GRUESOME? THEY LOOK THE SAME SIZE TO ME...

HURTIN' UNITS VS. GRUESOME DEVILS.

Game # 2 -May 21, 2014

Hurtin' Units lose 20-10

Team Record - 0-2-0 

I mentioned in the last blog that I had lost my interest in doing this blog. I will however, continue to do the blog and maybe it will become more interesting to me as the season goes on. One thing I do like doing, in the blog, is playing around with Photoshop, taking pictures of Hurtin' Units players or league related photos or internet pictures and playing around with them. 

Dennis makes final out in championship game.

In this blog, I took a picture of Babe Ruth and made it in to a magazine cover. This is not the first time I have done this in the Hurtin' Units blog, in fact, I've done BASEBALL WORLD magazine covers 9 other times. I also have another Baseball World cover in the works for a future blog. If you go back through the previous year's blog postings you'll find all of the others. The Baseball World cover, with Dennis Short on it, the picture was taken by me as Dennis caught the final out in the 2012 championship finals. The Beer Bros. won the the championship. I love the raw emotion of this photo, definitely worthy of a cover shot...Fun stuff !! 

When I make the covers, I actually prefer to use photos that I have taken or at least something related to the Hurtin' Units or the T.O.T league. This picture of Clayton is exactly what I'm talking about. In 2012 Clayton played for the Units and this picture was taken by my friend Samantha Delgreco. This is one of my favorites, but the best, I think, is the shot of Craig Slater running the bases. If you click on the link you can view the cover page. http://hurtinunits.blogspot.ca/2012/09/let-playoffs-begin.html
  

In the last posting, I used pictures I took of the 2013 Hurtin' Units players and made them look like baseball cards. It was my intent to actually have these cards printed on to card stock and actually make a set of cards for each of the 2013 Units players... I got distracted late last season and never had the chance to have the cards printed, shame really, considering how much work I did on them. 

Are these guys twins?  Same legs and face. 

Two postings ago, I took a picture of Woody (played for the Units in 2013) and Photo shopped a picture of Shrek in to the picture. Dan is really a great sport about stuff like this, last season he could be found in multiple postings as well as 2 hilarious Jibjab videos. In the videos. I used five 2013 Hurtin' Unit players to create a unforgettable, top notch, powerfully moving video that will be viewed for years to come. Starring in these videos are Dan C., Darryl H., Mike O., Rick C., and Ricky L. If you get a chance, go back and watch them, you'll get a good laugh from them.

http://www.jibjab.com/view/EDRGXZYjSsiuGYyTlKBDcQ

http://www.jibjab.com/view/Z8dIGmuaTyek5I1Zz9R1Aw

I have also added or changed things in pictures to stick to a Hurtin' Units or baseball theme. I really have a fun time playing around with these little projects. What cat watches baseball? REALLY???

I also enjoy writing with little themes attached  like I did with a couple of Dodge City Rounder games. I love the idea of traveling to another town by train back in simpler times. A time when a home town game attracted all the town's folk to attend and cheer their team. Again fun stuff!  

If you go back and look at the previous postings over the last 4 baseball seasons, you'll probably see a lot of other things I've done with pics. 

Last season or maybe it was 2 seasons ago, the blog site started allowing videos or links to videos to be inserted in to the blog. I have included videos in some postings, but maybe it's time for me to explore this avenue and see if I can come up with something a little different for future postings. This is a fun little video.          
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBv3xVoAoCI

Blog is a time machine to Units historical past.

I mentioned somewhere, in some posting, that I do the blog as a timeline of the Hurtin' Units baseball team. Each posting is a history of the team from the very first game back on the 4th of May 2010, when the Hurtin' Units defeated the Red Dogs by a score of 14-10 to this present day posting. 

So, when I post stuff that doesn't really pertain to the team, there is a setting or reason I babble on a little about it. An example of what I'm talking about is the season being shortened or the Keogh lights not working. Wait a tick...I guess it does pertain to the team. D'oh!!!

Rescheduling Guy.

I guess I should really talk about the stuff going on around the Hurtin' Units team. To start with, we had our last game canceled because the Keogh lights were not working. In fact, there have been more games canceled because of the damage done to Coventry diamond #2  and the lights at Keogh than I can ever remember, throw in a week with several days of rain and the rescheduling guy is standing on the edge of a bridge. 

