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| Woody in Toy Story. |
Hurtin' Units lose 22-9
Team Record 0-2-1
Keogh Park-This is the third season for the Hurtin' Units and we have no returning players from 2011 campaign (Mike and I excluded). We do however have one player who played for the Hurtin' Units in our first season (2010). Al Hayward played with the Units in 2010. Most of the 2011 Hurtin' Unit players have been scattered over most of new 2012 team rosters. The only exception would be the 2012 edition of the Hottub Woodys. The Woodys have 3 of the 2011 Hurtin Units on this year's roster and strangely enough the Hurtin' Units have 3 players from the 2011 Hottub Woodys. It's fun pretend that over the winter there was a "Block Buster Trade" the Hottub Woodys have sent Clayton Avery, veteran Al Hayward and relief pitcher Dave Kidd to the Hurtin' Units in exchange for veteran pitcher Bill "Billy the Kid "Jonkman, up and coming prospect Brad Moye and third baseman Chris Larkin. We all know that this isn't the way things went down, but to exchange 25% of each 2011 roster is at least worth mentioning and it should be a fun game when we play each other.
The following, in blue, is an excerpt from the Rusty Rebels vs. the Hotub Woodys blog I wrote in 2007:
As I was perusing our schedule, I noticed we play the Hottub Woodys this upcoming Wednesday May 23, 2007, at 8:30pm, at Keogh Park. Mikey Boy, as I like to call him (Mike O.) and I (Jimmer) are part of the 2006 Hot Tub Woodys alumni; we had the pleasure of playing with a terrific group of guys last season. I was reflecting on how bad a season we actually had on the field (we played some pretty bad games!!!) , but I also reflected on how much fun we had off the field.
The 2006 H.T. Woodys looked good on paper, but in the game situations, something almost always seemed to be out of sorts. The nights the bats were hitting on all cylinders, the defence couldn't stop a beach ball and on the nights the when the defence was stellar, the bats were colder than the North Pole. We did manage to win 6 games and we weren't the worst team (close) at the end of the season, but it rarely seemed to come together on the field.
On the field was fun, but it was spending time away from the diamond that brings a smile to my face. Post game nights at the Legion were a riot. With guys like Coxy, Woody, Dancer and Fast Eddie, throw in a Barbie Hunter (the Woodys unofficial groupie) and almost anything could happen. I can remember nights where tears were streaming down my face from laughing so hard, most of the time at my expense.
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| Woody Harrelson |
This is what this league is really about, having fun and making new friends along the way. I hope that the new Hurtin' Unit players, who played for the Woodys in 2011 are really looking forward to there game against there former team and I hope it brings back a flush of great memories created in the summer of 2011. As for me, I'm looking forward to seeing Brad, Billy and Chris, now playing for the Woodys, these guys were great teammates and we had some fun times together last season.
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| Dan (WOODY) Chaisson- Played for the Hottub Woodys in 2006. A great Woody in his prime, now retired... |
This was our third game of the season, Al Hayward was away and Mike was still nursing a lower body injury (for the record, it's a knee injury). At game time we only had 9 players, Rob R. was not on the scene yet, we yelled across the street to his house, he poked his head out (kinda like a groundhog in spring time) and informed us he was waiting for his gear, on it's way home from Alliston (his gear drives?). The Woody's supplied us with a catcher for the first inning and Rob showed up just in time to be the lead off batter in the bottom half of the inning.
The weather for this game was sunny, the players in right field and first base struggled a bit when the balls were hit in to the sky. The temperature had dropped to only 11 degrees at game time and there was a strong wind blowing from the north, which created a few early inning problems with pitching.
I was perusing the 2012 Hottub Woodys roster on game day... these guys have a nice looking team (nice looking in a baseball sense) with the likes of Stikes, the muck of Chuck, the fancy of Dancey, the boy Moye, the looks of Brooks, the barkin' of Larkin and throw in "Billy the Kid" Jonkman and a few more supporting cast and they've got a team that can scream!
The diamond conditions were actually really good; no muddy batter's boxes, no pond behind second base, the infield had been graded, this was the best playing surface we had seen in this young season.
I'm hoping that this game is the low point of our young season, but I have a feeling that things might get a little worse before they get better. This was the Woodys first win in four tries, which means that they have had a little bit of a difficult stretch themselves. Now, our last two games were close and this game had moments when it looked like we may bust things open, only to have our offense shut down in a split second. My pitching was not the greatest and when you walk three batters, including walking in a run and when you let guys like Chuck and Stikes come up with guys on base, the runs pile up real fast...
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| Woody Allen |
Chuck and Stikes were like vacuums for the Woodys, they were gobbling up ground balls and throwing Units out at every base. The walks hurt us, but so did our innings with more than 3 outs. We had several innings where we should have been off the field, but for some reason or another we missed our opportunities...Clayton made a tag on a runner going from first to second but missed with the ball (still got the runner running to first), three of our fielders came together in right field and the ball dropped in between them (we probably need to work at communication out there), Rob R. showing great range, scooped up a ball behind first, but Kidder couldn't get back to first base in time for the out... These are all problems that happen in games, we'll straighten things out, we have too good of a team not to...
