ALEXANDRIA, VA-On June 4, the Alexandria Aces will play the first game of the 2025 Season at Frank Mann Field. While Alexandrians have Major League Baseball 10 miles away with the Washington Nationals and minor league ball less than an hour away in a few cities, collegiate summer baseball offers its own unique experience even for the casual fan.
“This is a way where you can watch a college baseball game and literally feel like you’re touching the players especially at Frank Mann here in Alexandria with so much history at that field. The batter’s box is literally ten feet away and you can sit in the front row,” said Aces coach Chris Berset.
The Aces play in the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League (CRSCBL), which is made up of eight teams in the DMV with players who have attended at least one year of college and have at least one year of eligibility remaining. Once their college season ends, players continue to hone their skills in these summer leagues. Unlike college baseball, which uses aluminum bats, only wooden bats are allowed in collegiate summer baseball.
“Most of these guys have aspirations to play professional baseball,” said Berset. “Professional baseball goes until September so basically, the summer league is a way for them to continue playing to train them to play eight months of the year.”
He played college ball at the University of Michigan and spent seven seasons in the Cincinnati Reds farm system. He is currently the baseball coach at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington and heads Prime Time Baseball, a baseball academy and travel club in Alexandria. As coach of Aces, he has spent the spring putting the roster together, with some coming from Prime Time, but the majority coming from NCAA Division I programs all over the country.
“I’ve got kids from Western Michigan. I’ve got kids from Pitt. I’ve got kids from Ball State, Indiana. I’ve also got kids from California coming this year,” said Berset.
The Aces have been regular season CRSCBL champions for the past three years and were league champions in 2022. That’s pretty impressive when one considers the fact that players arrive in early June and play their first game a day or two later. The team is able to hit the ground running because of the efforts of the community. The Aces differ from major and minor league teams in the fact that they are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) and are supported in part through donations and volunteers that are led by former Alexandria City Council member and team president Frank Fannon.
“Alexandria is one of the best places to be involved with a collegiate summer league team because we have such a great community and so many giving people that help fund the team. The team is really funded through donations, ticket sales at the gate, and sponsorship,” said Fannon.
Another major way volunteers support the team is through host families. This year, the Aces who do not call Alexandria home will need a place to stay and will have one with host families like the Fannons. Host families provide players with a private room, bathroom and laundry room access, a place to park a car, and a family to cheer them on at ball games. They also indirectly help determine the roster.
“We have some Ball State alumni that love to host the Ball State players,” said Fannon. “If anybody wants to be a host family and they request a kid from their school, we’ll be glad to try to pair them up.”
Another example of this is with Fannon, who went to Elon University and was classmates with Mike Kennedy, the head coach of the school’s baseball team for the past 29 years. This helped forge a relationship with the Elon Phoenix’s and the Alexandria Aces.
“For 15 years, I’ve always hosted players, and I usually prefer to get Elon kids from the same school that I went to, and they stay here at my house. I have a 10-year-old son and he just he loves it. He just can’t wait until the baseball players get here because he’s a baseball player himself and he feels like he’s got these superstars living in the family house,” said Fannon.
Some of the players that will be coming home for the summer include Bucknell pitcher AJ Murray and University of Pennsylvania infielder Michael Powell, both of whom played for Coach Berset at Bishop O’Connell. In addition, Coach Berset is excited about his incoming trio of catchers in Ernie Echevarria, Diego Pena, and DJ Scheumann.
“I think all three of these guys can be starting catchers at Division I colleges, so I think we’re going to be pretty strong there,” he said.
Both Berset and Fannon stressed how critical volunteers are to the success of the Aces. Detailed information on all the ways Alexandrians can support the team, including through being a host family, is available on the Aces’ website.
“The volunteers are what makes the Aces work and so if anybody in the community is interested in helping, we’re always looking for more people to join the board and help the team,” said Fannon.
Frank Mann Field, the former home of the minor league Alexandria Dukes, is located at 3700 Commonwealth Avenue. The first game of the season will be against the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts and is sponsored by The Zebra. All Aces home games will start at 6:30 PM and tickets are $7 for adults and $3 for children 12 and under. Coach Berset said one of the reasons he keeps coaching is because he enjoys seeing how much fun the kids who come to the games are having.
“They’re playing wiffle ball behind the shed. They’re riding their scooters around running up and down. We’ve got an ice cream truck. We’ve got vendors there, so as a parent you can just let them kind of go with all the other boys and girls there while you watch the game,” he said.
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