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

"AND BY THE WAY...THEY'RE REAL, AND THEY'RE SPECTACULAR."

HURTIN' UNITS VS. BLUES BROTHERS.

"AND BY THE WAY...THEY'RE REAL, AND THEY'RE SPECTACULAR."
Teri Hatcher talks about the 2014 Hurtin' Units.  

Game # 1- May 8, 2014

Hurtin' Units lose 10-8 

Team Record- 0-1-0

Keogh Park- I must be honest here and say that I really have no interest in doing the blog thingie again this season, but it is something I started back the Hurtin' Units entered the league and I will continue even if my interest is wavering a little. Who knows, I may get back in to it and enjoy doing it again. As I have in other seasons, I welcome anyone to contribute to this blog, I will gladly publish anything anyone wants to blog. 

The one thing I do like about the blog is I can go back to the beginning or season 2 or 3 or 4 and recall what it was like when we were playing in those years. 

The blog is a timeline of this team. It is a walk down memory lane for the past Unit players and it will hopefully be an entertaining site for the 2014 Hurtin' Unit and T.O.T players.  

It's been a long time since we rocked and rolled. It really has been a long time; the 2013 season ended for the Hurtin Units on September 14, 2013 with a 17-14 loss to the Dislocated Joints in a elimination game. 

The winter we just went through seemed extremely long and it even seems like a long time since the 2014 draft. But for the Hurtin' Units, the season is finally underway. 

On Thursday May the 8th, we finally got on the field and it felt great. The final results were not what we wanted, but we have 23 games left to turn it around.

Our first game was actually scheduled for Tuesday May 6th, but the diamonds were not yet released to the league and the game was cancelled. On Wednesday, the town released the diamonds, but no games were played due to a problem with the lights at Keogh Park. The Units got our game in on Thursday evening only because we played the 7:00pm game. 

At game time we had 9 Hurtin' Unit players really to play the first game. Missing from the roster were Dwayne, Coxy and Esau. We picked up Stef K. as a sub.  

This game marks the first time, in the Units five season history, that the Units have lost their season opener. Going in to this season we had a record of 3-0-1 in opening season games. I mentioned this stat to Mike last night and he seemed to think that maybe, just maybe, a change could put the Units on a path to bigger and better things. I hope the boy is right...only time will tell. 

Considering that we were not able to get a practice in, I thought we played quite well. There were some first game jitters, but I think everyone played well. Our rookie Art got lots of action, the batting of most players seem solid (considering it was a different ball from previous years) and everyone (including myself) had a bit of difficulty throwing at times. 

There were two new items introduced in the first game. First was the new ball that will be used this season; the league will be using the Hot Dot as our official ball this season. The second item is the new home plate mat; a new rubber mat will replace the wooden board used in previous seasons, home plate will now be included as part of the strike zone. 

So the season is now officially under way and I'm looking forward to getting on the field on a regular basis. And with the 2014 now in full swing, it's time to say goodbye to the 2013 Hurtin' Units players. I would like thank the 2013 team for a great season and wish you all the best of luck with your new teams. I made the 2013 player cards last season, but never got the chance to use them. I have the whole 2013 and will include them in this blog when I get a chance. See you on the field. 

Walk Watch- G-0, S-0