Not live enough to beat the Magical Flying Unicorns.

It was opening day this past Tuesday at Grant Park for 16 inch softball and the Magical Flying Unicorns were dressed to the pink for our game against Too Live Crew. We immediately were dealt a cruel blow when the umpire that cost us the championship two years ago started setting the bags for field #11. Even the Legend hung his head.

The umpire bored Pitch and T-Bear (by the way click on the pretty blue links over T-Bear's name and see something cool and different each time) with every rule in the book including his obscure favorite “if there is an overthrow the runner gets however many free bases that I feel like” at the pre-game conference. The shock of having this horrible ump clearly threw the Unicorns who gave up three unearned runs in the first inning.

Events turned even bleaker as the Unicorns came within 2 runs and had the bases loaded with nobody out. We were unable to capitalize as new Unicorn Juice popped up in his debut at bat. He would prove to be a fresher drink the next time the same opportunity arose.

Pitch and the defense stiffened as Too Live Crew went the next two innings with no runs, no hits, and three strikeouts. Pitch really had the splitter working and made Too Live Crew too confused to even put the ball in play. It was too bad from a Too Live Crew perspective.

Smores saw the way that the pitcher spoiled the Juice on his debut and he was not going to follow suit in his premier at bat. Smores smacked the ball so hard that when the ball was returned it actually resembled a smore. It was not a pretty smore though. It looked like one of the ones where the marshmellow roaster burns his marshmellow and no one wants it so they throw it in the fire. That is what the ball looked like, or maybe T-Bear already had too many tugs of Ole Grandad from his new unicorn flask (more on that later).

T-Bear followed with another home run, although the ball did not turn into a gross smore, and this run turned out to be the game winning RBI. The game winning RBI was a stat that major league baseball used to keep track of back in the 80s for about a year or two until they discarded it for some reason. It is RBI that the winning team makes where it gains the lead and never relinquishes it. We took the lead 4-3 and we would never look back. Well, actually, we did look back a couple of times, but we still won.

The game winning RBI will only be mentioned in this blog when T-Bear hits the game winning RBI. If someone else hits the game winning RBI then they can start their own blog and write about it if they want.

After the Too Live Crew actually scored an earned run, we had a ball game as it was 5-4 after Legend had plated a run. What followed was the inning that deadened Too Live Crew. It was the inning they were not live enough as Juice stains on their crew put them out of their misery.

Many times in baseball there are key at bats that only the seasoned aficionados appreciate and often times do not make the ESPN highlights or even many a drunk blogging coaches write up. However, these moments are not missed by this drunk blogging coach. Many at work today are talking about Juice’s grand slam as well they should. It put the game away. However, the key at bat in the inning was not the home run, but the nifty walk by Kangeroo. In at bat that would have made her countrymen Ichiro Suzuki proud (hey wait Ichiro is Japanese and Paige is Korean (hey wait aren’t all Asians the same anyways (hey wait why are there so many parentheses here (hey wait, why does he keep repeating “hey wait" (hey wait is there not a rule in Strunk and White’s Element of Style forbidding multiple parentheses in a sentence? (yes, I have a parentheses fetish)))))).

Where was I, oh yea, Kangeroo and her at bat. With T-bear at first, Kangeroo actually hopped and swung at the same time at the first pitch. It looked like she was going to be an easy out with a pitcher's count of 1-2. She obviously was trying to fit into her nickname by hopping and swinging at the same time. Then, in an incredible display of nerves reminiscent of her countrymen Ichiro (see the oceans of parentheses above) she drew a walk. Turk followed with a single and Pitch drew another walk plating T-Bear

This sequence set up the clincher that put Too Live Crew in their coffin. Juice took the first pitch and hit the ball into Lake Michigan. In one game two softball were lost by our new Unicorns. Congrats on the home runs by the new Unicorns.

Pitch put the sleeper move on Too Live Crew and they stopped breathing as they could only muster enough life to score one more earned run as we ended up winning 10-5. Pitch gets career softball win 549 with a career high 6 Ks. She is a combination of Jake Peavy with Jamie Moyer. She just keeps going like Moyer and strikes everyone out like Peavy. Her ERA for the season is a minuscule 2.57.

