Unicorns slay Dragons for second season victory

Since their first win of the year, the Unicorns of the Apocalypse have been involved in many fierce encounters with a variety of foes.

*This is the final part of a 3-day blog series that catches fans up with the Unicorns' progress over the last few weeks.

Foe #3: Dragons

Three Mondays ago, the Unicorns of the Apocalypse took the field not knowing what to expect from their opponents, the Dragons.  Dubbed "The Series of Mythical Beasts" or "Battle of Mythical Creatures" by non-believers, the Unicorns were in for their most gruesome battle yet.

The series didn't start out so well, as the Unicorns saw their leadoff man, and one of their best hitters, strike out, their two-hole hitter fly out, and then, following a single, saw the final out made on a fielder's choice.  After the first was over, though, the Unicorns polished off their horns and charged, scoring nine runs highlighted by a grand slam by Magi-Carp and a solo shot by Greaver.  They didn't stop in the third either, as Ryan Cahill blasted his own homerun and the bottom of the batting order, lead by returning VBC Softball elite Romeo Villanueva, all got on base so that the top of the order could bring them all home.  For two consecutive innings, the batting order had been cycled through once.

Every 'corn was merciless over those innings, but the Dragons were not going to go down without launching their own huge balls of fire.  When the smoke cleared, the Dragons outlasted the Unicorns and won 19 to 17.

Enraged, the Unicorns took the field again only to use their trump card: nuclear fusion.  Picking up right where they left off, the Unicorns scored four in the first.  The Dragons responded with scoring four of their own to tie it, but in the end the radiation was just too much for them to stand--the Unicorns stood victorious for the second time this season, besting their foes 12 to 7.

The series was easily the greatest series played in the history of the Unicorns of the Apocalypse.  Sometimes their enemies are clearly in the wrong league, but the Dragons, a foe truly worthy of tying with the Unicorns, showed that they, too, belong in Virginia Beach's Duffer league.

Wins: 2

Ties: 1

Losses: Who cares!?  We've won 2 and tied 1!  Neigh!

Team Leaders

Unicorns do not eat Chinese

Since their first win of the year, the Unicorns of the Apocalypse have been involved in many fierce encounters with a variety of foes.

*This is part 2 of a 3-day blog series that catches fans up with the Unicorns' progress over the last few weeks.

Foe #2: P.F. Chang's Warriors

Many players on the Unicorns of the Apocalypse, when in their human form, love Chinese food.  When in their Unicorn form, they can eat Chinese food, but they cannot, however, eat Asian Fusion food.  In fact, they choke on it pretty hard.  Though VBC Softball has faced P.F. Chang's Warriors many times in the past, both as the Unicorns and as The Legion of Fistpumping Turtles, they always seem to come out winless (e.g., last year).  This year was no different.  "Must be some kind of allergy," coach Greg Weaver explained, "and I know a thing or two about allergies."

Due to the absence of many of the Unicorns (likely due to their fear of many things fusion), the first game was open to the slaughter rule.  Luckily, though, long-time colleague of a couple 'corns, Scherry McCartney, showed up to play first base and thus canceled said rule in the second game, making the teams play the required five innings and therefore extending the torture of being utterly ripped apart.  McCartney, who brought with her two whom would cheer, would go 0-2 with a walk and a run in the series.  Mentionable highlights of the second game include homeruns by the Weaver brothers, but ultimately, though they batted an MLB-excellent 14 for 31 (.452), they could not string together their hits to counteract the potent offense of the Warriors.

Team Leaders (week of May 14th)

Unicorns hold on to Cobras

Since their first win of the year, the Unicorns of the Apocalypse have been involved in many fierce encounters with a variety of foes.

*This is part 1 of a 3-day blog series that catches fans up with the Unicorns' progress over the last few weeks.

