Barone Honored by AAPB

The Milwaukee Milkmen will meet Cleburne tonight in Game 2 of the American Association of Professional Baseball best-of-three East Division series.

Leading the way is manager Anthony Barone.

The Jamestown native and 2025 Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame inductee has added another impressive entry to his resume.

How does 2026 AAPB Manager of the Year sound?

The announcement, which was made earlier this week, was the result of the Milkmen's 12-win improvement over the 2025 season. Finishing 58-42 during the regular season, Milwaukee opened the postseason Wednesday night with a 4-1 Game 1 victory over Cleburne. Jhordany Mezquita (2-0), one of four Milkmen pitchers, was the winner, giving up just two hits, striking out seven and walking one in 6 1-3 innings.

For Barone, who joined the Milwaukee staff in 2019 as the team's hitting/bench coach and was named the manager in 2020, the Milkmen's success has become a regular occurrence. In his first year at the helm, Barone led the Milkmen to the American Association championship. He followed that with playoff berths in 2021 and 2022, and the Eastern Division title in 2023.

Furthermore, Barone has coached internationally with Merida, Mexico in the World Baseball Softball Confederation, and in Dubai, United Arab Emirates with Baseball United.

Upon graduating from Jamestown High School in 1997, he continued his baseball journey at Jamestown Community College where he was named one of the school's 50 greatest all-time athletes and at Felician (New Jersey) College; returned to Jamestown CC in 2001 as the assistant baseball coach and was promoted to head coach in 2005; spent 2012-13 as an assistant coach at Division I Cal State-Bakersfield; managed Wellsville in the New York Collegiate Baseball League in 2013; and managed the Jamestown Jammers of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League for four seasons, highlighted by winning the league title in 2018 when he was named the Manager of the Year.