Your Houston Gamblers, a team made up of mainly players from 6 different Houston Hardball teams, went to the MSBL/MABL Kickoff Classic in Las Vegas this past weekend in the 35+ division and brought home the trophy. After going 3-0 in round robin play to get the #1 seed, they then won both playoff games on Sunday to end 5-0.

The Gamblers faced last year’s Champions Montebello Angels in the championship. The Gamblers found themselves down early 4-1 through the first few innings on three HRs, but never lost their fight. Josef Frias would settle in for the rest of the game while giving his offense time to get back into it. Big bash 3-run HRs by David “Prime” Careaga and Jimmy Rivera (his 4th HR of the weekend) gave the Gamblers a lead they would never give up while Josef would finish off the game with a complete game victor and a team 10-5 win to take their first tournament championship.

Managers Pedro Rivera Jr. and Carlos Ramon brought a team ready to complete and the biggest memory of that weekend was just that, every guy showed up and played a part. “This was the ultimate example of team baseball and unselfishness” said manager Rivera to the Hurricanes post media outlet. Manger Ramon was quoted by the same outlet as saying, “this is a historic day for all of us and you can’t ever, EVER, take history away.”