During his career, he signed a total of 52 players who made it to the Major Leagues, most notably Hall of Famers Ferguson Jenkins and Mike Schmidt.
[1][2][3][4] 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.
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.
[4][6] Never a major league prospect as a player, Lucadello eventually took a factory job with the Fostoria Screw Company, met his future wife and settled down.
[7] 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.
[9] Lucadello claimed that the key to identifying a prospect was to focus on the player's body control and footwork, saying, "Eighty-seven percent of the game of baseball is played below the waist.
With the help of some high school coaches who worked as part-time scouts for him, he developed and published a series of training drills using the walls in a booklet called "The Lucadello Plan" that he believed could help change the game.
In 1984, American League president Dr. Bobby Brown, also believing the game's skills were in decline among its young players, began seeking a low-level way to reverse the trend.
[16] “He would sell what it’s like and explain it all and really educate you about the minor leagues,” said Steve Phillips, the former Mets general manager, who was scouted by Lucadello as an amateur player in Detroit.
Apparently unable to cope with the impending loss of his work – "the fear of not being wanted," Mike Schmidt called it[12] – Lucadello died a suicide from a gunshot wound to the head[22] on May 8, 1989, on a baseball field in Fostoria.