Another highlight of the game was the hard hitting Jackie Ounicorn. I think the new nickname is working magic on her psyche as since she is now the first lady of unicorns she needs to start hitting like one. I think her problem last year was she was watching Legend too much and thought that since he has a penchant for fouling out and he is a self proclaimed "legend" then she needs to emulate him. Fortunately, through a new nickname she was able to overcome this problem. T-Bear is a master of the psychology of the game.

It was great to see elder Unicorn statesmen Mr. Clean. We definitely missed Mr. Brady, but even though he is gone he is not forgotten. In fact, a plan for visiting our beloved former star in Trinidad and Tobogo has been hatched. It was hatched over Ole Grandad and pitchers at Cactus, where all good ideas begin.

Kudos go out to Smores who was drinking a water bottle and was trying to get out of there sober. Newbies sometimes do dumb things, but with a tiny bit of twisting of the arm by Legend he shelved the bottle of evian for a more unicorn appropriate beverage and was there till the last beer was finished at Grant Park. Kudos also goes out to Jackie O for being the last female standing. There is a correlation between drinking and the next week’s performance, so I think Jackie and Smores will be batting up in the order next weekend after a stellar performance from their bats and their liver.

Thanks to Squirrel and the Bassmaster for subbing this week. The Bassmaster was true to her name as she caught everything but an actual bass over at first base. Had Lake Michigan been a little closer she probably would have even caught one of those too just for the halibut.

Opening day is also a great time to debut new Unicorn trinkets. T-Bear toasted the win with a new Unicorn flask and a swig (or three or four) of his whiskey of preference Old Grandad. Legend also brought out a new Unicorn bed spread. Unfortunately, I think it had a few gross stains and some DNA from his roommates, but the unicorn looked cool.

Here is the line from the game: (for those wondering who these beautiful pink men and women are click here)

T-Bear 3-4 .750 avg 1 2B 1 1B 1HR 1RBI 3 R

Kangeroo 2-3 .666 avg 21B 1BB 1 R

El Turk 3-4 .750 avg 3 1B 1 R 1RBI

Pitch 1-3 .333avg 1 1B 1BB 1RBI 1R

Pitching line 7 IP 2 ER 6 K W ERA 3.05

Juice 2-4 .5001B 1HR 4RBI 2 R

Bassmaster 0-4

Legend 3-4 .750 1 RBI

Jackie O Unicorn 1-3 .333 avg 1 R

Smores 1-2 .500 1 HR 2RBI 1 R

Big Tuna 0-1

Squirrel 0-2

Unicorn leaders:

Home runs

T-Bear – 1

Smores – 1

Juice - 1

8 unicorns tied with 0

RBI leaders –

Juice – 4

Smores – 2

T-Bear – 1

El Turk – 1

Pitch – 1

Legend – 1

6 men and women in pink tied with 0

Average leaders –

T-Bear .750

El Turk .750

Legend .750

Kangeroo .666 (aahhhhh)

Juice - .500

Smores - .500

Jackie Ounicorn - .333

Pitch - .333

Runs scored –

T-Bear – 3

Juice – 2

Pitch, Kangeroo, Turk, Smores, Jackie – 1

Steals –

11 pinks tied with 0

Game winning RBI

T-Bear 1

It is always a sad sight to see the blue cooler disappearing into the Chicago night. Rejoice as it will return next week. Till then.

Coach T-Bear

Jr.'s birthday cake derails the Unicorns

In case you did not hear the story, a fellow server at Big Bowl on Monday night had a birthday. Paige graciously brought an incredible ice cream cake from Jewel. Unbeknown to Ichiro, Jr. (the birthday boy) had a tooth ache and could not completely appreciate the delicacy. This is where coach T-Bear stepped in and generously donated his bottomless stomach and picked up the slack for Jr. and the rest of the staff and ate half the cake by himself.

There is an old saying in baseball that a team takes on the personality of it's coach and this was definitely evident in the game yesterday. The Unicorns played collectively as if they were in a food coma. The unicorns looked like they would rather be napping on a couch than playing ball yesterday.

