Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Giamatti was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was a Yale University professor who later became president of the university and commissioner of Major League Baseball. His mother, Toni Marilyn, was a homemaker and English teacher who taught at Hopkins School and had also previously acted.Giamatti''s mother was Irish American; his paternal grandfather, Valentine Giamatti, was an Italian American, of parentage from Telese, and his paternal grandmother, Mary Claybaugh Walton, was from a New England family.