As Rob R. said after the game, at the Legion, "it was just one of those games". There were some good moments in this game also, both Gords made some really nice plays, Gord the Shortstop made two line drive grabs, one off the bat of Chuck (Gord actually lept off the ground) and Gord (the other Gord... this Gord thing is going to be tricky this season) playing third base picked off two hard hit ground balls for outs... I had two balls hit to me when pitching, one I threw to Clayton at second (almost over his head, that's okay Gord (SS) was backing him up) and the second shot I threw to home for a forced out...
As Rob R. said after the game, at the Legion, "it was just one of those games". There were some good moments in this game also, both Gords made some really nice plays, Gord the Shortstop made two line drive grabs, one off the bat of Chuck (Gord actually lept off the ground) and Gord (the other Gord... this Gord thing is going to be tricky this season) playing third base picked off two hard hit ground balls for outs... I had two balls hit to me when pitching, one I threw to Clayton at second (almost over his head, that's okay Gord (SS) was backing him up) and the second shot I threw to home for a forced out...
Jimbits:
- I thought we would have an advantage when we chose the green shirts; green shirts and changing to green balls this season, thought we could conceal the ball a little bit better, didn't work for the tag between first and second... Are you sure he didn't touch him with the ball Roman? Lotta green out there!
- Mike's scoring keeping skills were improved by scoring the entire game, it's great that he's injured and still comes to our games...real team guy!
- Tumble has some interesting things to say, I think I should have a Rob quote of the game included in the blog... i.e " It was just one of those games" or " We're a seventh inning comeback team, we just never get to the seventh inning", very deep stuff.
- Stikes and Chuck were gobbling up balls at second and short for outs, no fouls here... A couple of turkeys!
- Rob's quest for the perfect o.b.a in 2012 came to an end, Rob went 2 for 4 in this game.
- Did I mention Rob was late for the game? A one jug of beer fine will be imposed; no you don't get a free jug Rob, you have to buy one... D'oh!!
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| Quid pro quo |
Pitch Bits: On Tuesday evening I subbed for the Brew Jays, I played third base... One thing I noticed about playing third base was how much more action I saw compared to pitching... I probably had 6 or 7 plays (pop ups, plays to first and second bases, etc.) at third base.
In our first two games, I think I touched the ball once coming off the bat, I probably could have caught a pop up around home plate, but backed off thinking the catcher was going to get it. I saw a few balls whiz by me (definitely out of my range, definitely!). I always assumed that the pitcher saw all kinds of action, but I hadn't seen it yet...Finally in game # 3, I see a bit more defensive action, one ball hit by Danceman, I threw (almost over threw it) to Clayton at second for a force, the second was a grounder which I threw home for another force play and a third play was back to me and I threw it to first for the out...
This season I've changed how I pitch compared to how I pitched, as a P2, the last 4 seasons. I used to pitch underhand with a forward spin on the ball, now this season I have been working on pitching overhand with backward rotation...I also spent some time on the internet looking at pitching techniques, different pitches, pitching strategies and other pitching related topics. All these things are good to know, but unless they are put to use, they are just tidbits of information...
I really believe that practise is truly valuable in improving at whatever it you do. There are guys, perhaps even in our game on Wednesday night, that are natural athletes, the guys who show up to the game, play spectacular and never even give practise a second thought. But, for the most of us, who want to improve, we need to practise. Whether it is golf, music or even art, we must practise . Professional athletes probably spend more time practising than they do playing, if we want to improve we need practise.
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| Woody Woodpecker |
Recently, I read the book Outliers written by Malcolm Gladwell and I loved what I read about how much time and effort must be committed in order to become elite at anything. Great people don't become great without making sacrifices and devoting a great deal of time to their interests. This is a great read and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to improve at anything that they do.
I really enjoy playing softball and I will jump at the opportunity to go out and sub if asked. As I mentioned earlier, last Tuesday I subbed for the Brew Jays, I played third base and had a really good game. One of the things I did while playing this game was to observe the pitching of Wayne B. and Tito P. the two opposing pitchers in the game... They both pitched underhanded and both of them missed the strike board more than we realize, which got me thinking that I'm making progress. When I practise pitching, I use my first bucket of balls to work on technique, my second is on range and my third is a combination of both, but the third I also keep track of my pitches that hit the board (not counting the ones that come close) I'm hitting at around 50% accuracy. This is probably not to bad, I don't know what other P1s throw, but I'd bet it's not much better.
In our game on Wednesday, we got off to rough start giving up lots of runs early and making it difficult to comeback. The strong wind pushed the pitching to the left and I learned from this experience that I must adapt quickly to avoid disaster. I hate walking batters, I would rather hang a juicy pitch in the middle of the plate and take my chances with our defense to get the out. I walked three batters in this game, one walk forced in a run (hate this even more), the hits just kept on coming and we had a little communication breakdown on the field (which we can work on). I had zero strike outs in this game... I plan on letting Kidder pitch an inning in our future games...
LAB- Kidder
If anyone is wondering what LAB stands for, it means last at bat. In the first half of the season, we like to rotate the lineup to allow our batters to have equal at bats. Kidder was our last at bat in this game which means whoever followed Kidder will lead off the next game...
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