User:Beetricks/Cat on the Roof/Tucker Unsworth

Tucker Unsworth is a fictional character and the deuteragonist of the series Cat on the Roof. He is the second most important protagonist before Sicky Young (his future second wife and his son Griffin's stepmother). Occupation-wise, he is a retired baseball player, general manager, and team president. Associated with the New York Yankees until 2010, he played 17 seasons with them from 1985 to 2001.

Beginning his stint as a pitcher for the Yankees, he struggled to achieve much in the first two years of his career. Consequently in his third season (1987–88), his manager suggested he be a catcher, a position he initially tried out for. It proved a successful turn, as he would achieve eight All-Stars throughout his term. Though later in his career in the early-mid 1990s, Unsworth would frequently sustain facial injuries during practice as he increasingly overlooked safety measures over, as his teammate put it in his 2007 autobiography, "shits and giggles". Missing matches meant his career gradually declined, and his more interesting personal life would overshadow his lackluster performances. He underwent numerous facial corrective surgeries that received media attention for they made him look unrecognisable. To compensate for the injuries, he nominated to replace the outgoing general manager. He was selected in 1998, making him the youngest manager in the team's history.

After his team won the 2001 World Series, Unsworth announced his retirement as a player to focus on "guiding others to prosper". He was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2006 and has, by other characters, been hailed as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history. Meanwhile, at the age of 40, he was elected the team president during the 2004 season. He maintained a high profile despite his tumultuous downfall.

Early life, family and education
Stanley Tucker Unsworth was born on April 9, 1964, in a Roman Catholic family of the upper-middle class from Brooklyn to his father Richard "Dick" Head Unsworth (September 12, 1919 – March 30, 2008) of English, German, Scotch-Irish American and Polish descent and a Basque Spanish mother Esme King (born Maite del Rey; May 12, 1926 – August 4, 2012). He was the youngest child of the four they had—Richard "Rick" Head Jr. (b. 1949), Clayton (b. 1954), and Nicola "Nick" (b. 1960)—before they divorced when he was 4½ years old. To add to his family, he has three half siblings from his father's affairs and second marriage: love brother and sister Duncan (b. 1956) and Flora Bloom (b. 1963), and half-sister Amelia (b. 1970). His father won custody of his children, and remarried in early 1969.

Dick, a World War II veteran, poet and novelist, was often characterized by his overbearing masculinity, brash and profane style of writing and extravagant social life that made his reputation polarizing but respectable nonetheless. However, he was also remembered for his shortcomings as a father: in a 2010 memoir written by his daughter Nick, she recalls being neglected and him creating a toxic environment in the household for Clay to bully Tucker.

On the other side, Esme was born a great-granddaughter of gen 1.5 immigrants to Washington. Her family from the Basque Country settled in the United States sometime after 1835. As a young girl, she would alternate between the two regions. Exuding a warm and friendly attitude, Unsworth and her family spoke fondly of her at her funeral mass after thawing all past feuds instigated by her first husband. As a waitress in her younger years, colleagues described her as warm and bubbly. She would quit after marrying 27-year-old Dick in 1947, who (after constant war) finally wanted to settle in with a housewife. Years later, she grew bored of the occupation assigned to her, and teamed up with her older brother Marty (1924–1999) who recently received a doctorate in chemistry. The siblings would experiment in her kitchen and his laboratory he specially built in the basement when 'controlling' Dick was out of the house. After discovering her secret, Dick impeded her happiness to work with a pattern of cheating then instantly admitting to her that he did so. The last straw was Duncan, whom she allowed Dick to visit as they preferred to be separated. She filed for divorce in January 1959, although proceedings were cancelled as they reconciled months later. He begrudgingly accepted her career path as a food chemist when he saw women returning to work outside ahead of 1960. She bore her only daughter Nicola that year. And henceforth, she began taking her children outdoors to her newly-established workplace for her business partnership with Marty and a medium-sized food company. There, a new brand of the powdered energy drink was invented.

For Dick fathered a daughter with a mistress, Esme oversought the planning for her last child she promised to ever have with him in 1963: a son. She personally named him Stanley while his father suggested Tucker. Her name recommendation would end up being the son's legal first name, and his father's choice the middle. The couple were extremely unhappy by the time of his birth, and stayed married for four more years to raise Stan in his earliest childhood. Once Dick got custody of the children, he made an unwritten rule to refer to Stan by his middle name Tucker and its short version only. Any mention of 'Stan(ley)', the boy's father took offense to greatly.

Tucker was educated where he was raised, Brooklyn, NY, and attended Plain Paper High School. Teachers described him as being gregarious, sentimental, sporty and a "playful joker". He would hone on his skills as an athlete, having been inspired by his brother Rick who was then a much-decorated quarterback, and eventually felt the sport that fit his personality best was baseball. Tucker was also known to be a big fan of black and white films, American history and English literature. His favorite 19th-century author is Charlotte Brontë.

He graduated Plain Paper in 1982, and enrolled in Columbia University to major in media and journalism for three years. He completed his master's degree in 1986.

Melanie Fallon
Between 1988 and October 1989, he had broken up with at least six girlfriends. After a game for the 1989 World Series, a female artist, ex-cheerleader and student Jill Dolores Fallon, 19, was eager to have him as her muse. He described her in his 2007 memoir as having a distinct Estuary English and New England accent mixture that personally mesmerised him. He was invited over to her home studio next to her college campus, and he posed in reference photos (some in which he was completely nude) for a set of paintings. She exhibited the pieces to a few individuals, one of whom was her twin sister Melanie. While Melanie initially viewed them with contempt, the taste grew on her and she became interested enough to know more about the subject. She was delighted to know of his prestige as a catcher, given that baseball was her second favourite game behind American football.