Confusion reigned from the beginning as we were playing a double header at field 3, then a triple header at Wrigley Field, then half a game at field 3 and the other half at field 10, then four innings at Fenway Park in Boston and then getting on a concord jet back to Chicago to play the final 3 innnings at field 3. The situation was completely fluid and changing by the hour. Finally, they settled on a single game at field 10 and an email was sent that no one got at 5:29 pm. Fortunately, T-Bear had to relieve himself of some of Jr.'s cake and had to take a dump before the game and stumbled upon the Unicorns "in the know" at field 10 and was able to correspond to other in the dark ones of the change. Somehow, in the confusion, JIT got an email completely different than anyone else that said "come two hours late and help finish beer." Sorry about the craziness JIT. I think the email that no one got also said "let's look alive out there." We definitely did not get that memo.

Since we were playing an undefeated team, I was hoping that they might be rusty too for not having played for a month and we could surprise them early. Well, we did surprise them early by really sucking. We surprised them to the tune of four gift runs in the first thanks to four errors by our comatose defense. Another gift run was given in the next inning thanks to Legend who actually pulled a reclining comfy chair to 3B and could not unrecline in time and beat a runner to the bag who had three times the space to make up. Was Legend secretly at Big Bowl last night and helping me eat that cake?

Ironically, the best player in the field last night was the one directly responsible for our collective slumber. Paige played like a star at 2B. Mary also played well. She was not as sharp as we are used too, but still pitched good enough to win on a team that could hit worth a damn. We also surprised CNA by trying to hit high pitch after high pitch and grounding out and popping out all game. I put myself at 9th place because I thought having me near Habby would pay big benefits as we have reliably got on base. Not tonight, as king sleepy grounded out to 2nd, hit a ball Shaquille O'Neal would have had trouble with for the only Unicorn RBI, and popped out his last time only to be miraculously not pop out as somehow the ball landed. The pop out would have been the last out of the game. I gave CNA a 20$ gift to make an error or not try and catch a ball by me if it was going to be the last out. This is because I cry when I make the last out and did not want to make a fool out of myself in front of the team (at least anymore than I already have). This greasing of CNA by the Coach allowed me to reach 1st and allowed a more mature person to make the last out.

It was good to see Mr. Brady starting his usual shenanigans last night. We know with him that once he starts thing just snowball. Big Red and Legend will be making out by next week, just you wait. Teams playing us in the future have taken notice of our poor performance last night. Their message to the Unicorns is let Coach T-Bear eat cake.

Unicorns lose 6-5 and T-Bear hits the Old Grandad with ugly results

I was thinking about not writing anything this week because a softball team that can only muster up five runs is not worth my creative output. Actually, the real reason is I am incredibly hung over. However, as the iron fist that is a hangover slowly releases it's grip on my body and I begin to feel like myself again and funny thoughts and voices fill my head about last night's game I have no choice but to either let them continue to rattle around my mind or to release them here. Plus, I know Bauer would be sad, and I don't like to make our shining star sad.

It is clear that every male unicorn wishes to be just like Todd. Who would not want to be like our southpaw slugger? A beautiful wife, three cute sweet girls, a six figure salary, boyish good lucks and charm, penthouse condo on the 100th floor, huge office at work with leather seats. It is obvious that Todd's life is a dream. To top it off he is the star of the championship Oz park volley ball team. All male unicorns looked on in envy at Todd's facebook pics as he was beaming after his triumph leading his volleyball team to victory.

The reason I bring this up is that this fact speaks volumes for some of the play last night and some of the after game festivities. For instance a fly ball was hit to Turk that normally the big guy corals with ease. On this day though instead of catching it, Turk decided to be like Todd and he did a perfect set of the ball trying to imitate the Oz park champion. Turk then shook his head in disbelief not because he missed the catch, but because Todd missed the spike on his perfect set. Later in the game a somewhat easy pop fly was hit to yours truly and instead of catching it I did the same thing and once again Brady missed the spike. Turk and I were in bewilderment wondering how Todd's team could have won with two missed spikes like that. After that inning Todd took both me and Turk aside. He gave us a grilling. He told us that we are playing softball here and you two losers will never be like me. Well, naturally, we were both crushed.

