Sponge Game

Many years ago, way before Lance Armstrong starting winning Tours De France and bicycle makers began stripping off every extra piece of equipment that might drag on the wind, back when Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman were known for their roles in “One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Electric Company”, respectively, back when you could get away wearing stripes with plaid together…

Well, back then, bicycles came with fenders. You know why? So, when you rode on wet pavement, you wouldn’t have this splatter streak up the back of your pants and shirt. Well, today was a bicycle fender kind of day on the Ultimate field. Particularly for people like Travis and Phil, who actually run hard. The field was very soggy and muddy. Actually, I suspect I may even have had the splatter marks since at one point when Kelly was marking me, she remarked “Wow, you’re muddy!”

I have a couple confessions both of which you could verify with my mom. One, I like to play in the mud, and two, I have worn stripes and plaid together before, probably with patches no less.

Today was a spongy game. green started off slow and the gold team of Phil, MattP, Brook, & Kelly got off to an early lead by navigating the mud holes more efficiently and making shorter throws and less cuts. The green team of Travis, Eric, Scott & Bill couldn’t seem to find their spacing very well, I threw 3-4 right in the mud where Scott informed me none of the rest of the team was running and we basically floundered around for a while before going on a small run in the 2nd half of the game and taking advantage of Travis’ speed, Eric’s reach, and Scott’s surprisingly quick defense.

“I’m getting to where my legs aren’t killing me every day after I play”, said Scott, spoken like a true Ultimate addict…er, uh…convert.

Well, BrianT, has come out this week, now Kelly. Geez, maybe Lindsay & Bob will show back up at some point. I haven’t read any news stories about a Chevy Impala being carjacked only to find it was being used as a bedroom or of any skullers in the Williamsburg area arrested in a bar fight with the William & Mary women’s hockey team so I’m guessing those two are alive, if not altogether well.

Great weather today…72 at game time, breezy but no where need the stiff winds that were being predicted. Heck, I even decided to have the egg salad. Don’t tell my van pool.

See you tomorrow.

By the way, Todd mentioned there may have been some “odious missteps” on the Ultimate Juke Box playlist. If you have some requests, I’ll see what I can do about including them.

Play nice everybody.

Blown Assignment

Unbelievable game on Tuesday. We went out to secure the field with a nice response of 10 players and were met by an Army NCO informing us the field would be off limits today due to helo ops. All this despite Lindsay’s charming overtures to dissuade him. He suggested we go play down on an alleged field next to the water.

After changing fields 37 times we landed down on the far SW lot of McNair. We actually played with one of the older discs in our collection because we were concerned we might throw one in the water. By the time we started we actually had 11 (seems like we can’t play without an odd number of late).

Now for those of you who have played Ultimate through a full calendar year you know that there are many weather elements that can make this game challenging. It started to get cold a couple weeks ago and we realized that frozen hands and discs aren’t always a good combination, wet fields and rain can sometimes be an adjustment though after playing on the cement field all summer that has generally been a welcome condition. And for those of you who haven’t played in the snow yet….well, just wait.

But the most challenging condition of all for Ultimate players is the wind. Tuesday we had 30 mile and hour winds gusting over on the point where we were playing and it made for at times comical attempts at pass completions (even for the Buzzards normally comical). “Low, flat, short” was the mantra some of the more knowledgeable of our players were repeating right before Brook or Matt C would flip the nose up or I would try to throw another long one.

“Sixth time is a charm, right?”

Heck, one time Wings thought he had the wind pattern down and threw a long to me. Our initial worry was that we’d finally struck a car parked along the field but that was quickly dismissed and we were more concerned that it might hit an unsuspecting football player on the field next to us.

We actually managed to score several times and other than not being able to work up a sweat because the wind was drying us off as fast as we could perspire…

Anyway, kudos to all of you who braved the windiest of days that we’ve played in this season. Please see the award list on the sidebar as you have survived and thrived in the 25 mph + day that scares off the amateurs. I think we had 3 decent dings today also, 2 ankles and a hand.

By the way, I miss one day of work and my inbox explodes with emails Subject “Ultimate” but having to do with extra rooms in garages disguised as Impalas, fat arses, whining that 8 really is not enough, and suggesting that Mallard may be the next marketing strategy for birth control pills. How ‘bout we just play a little disc?

Game on!