Saturday, August 18, 2012

HURTIN' UNITS BATS ARE JINXED.

HURTIN' UNITS VS. THE BEER BROTHERS.

Game # 21- August 15, 2012

Hurtin' Units lose 13-1

Team Record 7-13-1 

Keogh Park - It was as low as we could get in terms of scoring runs. A shut out was only one out away...

It's obvious to me, and if it's obvious to me, it must be obvious to the other Hurtin' Units players and if it's obvious to the other Hurtin' Units players, it must be obvious to the entire T.O.T league...the Hurtin' Units bats have a hex or a jinx or a curse on them.  What else could it possibly be? These bats don't even work for the subs that come out play with us. In this game we had 3 subs, each one went 1 for 3.

Now don't get me wrong, most of the Hurtin' Units lineup were hitting the ball, some were hitting the ball with great power, but with all this solid contact, it seemed like easy pickings for the Beer Bros outfielders who always seemed to be positioned in the right location.

This is not exclusive to the Beer Bros outfielders, over the last 5 or 6 games the outfielders and the infielders, of the teams we've played, have caught a seasons worth of pop flies, line drives and fly balls off the Hurtin' Unit bats. In this game against the Beer Bros, we had players on base 18 times and only scored a single run. It time for this activity to cease.


I have a friend who is a psychic. This week I was talking to her through telepathy, (just kidding about the telepathy, I was talkin' on the phone), and we got on to the topic of the Hurtin' Units team batting woes. The first thing she said was that our bats carry the energies of all the players and all the teams that have used these bats in the past. These energies are blocking the batting energy for the current players using these bats. 

In 2010, Mike and I signed up as captains, we were given the set of bats we still carry. I'm not even sure who had these bats before us, but I'm thinking it was the RECYCLED, a team from the past. I was just reminded of an incident involving one of the RECYCLED captains. If you want to know the tale, I've included it at the bottom of the page, TALES of the GRAY DOT- NOBODY REALLY NOSES.  This set of bats has been around for quite some time, can you imagine how many hands have transferred their energies on to these bats, maybe the former captain's energy still lingers. 

At Tuesday's game a few of the Hurtin' Units players were joking around saying we needed some chicken bones to tap on the bats to bring them around, Gord suggested a bucket of KFC. My thought was KFC might be a little greasy and the bats might fly out of our hands, that's all we need, another injury.



Smudging

My friend the  psychic informs me that the bats must be cleansed or smudged, as she says, to remove the energies inhibiting the flow new energy from this seasons Hurtin' Unit players. There are several ways of smudging our bats and I will have our bats cleansed (smudged) and ready to go for our next game. This is long over do. I Googled smudging and found it to be very interesting stuff.  I don't know why I didn't realize this before.




Beer Bros score sheet.





The weather for this game was a little bit damp. Around 5:30pm a huge thunderstorm rolled through town, dumping a lot of rain. The storm pasted through and the 7:00pm game was a go, but the outfield was still quite wet. In our game, there was still a light fog lingering around and everytime the ball came back to the infield it was soaked. Gord and Clayton, who both where glasses, were fogging (I said fogging up) up everytime they were on the diamond. 

At game time we had 6, yes 6, of our own players, and we called for 3 subs on the night. Al was running late and Doug Dwyer played an inning with us. Rob, Mark, Davey, Jamie and Anicete were all unable to make this game. Thanks to the subs who helped us out. Jerry M., Simon S., Cliff T., and Doug D. for an inning.



Boxscore:          1     2      3      4      5      6      7       Total 

Hurtin' Units      0      0      0      0      0      0      1          1     

Beer Bros.         2      2      1      1      0      3      4          13   

It was as low as we could get in terms of scoring runs. A shut out was only one out away...

I don't recall ever seeing a shut out in this league, I'm sure it has probably happened, but not on my watch. And certainly not against the Hurtin' Units. This game was within reach almost the whole night, but we just couldn't bring the hits together, I mentioned earlier we had 18 base runners. 18!!!  Hence the reason to smudge our bats. 

We were the home team in this game with an 8:15pm start time.

The Beer Bros didn't kick us around all that badly. When you look at the boxscore there was never a blow out inning, 4 runs was the most they scored in an inning and by the time these came in the game was out of reach.  

Since there was not a lot to talk about on the Hurtin' Units side, I will spare you all the boring details about the game. I will tell you about the 1 run we did score. It was the bottom of the 7th inning, Jerry M. (sub) lead off with a base on balls.The next batter Cliff T. (sub) got out on a ground ball, but advanced Jerry to second on the play, 1 out runner on second.

The next batter was Simon S. (also a sub), he got out on a ground ball and Jerry could not advance, 2 out , runner still on second. I (Jimmer, not a sub) was the next batter, I let the first pitch go by for a strike, the next pitch I hit solidly to left field, almost right at the fielder, I started running, but pulled up thinking the fielder was going to catch the ball. I was wrong, the ball sailed over the fielder's head and to the warning track, I started running again and stopped at second base with a double, Jerry M. came around to score the Hurtin' Units only run of this game.

The next batter was Gord, he hit a single advancing me to third, the following batter was Clayton who got out, not sure if it was his strike out, 3 out that's the game. Did I mention that for the first time that I can remember, Clayton struck out... watching the third strike hit the board.

It was as low as we could get in terms of scoring runs. A shut out was only one out away...


Hurtin' Units game sheet.







 















TALES OF THE GRAY DOT

 NOBODY REALLY NOSE-  A TEAM "RECYCLED" CAPTAIN STORY


It was a warm August evening at Coventry Park, the T.O.T August Tournament was under way, Team Extreme had just taken the field and Rob Farah ( yes, the same guy from the championship Grisslies team) was throwing his warm up pitches.

The infield players were throwing the ball around the infield, 3rd toSS to 2nd and then, as if in slow motion the second baseman named Jimmer threw the ball toward first base, but the first baseman was looking toward homeplate and didn't realize the throw was coming. Other players on the field screamed his name, but it was too late... Darren (Lefty) Hall turned at the last second only to be struck square on the nose, he went down in a heap...

Lefty got to his hands and knees, blood was pouring out of his nose like a drain plug hole when changing your oil, someone ran for ice, someone grabbed a towel, things were a little scary for the next couple of minutes. After things had calmed down, Lefty got to his feet and walked off the field, he would not play this again on this night...

Lefty did play the next game of the tournament with a broken nose and a couple of developing black eyes. Lefty was advised not to play on the Sunday... He never played again that weekend. What exactly Darren was looking at down at home plate, nobody really knows...Another tale of the Gray Dot.





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