At the request of her older twin sister, Melanie met Tucker face-to-face and began spending time with him. A common place where the three would meet is at a deciduous tree with a table set outside where Jill was staying with her domestic partner. While the couple had not a lot of similar interests, they quickly strengthened their relationship through successful dates and her watching him play in the audience. He proposed to marry her on mid-December 1989. The two wed two months later on February 23, 1990. Unsworth was 25, and Melanie (now Fallon-Unsworth) was 19. Together, they only have one children: a son named Griffin who was born on September 1992.

When the media bullied him for getting facial corrective surgery, Fallon-Unsworth defended him.

The marriage was tumultuous in reality, though the altercations were mostly kept private in fear that its wholesome image would shatter. 18 months after the birth of their son in 1994, the couple grew unhappy and Unsworth eventually temporarily moved out the family residence. He wanted to devote less time into fathering and more into his career (which was beginning to mar from his absence). He returned home when his son joined pre-school. His wife was disappointed than upset when hearing of his leave, but still forgave him for he arrived 'on time'. Another spurt of disagreement took place in late-2003 after Fallon-Unsworth learned about his frequent romantic affairs while he was away from home (which he was for 72 hours weekly). Unsworth pondered greatly about divorcing her for years, but received pushback from his mother Esme and his sister-in-law Jill every time.

While hiking with her cat Jerma on Thanksgiving that year, Fallon-Unsworth was trapped in a cavernous meteor, and ended up in a box that was shipping to Japan by accident. She was reported missing days after. Unsworth himself suspected that she only went outside to escape from him and the family residence forever, and stated that she lied about going out to deforest an evergreen tree for Christmas. When she was found and returned home by the police in May 2005 (season 1, ep. 22), he showed her divorce papers. The proceedings would take place from then (as it was depicted in "In Court", season 2, ep. 1) until it was finalised in January 2006 (season 2, ep. 11).

Jessica Young
By coincidence, they met in 2004. He was 40 and still legally married, while she was 22 and divorced. She proposed to marry him in 2007, and they later wed in 2010 (season 6). Given Young's PCOS diagnosis and shapeshifting ability, the couple have no children.

Romances and extramarital affairs
For most of his romantic life, he has been linked with at least six nameable women. Most of whom he met while he was still married, allegedly resulting numerous extramarital affairs. He has denied every single one of them.

At 20 years old, he was training to be a color commentator at ESPN during the 1984 Summer Olympics when 18-year-old gymnast Nicolle Harlow approached him live to prank the viewers after winning her gold medal. To the network's annoyance, he gave into the joke and was subsequently laid off the day after. With the firing, they both had enough spare time to find each other again and become instant soulmates. While not as chaotic as his first marriage, the relationship was nonetheless turbulent and physical intimacy was often misused as a solution for their problems. It became unstable after he pursued his career while Harlow fell pregnant with Tyler in 1987. He would never see the birth of his first son in January 1988, and was an absentee father. He left a final voicemail a day after his firstborn and swore to never return home, effectively terminating the relationship. From then until his son's 21st birthday in 2009, Unsworth had to pay $50,000 worth of child support.

According to his former work assistant Lucie Draper, he suffers from a sexual addiction. In the earlier seasons, tension between him and Draper is very apparent. They have implied, a few times, to having a nine-year affair from 1998 to 2007.

Stance on religion
He is an agnostic. He recalls losing faith in the Catholic Church a little while after he started dating Harlow in 1984. His then-girlfriend was an atheist, though she later returned to Protestantism.

Illness
He has a congenital heart defect. On top of that, he has high blood pressure.

He was also diagnosed with ADHD when he was 7.

Injuries and plastic surgery
In 1993, he was hit in the face by a ball during a practice for a game that was later canceled. The accident badly wounded the right side of his nostrils. Similar blows would happen in the next three years before he was urged to get corrective rhinoplasty by his team nurse. Subsequently, he would miss half a season in 1996.

Blindness
The final injury that would seal the deal of his blindness would be in 1997. A frustrated batter, with his identity an unsolved mystery, smashed his right eye socket and parts of his skull with a bat in an aggressive argument. The incident left the cornea severely bleeding and he was hospitalised half an hour later. For years until his retirement, he could only open his left eye. For that, he earned the nickname "Leftie".

Trivia

 * He hasn't taken Adderall since 2001.
 * Though he hates to admit it, he secretly likes video games.
 * He owns a baby blue Nintendo DS and a DSi.
 * He loooooves Flipnote Studio.
 * He likes to call his dick 'Frankie D.', because it is long and Franklin D. Roosevelt is his favorite historical president.
 * Although never shown (for obvious reasons), Frankie D. is depicted as an anthropomorphic companion that exclusively talks to Tucker in an older drawling New York accent much like his namesake.
 * "The NBA's OK, I guess?!?"
 * He hates it when you call baseball a dead sport.
 * "They Call Me Roosevelt" is not his favorite song about him, despite it playing many times between seasons 1–2.
 * He can spit a few bars. Notice how I said a few.
 * Speaking of Dunning-Kruger, he really likes his own remix to "Without Me".
 * According to a local community consensus, he has a bad taste in music. In fact his preferences are so bad, even Encore-enjoyer Griffin had to question why he was listening to Will Smith rap at one point. (season 1, episode 18)
 * He is ambidextrous.
 * His top 5 women (as of 2010):


 * 1) His second wife Jessica
 * 2) His mom
 * 3) His sister Nick
 * 4) His work buddy Lucie Draper
 * 5) Oprah


 * Despite his misogynistic and materialistic view of the world, Tucker is a moderate Democrat.
 * In-universe, he was voted as one of the top three of "25 Sexiest Men Alive" multiple times by Sheeple. He ranked # 3 in 1985 (inaugural); # 2 in 1988; # 1 in 1990.