Photo by Matt Lanark
The Alexandria Aces
BY MATT LANARK
The small lot at Frank Mann Field is already full. I have to park at the end of the road in an overgrown patch of grass off Commonwealth Avenue. Nothing about the area screams topflight baseball. As I walk over, I see the crowd before the field. Children running around with friends. Parents trying to corral them before the game starts. Getting closer, I hear the teams warming up. The fresh cowhide of the ball meets worn out leather pockets like they’re old friends.
The diamond starts to appear through the trees. The bases, I assume, are still 90 feet apart. The mound is still 60 feet, 6 inches from the plate. The distance to the outfield fences still makes for impressive home runs. Yet the field feels small—especially when the only live baseball I’ve seen recently is at Nationals Park. The bleachers here might hold 200. But in walking up to Frank Mann, it’s hard not to think about your own relationship with baseball over the years—whether that’s tossing a ball as a child, playing in high school or watching your own children learn the game.
Tickets only cost $7—probably just enough to cover any basic expenses. Most staff here
Photo by Matt Lanark
The Alexandria Aces
work on a volunteer basis. Walking inside the gate at game time, I rushed to find the closest seat along the first base line and sat down just in time for the first pitch. This is opening night of the Alexandria Aces, our city’s very own baseball team. Each game this summer is an opportunity to hop in a time machine, dial up the nostalgia and watch baseball the way it was meant to be played.
We associate early spring with the start of baseball season. Fresh cut grass. Flourishing cherry blossoms. Counting the days left until break (or wishing you could add more if you’re a parent). But it’s already June—early summer. The swampy DC weather has started, even if our backsides aren’t sticking to the bleachers quite yet. The tourist season at museums and downtown sites is in full swing. But the beginning of summer also marks the start of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League, and dreams of another regular season title (2023) or league championship (2022) for the Aces.
Photo by Matt Lanark
The Alexandria Aces
Each year, some of the best college players migrate to the DC area for two months after their spring seasons end. The Cal Ripken League started in 2005 to attract top talent to the area and give roughly 300 college players the opportunity to play high-level baseball year-round. It’s modeled after other renowned summer leagues across the country, most notably the Cape Cod League in Massachusetts. Beyond our fair City, the League has teams in Gaithersburg, Bethesda, DC, Olney, Silver Spring, Lorton, and Waldorf.
College coaches who want their players to sharpen their skills through the summer contact summer league coaches and place players strategically across the country. This year, the Aces brought in players from schools as far as Florida, Alabama and Indiana, from programs as diverse in size as Auburn to junior colleges. These players live with host families through the summer, work as baseball camp counselors during the day, and become part of the community for a season.
Tonight's opener brought the DC Grays to town. Each team hoped to kick the season off quickly, but the first inning saw little action. This can obviously be forgiven. After all, it’s a pitchers’ league. It takes time for hitters to adjust to new surroundings, new teammates—and even, new bats. One of the distinguishing features of Cal Ripken baseball (and other summer leagues across the country) is the use of wooden bats. College programs still use metal bats each spring. With their bulky alloy barrels, liquid-gel vibration-dampening technology, and flexible handles that optimally transfer energy during a swing, they are feats of metallurgy that launch balls like rockets off the bat. Wood bats take a lot of adjustment, and any minor tweak to a player’s swing will take time to see results.
Wood bats make the college players feel like big leaguers, and for the fans, they’re transported to something out of rural Iowa at the Field of Dreams. There’s a certain look and feel to the game with wood bats. It’s wistful and romantic. The crack of a bat meeting a ball is unmistakable. But wood bats at the college level also change the way the game is played. Home runs are scarce. Methodical, smart baseball is rewarded—a timely bunt, base-stealing, crafty base-running, opposite field slap hits, sacrifice flies. After the slow start, the Aces struck first using these very tactics. They scored three runs in the second inning after a hit, a walk, a light dribbler passed second base, and a short looper just over the infield.
During the fifth inning, I left my seat on the first base line to explore. On the Aces side, families overflowed the stands—including many host families there to show support. Others brought kids with the hope of offering easy entertainment. The children seemed to duck away to join their friends in throwing balls against the dugout or chasing each other around the bleachers. It seemed like they merely wanted to be around baseball, to absorb the game, to soak up what they aspire to do.
There’s a snack tent selling an assortment of candy and drinks, along with a small grill serving up traditional ballgame fare. Aces games lack frills. But that’s what’s special. Unlike the minor leagues with their T-shirt cannons, ear-deafening music, lasers, dancers, and assorted other gimmicks to attract fans, Frank Mann Field offers baseball in its less contaminated, pure form. You can put your fingers through the fence and feel like you’re in the batter’s box.
Though the players, coaches and staff are focused, the atmosphere remains relaxed and casual. And not just in the stands. Between each half inning, the Aces players on the bench kick a soccer ball around or toss a football to stay loose in case they are called into later inning. A friendly reminder that offseason summer baseball should be fun. The Aces bats really came alive in the later innings. After a few bloopers, a couple stolen bases, a deep fly ball, and a home run, the good guys took a 10-0 nothing lead.
When your primary relationship with baseball at this point in life isn’t playing but watching professionals on TV, it’s easy to marvel at the spectacular diving catches, or monstrous home runs, or gravity-defying leaps, or pinpoint accurate throws or wicked sliders. The athleticism pops off the TV screen and feels so obviously unreachable. This makes it easy to forget just how difficult it is to make a routine baseball play. Watching the Aces up close, you’re reminded of this. You see the distance from third base to first. You see how quickly a grounder skips to the fielder, who only has a split second to scoop and throw across the diamond. The Nats make it look easy on TV—well, not always. At Frank Mann, you see how hard the pitchers throw, watching from just behind the backstop. You know you could never hit one of these fastballs. A night at the Aces is a reminder of just how hard baseball is to play, a reminder that the best players in the world succeed at their craft about 30 percent of the time. .
I stood along the third base line at the end of the game. With a 10 to 1 rout, the Aces looked like a team poised to contend again this season, but also a team that would be fun to watch. A team that could make Alexandrians proud. The Cal Ripken League is a bit different. It’s not like other leagues nestled in tiny towns—where summers revolve around the team. We are still in one of the biggest metro areas in the country. But to attend an Aces game is to capture that small town feel—like we’re not just some arbitrarily carved out section of the DMV. To attend an Aces game is to transport yourself back in time to a forgotten era when this pastime mattered more.
With all the transplants from other cities—myself included—sports and fan culture in greater DC can have a distinctly detached feeling. A tension between those who’ve been in the city for years, growing up with DC teams (albeit many with new names) and those only going to see their opponent. But the Aces only ask you to come as a baseball fan, or maybe just an Alexandrian—regardless of whether you grew up here—even if it’s just for the summer.
Find out more about the Alexandria Aces and their summer schedule here: https://alexandriaaces.org/schedule.
