Even though the World Series starts today, I decided to write about amateur baseball, specifically about a tournament organized by the MSBL (Men Senior Baseball League) called the Fall Classic.

I decided to talk about this specific tournament, well because I played in it last year and I’m 22 days away from going to Florida to play in it again.

Now, this specific tournament is played only once a year in Florida. Last year the tournament was held in the Cardinals’ Spring Training Complex, the Mets’ Spring Training Complex, the Marlins’ Spring Training Complex and the old DODGERTOWN.

The tournament is organized in age groups. +18, +25, +35, +45, +52 and some groups have the option to play with wood or aluminum bats. Besides that, the +25 group age has two divisions, one accepts ex-pros and the other one doesn’t.

The fun part of this tournament, besides the obvious part of playing baseball, is the fact that you get to play against teams from different countries. In 2010 we played against our arch-rivals in Venezuela, three teams from the U.S.A and one from the Dominican Republic.

Last year, was not only my first time there, but the first time my team, as a team, played in the tournament. Some of our players played before with other teams. Unfortunately we didn’t do as we expected. We won the first game against our arch-rivals, but the next day we took two huge blows.

First we lost in 12 innings against the Dominican Republic team 3-2, one of the greatest games I’ve had the pleasure of playing in. Then we suffered an 8-5 defeat against a team from Cleveland (I lost that one pitching 5 innings and allowing 4 runs, 3 earned). The next day we had to play against the undefeated team of our group and lost 6-4 eliminating us from contention.

For this edition, we decided to recruit some new weapons to add to our pitching staff. First Victor Prieto, who played with the Marlins and Red Sox from 2002 to 2005 between Rookie and Single-A. His best season was in 2002 when he was 4-2 with a 3.16 ERA in 31.1 innings for the Gulf Coast Marlins.

We also recruited Luis Torres who played with the Nationals from 1999 to 2003 and had a career record of 28-32 with a 4.35 ERA in 457.1 innings throughout 110 games, 68 starts between Rookie, Single-A and Double-A levels. Juan Carlos Ugas who recorded a 5.30 ERA in 100.2 innings for the Dodgers Single-A team between 1999 and 2000.

And last, but not least, Juan Carlos Ovalles who played for the Diamondbacks, Mariners, White Sox and Nationals from 1999 to 2006. He played in an  independent league from 2006 to 2009 there too. His career record, including his years in independent league was 44-44 with a 4.27 ERA in 609.1 innings throughout 340 games, 35 starts between Rookie, Single-A and Double-A levels.

Hopefully these new acquisitions, with the rest of our pitching staff will help us contend in the tournament this year, and hopefully win it all.

Here’s a video of the last out in the 2008 Fall Classic’s Final. The UNDEFEATED champions that year were our Venezuelans arch-rivals “San Luis Venezuela.”

For more information about the tournament go to the MSBL website, and don’t forget to root for my (Juan Dominguez, @JuanchoXIII) team, “Cachicamos de Venezuela.” BTW. “Cachicamos” mean Armadillos.

The picture is our last year’s team. In case you are wondering I’m the fifth from right to left in the standing row.