowan, moved back to Colorado. Lidge spent over a decade co-hosting a talk show on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM, the past two with C.J. Nitkowski and former Rockies player and current Rockies TV analyst Ryan Spilborghs.
Lidge departed his radio gig this spring to pursue archaeology full-time. Spilborghs is thrilled for his friend.
“I think continuing education and learning, regardless of your age, is such an important part of growth,” Spilborghs said. “For a lot of baseball players, we tend to find our self-worth in our baseball career. But when your baseball career stops, that doesn’t mean you stop growing.
“That’s what Brad is showing other baseball players, and anybody, really. What’s so cool is that he found a passion after his expiration date as an athlete was over.”
Lidge understands if some baseball fans find it unusual, perhaps even odd, that someone who spent 11 seasons mowing down hitters with a high-90s fastball and buzzsaw slider would spend his time digging for coins, nails and shreds of buildings out of a buried village from the 8th century BCE.
As Lidge noted, he doesn’t get to play Indiana Jones very often. After all, his 2017 master’s thesis is entitled “Nails: An Underutilized Tool in Ancient Roman Archaeology.”
“The majority of time is not spent in the field,” Lidge explained. “It’s spent cataloging finds, writing and publishing. But I love all of it.”
And while Lidge doesn’t equate digging through the past to the rush he felt striking out Eric Hinske to close out the ’08 World Series, there are goosebumps moments.
“When you’re searching with a trowel or whatever, there’s a chance you might find a piece of pottery that is completely intact,” Lidge said. “It might be something that redefines a timetable or the chronology of history. People might think I geek out about it, but I think it’s cool.”
Lidge first fell in love with history when he was a boy, and he remembers when his parents, Ralph and Deborah Lidge, took him to Mesa Verde National Park. He started thinking about archeology at Cherry Creek when he took a world history class from his favorite teacher, Eric Coble.
“He was one of those teachers who made history come alive,” Lidge said.
In 2011, as part of the Phillies’ Teacher Appreciation Night, Lidge brought Coble to Philadelphia to throw out the first pitch at a Phillies game.
Lidge attended Notre Dame and majored in religious studies but didn’t graduate with his class because the Houston Astros selected him in the first round (17th overall) of the 1998 draft. In 2012, Lidge finished his studies and earned his degree from Notre Dame.
Lidge made his big-league debut with the Astros in 2002. After the season, he and Lindsay traveled to Italy, visiting Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan.
“I felt like every 10 feet, my head was on a swivel,” he said. “I was like, ‘Look at that! Whoa, look at that!’”
The seeds of his second career were planted.
As a big-league pitcher, Lidge discovered he had a lot of free time during road trips. He didn’t want to waste it.
“I would read about Roman history and watch DVDs all the time,” he said. “My interest kept growing.”
Most of Lidge’s master’s coursework was completed online, but the degree also required fieldwork at sites around Europe. In 2013, he participated in his first excavation, at Carsulae, in central Italy.
“I was only a couple of hours into my first day,” he recalled. “We were near this ancient Roman bath complex and I was using my trowel. I flipped some stones over and was scraping away a little bit of dirt and bang! Up pops a Roman coin. It turned out to be a fourth-century bronze coin.
“I was like, ‘Wow!’ I wasn’t expecting to have so much visceral excitement finding a coin. But it was such a jolt.”
Lidge cherishes his baseball career and is thankful for the financial stability it provides his family. And for the chance for a second act.
“How lucky am I?” he said. “This summer, I get to take my family to Siena, and they mingle with the wonderful Italian people. And I get to dig in the dirt.”
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