70-and-over Padres win MSBL World Series title

The San Diego Padres, led by 77-year-old pitcher Dick Fitzgerald, won the 70-and-over division at the 2012  MSBL World Series Saturday with an 8-3 win over the South Dakota Rushmores.

The championship game was held at the Maryvale Stadium in Glendale, Arizona -- the spring training site for the Milwaukee Brewers. As it turns out, the Padres' toughest encounter during the week-long tournament was against our own Arizona Scorpions, who battled Fitzgerald in the second game of a double header last Wednesday. The Scorpions lost 3-0 to the Padres despite four innings of tough relief pitching from 74-year-old Chico Bigham.

Bigham, a member of the Tucson TOTS, shutdown the hard-hitting Padres, but it was Fitzgerald who went the distance for the win. The Scorpions actually brought the tying run to the plate in the seventh inning of that game, but with two-out Fitzgerald ending the game with a strike out. The Padres, the team to beat over the last 15 years of the MSBL World Series, have a pool of players to choose from the Southern California area and a handful of players from the Denver, Colorado area -- including 75-year-old Alan "The Rabbi" Bucholtz, the Padres' top reliever.  Fitzgerald is from Issaquah, Washington. The Padres were co-champions with the Rushmores in 2011.