Dante Nori’s high school coach for his senior year at Northville, Dan Cimini, likens the outfielder’s play to former MLB star Lenny Dykstra.
A fierce, relentless, highly competitive player packed into a diminutive frame, the comparison for Nori is apt in that regard, though Cimini was also quick to point out the comparison ends there, as Dykstra was one of MLB’s infamously bad characters during his time.
“That’s how Dante played the game,” Cimini said. “He was a center fielder, short, stocky, strong, could hit for power, great speed, lefty-lefty. Everything about Lenny on the field is Dante, and then a lot of the scouts were like, ‘Holy cow, you’re right.’”
Nori, the son and grandson of coaches in both baseball and basketball, and from a lineage of successful baseball players and athletes, generally, has long been this way, according to those who know him. And from budding as a talented, competitive kid to his ascent as a high school player and now a promising prospect for the Philadelphia Phillies organization, Nori always has gone about his business with a seriousness that has guided him to this point, all while playing with abandon as he closes in on a lifelong dream of playing in MLB.
“Always find — find a way,” Nori, 21, told The Detroit News, “always find a way. Do not just hang your head on one part. The scorecard can only say so much about what you did. Even if it says 0-fer, if you dig deeper and actually watch the game, you did a lot more.”
From a young age, Nori had plenty of athletic influences.
His paternal grandfather, Fred Nori, played minor-league baseball before getting into coaching, and served as a longtime assistant, including a stint at Indiana for a large portion of Nori’s childhood.
And Nori’s dad, Micah, who played baseball himself at a fairly high level growing up, has ended up on the hardwood as a longtime NBA assistant coach, currently with the Minnesota Timberwolves but having done stints with the Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons and Sacramento Kings and Denver Nuggets.
Nori’s mom, Melissa, though not often getting public credit, also shaped his athletic journey from a young age. A dancer with the Pistons, she helped lay an early foundation of athleticism with her son, emphasizing stretching and flexibility, among other things.
“It was kind of put into me by my parents,” Nori said of his drive and athletic ability.
Nori, naturally, took to sports. It became clear around the time he was 12 that Nori had the talent to end up playing college and perhaps professional sports, Micah said.
He was a typical kid, playing soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring until Nori decided to start zeroing in on baseball in high school. Even as a little kid, Nori would go and hit constantly. His parents would set up stuffed animals on chairs around the field and use them as targets for his hitting.
And Micah quipped that despite his pathway coaching basketball, there might not have been much of a future for his son in that realm, at least on the court.
“We’re an Italian family, no one in our family is above 6-foot, so basketball was out of the question,” Micah said.
That Nori comes in a compact frame is part of what drove Cimini to make his Dykstra comparison. But moreso it’s about how Nori plays.
He’s obviously talented, and when Cimini arrived to take over the Northville program as Nori began his senior year, he was as impressed by how Nori played as the talent itself, exhibiting a cool and calm demeanor that lent to leadership.
“One of the best quotes I’ve heard from any athlete was from Dante Nori,” Cimini said. “Who said, ‘If it’s not going to help me in baseball, I’m not going to do it.’”
Cimini did have one goal with Nori, though: Get him to bunt, at least a little bit.
Cimini likes employing a small-ball style of baseball, with baserunning and bunting becoming important parts of the offense. Nori, naturally an adept hitter, was not gung ho about the idea of giving up chances to swing the bat.
But Cimini’s logic was Northville would need to at least demonstrate the threat, and Nori’s speed meant he could bunt for hits just as readily as he could sacrifice. And while Nori ultimately bunted sparingly — fewer than five times that season, Cimini recalls — it further crystallized Nori’s understanding of how he can be a team player as Northville won its first Division 1 state title.
“Him hounding on me to do that has kind of carried over in a sense where it plays and it’s something I go to whenever the bat’s not going to well,” Nori said. “You just drop one down and all of a sudden you go from there.”
Nori also exhibits some of the classic “child of coach” traits, namely his work ethic and consistency. He grew up spending time around college and professional athletes and saw how they work, and had it drilled in from his family.
It’s also a bit true that Nori’s physical stature meant he’d need to find an edge some other way, and out-working the competition is one avenue to find that.
The elder Nori also thinks his son’s ability to be mindful and present, focused on the task at hand — while still being oriented toward bigger goals — has been a real asset as he’s climbing through the professional ranks since getting selected No. 27 overall in the 2024 MLB Draft.
Playing professional baseball was the ultimate goal, but it was always going to come about in smaller steps. First was committing to a baseball school for college, something Nori achieved before forgoing that to begin his minor-league career.
There, Dad said, his son further broke down the journey into manageable goals.
“Dante was really good at trying to zero in on those immediate goals,” the father said, crediting Melissa for instilling that mindset in their son.
Nori might’ve accelerated the whole timeline this offseason, playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic as the Italians became something of a fan favorite, not just for their fun, cut-it-loose attitude, but for the way they played and won. And Nori was at the center of it, even laying down a sacrifice bunt in a key win over Mexico that had Cimini sitting up watching from home.
“When he squeezed, I went nuts,” Cimini said.
And in that tournament, in which he earned a spot on the all-tournament team, Nori got another taste of the high-level athletics he’d been around his whole life, and was getting ever closer to.
“After the USA game, every game had 40,000 fans or over, so that was really sweet,” Nori said.
In two years since being drafted, Nori already has worked his way up to Double A with the Phillies, playing for the Reading Fightin’ Phils, where he’s shined so far this season, hitting .258 with 16 RBIs, 18 runs scored and seven stolen bases in 36 games entering Wednesday. He is ranked No. 5 among the Phillies’ top 30 prospects by both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline.
He spent spring training this year with the Major League squad, getting to reunite with Kyle Schwarber, who Fred Nori coached back at Indiana.
“I’ve known Schwarber for the longest time, so being around him was pretty cool, as well,” Nori said.
And with a taste of the real thing and his name-making offseason, Nori could be tempted to get out over his skis and get over eager. But that’s not him. He’ll be present where his feet are, which for now means patrolling the outfield and making good things happen on offense for the Fightin’ Phils.
And as his career has shown so far, if Nori handles that business, the rest will take care of itself.
“There’s always ways for me, if one part of my game’s not rolling that day, there’s another side where, ‘Hey, I can help out here,’” Nori said. “Just finding those little ways to help your team win every day, I always think about that.”
Andrew Graham is a freelance writer.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Northville’s Dante Nori an MLB prospect fueled by family, unrelenting play
Reporting by Andrew Graham, Special to The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
