HURTIN' UNITS BUZZIN' OVER BEER BROS. WIN...

HURTIN' UNITS VS. BEER BROS.

"It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course" - Hank Aaron

   Game # 3 May 16, 2011

   Hurtin' Units win 22-15

  
    Team Record- 3-0-0

Keogh Park- Well it was only 4 days since our last game and we are right back at it, I really like the short turn around, but the down side is we are not back on the field again until next Tuesday May 24. Eight days between games, maybe I'll see if I can sub for a game, I need my baseball fix. Over the 4 days, between our games, we sure did see a ship load of rain, what a wet weekend we just had.

The weather on Monday was a little better, at least it wasn't pouring rain like it did all weekend, but it was still damp and cool with a couple of showers eariler in the day. I looked at the Weather Network just before I headed to the park for our game, we were going to miss the showers, the current temperature was 9 degrees and the overnight low was going to be 7 degrees. OUCH!!

The rain over the last 3 or 4 days probably played a role in this game. As we (the Hurtin' Unit players) were warming up on the grass, I could feel my feet getting wet and cold. I'm sure by the end of the game, the outfielder's feet were soaked and chilled to the bone. Not only were are feet wet from playing on the field, but they were also soaked from the batter's boxes, which were sloppy and half full of water. The cool temperatures had the bats, in the hands of some of the batters, vibrating as they made contact with the ball, the batters with batting gloves were probably spared most of these painful vibes.

At game time we had our full team,12 players, first time this season, a wonderful site to see as a captain.The Beer Bros. were missing some players, included Mark Doyle, Sandy Bell and Mike Christensen. Cam Clark and John Stiff were subbing for the Bros. We were the Home team again for this game...

 As I mentioned in a previous blog, this game had more significance than the two points in the win column, this was the team that we have a wager with on the season series, with the winner of the series receiving as case of ice, cold suds (beer) from the other. Well, I'm not sure how many of our players even knew about the bet going into last night's match, I completely forgot about the bet until after the game. So, the Hurtin' Units take a 1-0 lead in the season series and we play the Beer Bros. again on July 20, 2011.

The game on Monday night was fun, despite the dampness and cool temperatures, there was lots of banter on field between both teams. I've always enjoyed playing against Steve R. and Paul P., two guys like who play hard, but still don't take it too serious. I really disliked Paul's pitching in this game, I would much rather have Sandy's pitching over that junk Paul was throwing...

Despite the cold and damp conditions on this evening, the “ Battle for Beer” contest was a high scoring affair, 37 runs in total, with the Hurtin' Units on top by a score of 22-15.

I probably could have saved us a few runs against us with a better pitching performance! I have been trying to pitch an inning in every game in hopes of being well prepared when my call of duty arrives and I have to pitch an entire game... Last night I did not feel comfortable pitching, maybe it was the cold, possibly the pitching rubber or maybe just lack of focus, whatever it was I did not have a stellar outing, to say the least.

The Beer Bros. are a good hitting team and I'll give them a lot of credit for a good offensive night, but when a pitcher comes in and walks a handful of batters there is nobody to blame, but the pitcher. In the inning, the Bros. scored only 4 runs and some would say that's not too bad, but if it wasn't for some excellent defensive plays it could have been a lot worse. I gave up 4 of the 15 runs scored, I'm not bothered by the 4 runs, as much as I'm bothered by the walks I gave up....I must get back to Coventry, with my bucket of balls, and get my throwing straightened out by next game...

Boxscore:        1    2    3    4    5    6    7     Total

Hurtin' Units    4    6    3    2    7    0    X      22   

Beer Bros.        2    3    4    0    1    2    3      15    

If anyone had asked me, say in the
fifth inning, in this game, how I thought we were doing, I would have thought we were up a couple and/or the game was very close... I was really surprised to see we had such a large lead going in to the seventh inning... I thought our offensive was holding their own most of the night, but I didn't realize we were putting up the runs we were... I just remember us hitting a bunch of weak hit balls, outs on the bases, pop flys, etc... I guess between all of these we were bringing guys around to score... 22 runs is the most we have scored in a game this young season.. We have also scored four 7 run innings in our 3 games played... The game on Monday we scored at least 2 runs in every inning, except the 6th. We have also not had to bat in our last inning yet this season... Next week we are on the road (we're the visiting team)and we play Torn Ligaments lead by the hitting power of Cam Clark, who we had the pleasure of seeing against us in this game...Our next game is on Tuesday May 24 at 8:15pm at Coventry...

And one final note...our shirts have finally arrived, we'll distribute them next game... See ya there.