The Tucson Golden Aces' 25-man roster set for MSBL World Series

The Golden Aces, the Tucson representative for the 2009 Mens Senior Baseball League (MSBL)World Series, which gets underway on Monday, Oct. 19, in Phoenix, are packed and ready to go.

The Aces' roster will include five out-of-state players and they include Bob Fortier from Nashua, New Hampshire; Bill Smith from Wakefield, MA; Jay Hayner from Rexford, New York; Don Drown from Ft. Myers, Florida and Doug Randall from Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Thirteen players are from Tucson and they include manager/player Mike Morales, Joe Banner,Tom Barrow, Larry Armstrong, Bill Skinner, Danny Price, Chico Bigham,Jerry Hamelin, Ron Petersen, Frank Castillo, Cres Carino, John Nowotny and Doug Mullins.

The remaining seven players are all from the Phoenix area and they include Billy Kee, Bob Snook, Spike Graham, John Ambler, Roger Miller, Dene Ekholm and Gene Ekholm.

According to Tucson Golden Aces' manager Mike Morales, all 25 players will get plenty of playing time."We'll need everybody.It's a grueling two weeks."

The Golden Aces have 11 round-robin games on their schedule--six games the first week in the 60-and-over division and five the following week in the 65-and-over division. And that, of course, doesn't include the playoff rounds on Friday, nor the championship games, which are slated for the weekends.

Morales, a catcher who has played in his share of MSBL World Series' games, is hoping this year will be the year his team will head back down I-10 with a championship trophy in its possession...and a ring, too. Just like in the major leagues, if a team happens to win it all, each player will receive a championship ring.