Foe #1: Busch Cobras

The Unicorn can be both the most fragile of creatures and the fiercest of creatures.  Typically, the Unicorns of the Apocalypse, while inherently having a nature that can effectively end the world at any given moment, start out a two-game series as the former and end with the latter.  Example: Coming off of a 12-run win, the Unicorns mustered a total of two hits in the first two innings this, their next game, and came out with only four runs.  Their M.O., apparently, is to lead teams in to make them think they are just fragile little 'corns (thus the allowance of 11 runs in the first inning and VBC Softball veteran Joanna Niles suffering a strained oblique while in the field in the bottom of the 1st) until they unleash their nuclear power, as evidenced by their 5-run first inning in the second game.  Reigning MVPs Kevin "Magi-Carp" Carpenter and Elisabeth Edge returned to add to the fallout, allowing the Unicorns to spit out the venom that caused their first loss and ending their match with the Cobras in a draw.

Wins: 1
Losses: 2
Ties: 1

Go, Unicorns!

Team Leaders (week of May 7th)

The Rapture is finally upon us--Unicorns WIN!!!

A little before 9pm on Monday night, high above field #1 at Red Mill Park, clouds parted and a vision appeared.

Yes, you're seeing that correctly.  Jesus himself reappeared atop a majestic Unicorn.  Though our jerseys may show a midnight black 'corn cackle-neighing in the foreground of an atomic blast, this unicorn was a sure sign of The Rapture--the apocalypse of all apocalypses.  And it could only have come as a result of the most unlikely turn of events.

Read carefully, True Believers: The Unicorns won.

And not only did they win once, their potent offense kept the other team on their toes for the other game.

Unicorns' Inaugural Year Ends with Low Runs but High Spirits

            “We didn’t expect this season to be easy, but we sure didn’t expect this record,” Skipper Greg Weaver commented after the Unicorns fell in their last two games to end the season 0-14.  “Then again, it’s not a surprising outcome, us being VBC and all.  That’s just how we roll.”

            It was baffling to the Unicorns that the game went as poorly as it did, though.  Essentially, the Carroll Truckers were just hitting it exactly where the Unicorns weren’t—there weren’t an usual number of errors made.  Yet, somehow, the Unicorns lost the first game 28-2, and lost the second game (y=|X|+28)-1, where Y is a number greater than the Truckers’ run total in the first game and X is an unknown variable approaching infinite. 

The dreaded base-on-balls wasn’t even a harsh factor in the games.  B-Weave posted only five walks in the first game.  That number was his second best all season.  But, he gave up 28 hits.  While that total is cringe-inducing, the second game was even worse—so much so, in fact, that the run total gave the skipper temporary memory loss while he was in the field, resulting in a lack of any records of MagiCarp’s pitching. 

To put the strangeness in perspective, the Truckers, the team that placed third, outhit the second-place team at a ratio of 2.5 to 1.  The numbers were closer to the first-place team: 19 for the first game and 27 for the second versus 28 and z=|X|, where z has an error margin of approximately 5.  The first-place team in the division was the one that was made up of Krakens.  In short, the games were simply unbelievable.  Interviewing the Unicorns led to the following possible explanations:

Mosquitoes Abound, Malaria Stifles Unicorns

Greg "Greaver" Weaver starts his stride...

     Last Monday was VBC Softball veteran Larry Strait's birthday and last day before going back to Iraq, and he was determined to play as hard as he could to max out his stats and try to get his first win with any VBC team he has been on.  According to him, he has always been mysteriously absent the days that VBCers have won games.

     The game didn't start off well.  The first inning retired the Unicorns in order, and the second inning had ended with only a single by "Hard 'A'" Lanah Stafford.  Meanwhile, the Unicorns' foes, the LC Stars, drew an uncharacteristic eight walks off of Bobby Weaver and drove in nine runs.  Then, for a moment, Unicorn magic happened.

Unicorns, Writers Black Out

The Unicorns were hurt so much by the powers of the
Kraken that it continued to ail them a week later.

     All of the feel-good from the stellar "all-girl-and-Romeo" defense was put to rest two Mondays ago as the Unicorns raced the number two lead in the division, the Renegades.

Game 1
Top of the 1st: F1, 6-3, F7.
Mid 1st: "Wait, we already batted?" - Anonymous, heard from the dugout
Bottom 1st: First four batters score.