So with the lost week, there were some decisions to be made. In the last captain's meeting, there were discussions about what we would do if the town didn't release the diamonds and the season got pushed back a couple of weeks. Would we go to a 22 game or a 24 game season? 

BASEBALL BABES ARE ALWAYS NICE IN A BLOG

The town released the diamonds 2 days after the season started and it looked like we didn't have to worry about the 22 or 24 game season, at least that's what we thought. On the Wednesday evening of opening week, the lights at Keogh did not come on and it was discovered that they were disconnected and it could be some time before they would be reconnected. All 8:15 games would be canceled for the next 2 weeks. The Coventry diamond #2 would not be fixed until late in week 2, all games on this diamond would be rescheduled. The second week of the season was filled with rainy thunderstorms and the bulk of the week's games, scheduled on usable diamonds, were also canceled and rescheduled. 

Since the bulk of the games in the first 2 weeks were rescheduled, the executive and captains held a vote to decide if we should reduce the season to 22 games. The vote was in favor of going to 22 games. Since the season was reduced to 22 games, the league decided to redo the entire schedule. The schedule was rejigged to fit a 22 game season. 

The Hurtin' Units new schedule included the first game played on our schedule and the other 21 games left to play. Let's hope that things go smoothly from this point on. 
  
Our first game was quite solid as far as defense and offense are concerned. We had a bit of rust coming off a long, long, long winter and with no practice I really thought we did well.  

Coventry Park- It was a long time between games, but we finally get back on the field. In this game we almost had a full team; the only missing player was Coxy who is still nursing a sore knee. 

During the day there was a few isolated rain showers, but by game time (8:15) the sky was a mix of dark clouds with a few clear spots. There was a light breeze blowing south to north and the temperature was in the mid-teens.

This game was played on Coventry diamond #3, the scheduled start time was 8:15pm and the umpire for this game was Lou R. 

There was a strong smell of new shirts in the air as the game was about to start; the 2014 Hurtin' Units were officially a team... dressed in the black and yellow. 

I really believe that if this game were played a little bit further in to the season, the score would have been closer. I say this because there was still a bit of rusty play on the field. I would say that almost every Units player had to deal with a bobble or a tip off a glove or a bad bounce in this game. The timing was just a little off with some of us and it will probably take several games before we get it perfected. And with a new ball on the field this season, there will be a little bit of adjustment. Speaking of the new ball, I voted against it (I like the Gray Dot), but now that we have played with it for 2 games, I really like it. I like the pitching mat also. 

On the offensive side of the ledger, things looked promising, in the top of the 1st inning, when little Stevie D.(pitcher for the Gruesome) walked the first two batters he faced. With Don and Clayton on base, Kevin, Dave and Mike came up to bat. 1,2,3 out finished off with a swinging strike out by Mikey Boy (something I've never seen before) and just like that the inning was over. 

The speed of the Gruesome Devils was awesome, they got around bases with the ease of a gazelles. This Gruesome team is scary good and I was impressed!!!

The Units were hitting the baseball well, everyone made good contact, but a majority of the good contact found the gloves of the Devils. And when we did get on base, we stranded numerous base runners all game long. I was at the bottom of the order (11th) and my first at bat was in the 3rd inning, I came around to score the Units first run. 

Our timing was probably still a little off while batting. This will be corrected when we get a few more games in, hopefully bringing those stranded base runners home. The Devils played well in the outfield, Tim O. and their rookies lead the way with strong defense. 

I mentioned the timing was off with some players, but the legs of some players were not in mid-season form either. We can probably laugh about it now, but during the game, I recall at least 3 guys tripping or slipping on to the playing surface. Fraser B. ( Devils) took a tumble running to first, Art (Units) slipped while rounding first and soiled the new shirt and Esau (Units) tripped over 3rd base and injured his ankle. Dwayne (Units) also hit the dirt trying to run from 2nd to 3rd and was called out. 

Over the last couple of seasons, I would take a picture of the gamesheet or write out the boxscore of the games. I will try to do this for future postings, I think it shows patterns and trends that might help to adjust lineups. I can tell you this, there were a lot of innings with zero on the scoresheet in this game. I would guess that in this game, all of the Hurtin' Units runs came in 3 innings. The 2014 look like they can score in bunches, we just need to do it in every inning. 

One more note on this game; Billy C. made a couple of nice catches, off of foul tips, playing catcher. Nice Job!

The Units next game is Monday May 26, 2014 vs. Beer Bros. 

Walk Watch- G-0, S-0