In fact, I was so sad I was just glad my Dad was there. I went over and had a cry on his shoulder. Then my dad said, "I have just the thing for you son." Then with a devilish grin he pulled out a blue fuel bottle with Old Grandad whiskey in it. This was just the pacifier I needed to stop crying and I suckled on this the rest of the night to cure the crushing realism that I was not Todd. Then, with an equally devilish grin, my dad's sidekick, Pawel, pointed to the magical blue cooler where a tall boy of Polish beer was waiting for me. Many psychologists say you cannot drink your troubles away, but I call horse crap as I and the Unicorns are living proof that you can.

I did make amends for my horrible miss plays at short by running up on a little pop and jumping for it. Somehow my 38 year old body spun around like I was 21 again and was able to right myself and fire to first for the double play. It was my parachute roll, and I dedicate that to my dear departed Uncle Richard who was an Air Force Veteran. One time camping with my Uncle he fell down a small rock face and flipped completely over and on his back. Obviously concerned, we rushed to him to see if he was alright. He smiled and said he was fine and that it was his parachute roll.

What can I say about Mary that I have not already said. She rocks. She gave up two earned runs last night. That is freaking awesome. The rest scored on errors. Despite the errors, our defense as stout. Turk finally realized we were playing softball and made some nice catches and JIT was fantastic at first. Our offense lost the game. I have not played in many softball games where five runs won it. I think people are putting too much pressure on themselves to succeed to match or better what we did last year. Who gives a crap if we make the playoffs. What is important is we have a great time and enjoy each other's company. I for one look forward to each Tuesday laying with each and every one of you and could really care less if we win. Winning is more fun, but I have no problem losing with this bunch (tears are streaming down my cheek).

After the beer was gone we made the epic trip to Cactus, and I really think someone else should take over as my memory is rather fuzzy at this point as my Old Grandad was having his way with me. I remember food, beer, shots, Pawel playing pool, Old Grandad, and Crash saying my Dad was adorable. All I know is that my Old Grandad was anything but adorable. We then hit another bar. What bar that is I have no idea. All I remember from this unknown unnamed bar is that Paige and Javi with Javi's brother or some relative (all I am certain here was that it was not his Old Grandad) magically appeared into my consciousness and then isappeared as they put my drunken self in a cab and home.

I woke up this morning with many questions. One thing I am sure of is that despite all my hopes and dreams I am not Todd, and I am okay with that. I am just your lovable, fun loving, witty, sometimes too much Old Grandad drinking, Chicago Adventure traveler (hey have you guys clicked on my website today?), error prone shortstop, slightly twisted, happy T-Bear.

Unicorns win 18-10

There were some snickers and jokes about the quantity of long emails sent by yours truly last night. Well, you have not seen anything yet until you have read the weekly recap. Enjoy!!!!!!!

Mary (aka cy young mary, or pitch) recorded career softball win 545 last night adding on to her already stellar hall of fame softball career. The only bump in the road in this game for Pitch was due to too many emails on my part. She got confused about the new players on the team. She knew there was a new first baseman, and she also knew that I had recruited an Asian girl from the hinterland of northern South Korea that had a nickname borrowed from a famous Asian athlete. She thought that the new Asian girl's nickname was Yao Ming and not Ichiro and thought she was playing first base. My bad on that one. Sometimes I pound you guys with so much information that it is easy to misremember. Thinking that our first baseman was a 7 foot Asian, Mary kept making awesome plays, twirling and throwing the ball 7 feet in the air over poor JIT's head. I finally realized what was going on and yelled at Pitch saying, "for chrissakes Pitch, it is Ichiro not Yao and anyways it is JIT at 1B." Her face cleared like she had just figured out the cure for cancer. Next inning she went out and stabbed two line shots destined for center field and delivered them perfectly to JIT's glove the way we veterans have seen a thousand times.

