Baseball playoff action is heating up in the major leagues, and many recreational baseball players across America are gearing up for next week's Men's Senior Baseball League (MSBL) World Series.
Many diamonds in the Phoenix and Tempe area of Arizona will host hundreds of senior players next week, with many games on the schedule.
Two Wood River Valley teams are headed for Arizona, where over 6,000 ballplayers and 300 teams will compete.
They are the Hailey Hawks in the 25+ Central Division, which has 14 teams split into two seven-team divisions, and the Sun Valley Solar Sox in the eight-team Division 1 of the 16-team 35+ Wood Bat Central.
Last October in Arizona the Hailey Hawks won their division with a 5-2 record and lost out in the playoffs. Sponsoring the club is Hailey Car Quest, Class Five Construction and Sun Valley Auto Club.
On the team are co-managers Brian Nelson and John Rathfon, Robin Sarchett, Ryan Stavros, Bryan Burrell, Kenny Nelson, Jeff Burrell, Christian Nickum, T.J. Peterson, Gio Tognoni, Brent Anderson, Anthony Anderson, Justin Herald and Nic Nottingham.
The Hawks start out with six aluminum bat games in four days—on Monday, Oct. 20 against Long Island Murderers Row and Chicago Seminoles, on Tuesday, Oct. 21 against Santa Barbara (Ca.) Hitmen and Sonoma County Black Sox; on Wednesday, Oct. 22 against California Red Sox; and Thursday, Oct. 23 against Southern California Stars.
Solar Sox players in the wood bat division are manager Curtis Bacca, Craig Anderson, Jim Bradley, Pat Creighton, Paul Creighton, Nelson Drewien, David Fox, Dan Freeman, Sean Moran, Jeff Poggi, John Rathfon, Danny Turner, Brian Nelson and Rod Watson.
They play six games in their preliminary World Series slate in Arizona—on Sunday, Oct. 19 against Tri-Valley Brewers and Long Island Mariners; on Monday against North Valley Bears and Kansas City Knights; on Tuesday against Houston A's; and next Wednesday against the Albuquerque Colt 45s.
Sunday's Solar Sox game against Tri-Valley should be a tough one, since Tri-Valley nipped the Solar Sox 3-2 in last year's round robin and advanced into the championship game, where they lost 3-2.
In nine previous World Series appearances, the Solar Sox have batted .339 as a team, led by Freeman (69-for-155, .445), Fox (.412), Craig Anderson (.398), Brian Nelson (.369), Moran (.333), Drewien (.333), Bacca (.331), Paul Creighton (.321) and Watson (.313).
