A Tiger Can't Change It's Stripes.

Game # 24- August 26th, 2024

Hurtin' Units vs. The Tottenham Twisters of New Tecumseth

Hurtin' Units win 17-16

Team Record-6-17-1

“I'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park” - Larry the Cable Guy.

Keogh Park– Tonight marks the final game of the regular season for the Hurtin' Units and we will be the first team to finish the 2024 season. This will be the last week for most of the teams, I believe there are still 3 makeup games next week, but this is the final week of the 2024 schedule. I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like the season just flew by, 24 games in a flash.

For the Units it's been another rough season (the highs and lows of a team), we had some highs (not many) and some lows. We were missing guys throughout the season, we lost a player to injury and picked up a positive replacement (similar to getting Roman last season) in Rick H., our rogue bat went missing twice, we lost a lot of close games, we never had 2 back to back wins, we never scored more have 16 runs in any game. We never got down or angry about losing. In fact, we joke about it. It is not fun to lose, but there is comfort in knowing that the playoffs are about to begin and we get a new canvas to paint a different picture.

As many of you know I blame Resmondo (the red bat) for our batting deficiencies, I still believe it has an evil spirit attached to it and the spirit has been controlling Resmondo and the other bats in our bag. Over the last weekend, I regripped Resmondo and then I smudged the bats with a white sage and Dragon Blood Palo Santo Sticks, “evil spirits be gone”, here's hoping for a big night of batting. It would be great to have a game where we put some runs on the scoreboard. A tiger can't change its stripes, but a bat can change its grip. As luck would have it, the changing of the grip and smudging of the bats would yield the Unit's highest run production of the season. 17 runs is the most the Units have scored, in a single game, all season.

After the game last night, Dave C asked me how excited I was. I replied “It was just another win”, but it was not. I told David I didn't care where we finished in the standings, and this is true, but winning our final game of the season, scoring the most runs we have scored all season, going back to the Legion for pizza, beer and to see Julie T is the high note we needed going into the playoffs.

I have to say I'm enjoying this team, I love the characters that make up the squad this season. We have a great mix of older and younger players, and there are 5 rookies on our team (how many people knew that piece of trivia) and it took some time for them to acclimate to the way our league runs. The rookies have taken to the T.O.T league and I would think that most will come back next season. Over the last several weeks, some of the players, that we missed earlier in the season, have started playing more and I have noticed the stability in our defence and our offence. I'm looking forward to what we can do with the complete lineup. The regular season is over, it's in our rear-view mirror, we can only look forward to the 2024 playoffs. I believe the Hurtin' Units could be a Dark Horse in this year's playoffs.

Let's Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer... Let's not.

The weather for this 7:00 pm game was hot, 28 degrees at game time and the sun was in the eyes of the right fielders at the start. At game time the Units had 10 players dressed in dirty white shirts, Cookie and Jamie were the only missing bodies for this game. The scorekeeper was Robert J., and Roman was the umpire.

I was going to go into details about the game, but I think I have babbled on long enough in this post. I'll include the score sheet and put this post to bed. You know what they say “ A picture is worth a thousand words”. This post is actually 792 words, but all the pictures will make it quite long.

The schedule is out for the playoffs, but not all the team positions have been decided, there is still a chance the Units could move up a spot. It doesn't matter where we finish, I just hope for a good playoff.