If we needed proof of how valuable Mary is to the team, the Cobra's showed this in the first inning as their pitcher was the worst excuse for a softball pitcher I have ever seen. Unicorns are not known for their patience at the plate, but these balls were unhittable. There was no pattern to them either. She would deliver one three feet from the plate, then the next would almost hit the umpire, then the next would be on a line drive with absolutely no arc. In fact, the word arc was not in her vocabulary. She was the Rick Ankiel of Grant Park softball. May be after some time in the minors she will emerge as a slugging center fielder. After spotting the Unicorns five runs, they put a guy in who could actually find the strike zone. Five runs and no outs for their starting pitcher = an ERA of infinity.

Speaking of the Cobra's, if Marie did not hate me, I would petition the league for a new name for them. The Garter snakes would be a good one since they are the most impotent of all the snakes in the snake world. The douche bags would also do. They had one jerk on 3rd base that thought he joined a softball/hockey league and kept checking unicorns in the corner rounding 3rd. They also had one really intense dude that almost got thrown out of the game for being such an ass to the ump. In fact, their coach and one of their players apologized for their behavior after the game.

Not only were the Garter snakes impotent at the plate, but their outfield positioning was the worst I have ever seen. Someone said they had some big gaps out there after the game, and I questioned the word gap because gap implies space between two objects. I looked out into right field and saw the Pacific ocean. Too bad Mr. Brady was not at the game to exploit that defense as he would have gone 4-4 with at least three homers.

My favorite play of the game came with me on second and Pitch at the plate. Seeing a weak hitting girl up the defense sauntered all the way into the infield. I thought they might actually hold hands with the infield for a second. The ump told the outfielders that they must all be on the grass. I told the ump that was okay. I said we liked them where they were. Mary cranked one way over their heads clearing the bases with a big multiple RBI double. Later in the inning, Ichiro induced a key walk with two outs that really opened the flood gates. Habby followed by hitting the ball into the ocean in right and ran around the bases twice before one of the fielders got to the ball. This inning broke open a close 9-6 game to an 18-6 affair.

Speaking of home runs, Habby, T-Bear, and Turk all are tied for the team lead in that category with 1 a piece. Too bad Karch Kiraly (aka Mr. Brady) was accumulating to his spike and set total instead of getting an early lead in the home run category for our team. T-Bear was about to take the HR lead in the bottom of the 6th when fate got in his way. Habby, fearing that I was going to over take him in that category, purposely lined the ball as hard as he could into the mitt of the second basewoman. Then on his way back to the sidelines I saw him whisper something to agent Bauer and give her something. I was not sure what was said or given until later. Watching a replay of the game on Youtube I kept rewinding and focusing in on this part of the game until I could clearly see Habby mouth the words "foul out" to Crystal and I also could see him slip her a twenty. This explains why Bauer fouled out as I knew she could not do this on her own accord. These two outs ended the inning and denied your lovable coach a 2nd dinger.

Thank you Nate for filling in at 3rd base. He contributed with a hit and a couple of force outs at third. He also contributed by giving the coach a couple of after game smokes. It is very difficult to come in cold and play 16' softball. Speaking of cold, I really admired the after game stamina displayed by our sub. For some reason, Nate only showed up in a tank top and G-string. I think when I told him our team was the Magical Flying Unicorns and we wear pink that he was subbing for some gay near nudist softball team, so he dressed accordingly. Most players would have gotten the hell out of there with that wardrobe (or lack thereof) ASAP. Not Nate though, as he hung on to the bitter end. It must be his Rocky Mountain upbringing drinking Coors while swimming in mountain lakes that gives him the endurance to the cold.

I was really proud of the after game attendance as once again even without Legend and Mr. Brady we had a decent size contingent to be the last team in Grant Park drinking. The sour apples tried, but being sour apples they only stay ripe for drinking for so long and could not outlast the Unicorns. I was also proud of the play of our new recruits. JIT played great at first base. In fact, she played so well that one of the other players hugged her and squeezed her after being rung up on a grounder that JIT corralled. So full of admiration was this opponent that he could not control himself and he wanted a handful of JIT (JIT stands for Junk In the Trunk for those not aware) and a handful of JIT is what he got. Crash had a nicely placed liner down the line that looked foul, but hit up some chalk. What is encouraging is JIT and T-Bear's Angels (Katie, Paige, and Jackie) will only get better.

Next week we go 2-0. Go Unicorns!!!!!!

Coach T-Bear