"...all sorts of Frank's parts..."

…that was the explanation from one of the Buzzards as to why he wasn’t able to catch a particular pass in the end zone today. Apparently there was just a “little” contact. And that was what much of the rest of the game was like as well. Just a lot of incidental (or not so) contact here and there. I’m not sure whether that’s attributed to the soggy field or the return to play after a couple weeks off.

Never the less, the weather was fantastic, we had 5 on 5, and weren’t in the cube so life was good.

Mandolin & Boom Boom took one for the team and took 3 hour lunches so that we could have the big game and they could also meet their subsequent dodgeball commitment. Matt D, did you recruit any new Ultimate players while you were over there or was it just a poor excuse not to be throwing discs today?

By the way, I got positive hits on APBs put out on Mallard & Bob. Between rants about Baton Rouge and wishing he was a non-rate again I culled from my conversation with Lindsay that he’d been traveling some and his current employer wasn’t exactly being sympathetic to his Ultimate schedule. Bob is awaiting signature on a contract so he can get paid to be back in the building. Hopefully we’ll see those two members of the “Ensure” team soon.

Elliot appeared out of nowhere yesterday and it was good to have him back on the field. My addiction to the long throw was fed by a dubious team matchup yesterday that had Frank aka “Endzone” always deep whenever I turned with the disc as well as Brook and Todd who kept tempting me enough with long runs that I just kept giving in…

The gold team had the runners yesterday with Travis & Mandolin but it didn’t translate into a lot of deep hucks for points. Two points of observation here; even if you have two guys that out run everybody else on the field, somebody has to be able to make that throw and if Kash is throwing long, he can’t always be running long. Worked out for good math for the green team if we could have only stopped turning it over on our first and second passes.

Some other observations…if we want to start playing like an actual organized team at some point (clearly hypothetical at this juncture)…Boom Boom, you only have one pivot foot and as soon as you lift that 2nd foot you have traveled, never mind lifting the first one again and then the second one again.

Phil, you could probably have called a couple fouls on me yesterday when I was marking you. Given time for reflection I don’t think I gave you proper “disc space” one diameter of the disc away. However if this is solely caused by movement of the thrower, then it is not considered a marking foul.

Wings – In answer to your question a while back, I think it is generally accepted that the marker should be within 3 meters (that’s 9 feet for you non-Canadians or roughly two Mandolin lengths if he was laid out in front of you) before a Stall count can begin. Of course, if you’re playing with a 1-player advantage I think anybody should be able to initiate the count from anywhere.

As far as offensive formations go…the spread offense may work well in college football but until we get to start playing a Big Ten defense in Ultimate we might consider packing in our formations a bit from the start of play in a vertical line rather than horizontally across the field or just cluster scattered all over the field with Endzone 60 yards away taking away one receiver all together.

Today’s Forecast: Around 50 degrees, light breeze at 5 mph…perfect. Game on!

Return of the Buzzards

I understand, with the New Hampshire primaries and the Joe Gibbs’ retirement that the Buzzards return to Ultimate this week may have flown under the news radar. However, the return after what seemed like an interminable holiday respite, was very welcome. It helped that the D.C. area has had almost record warm temperatures the last couple days.

Turnout was a little sparse yesterday though. Initially only a 3 on 3 game loomed but Phil & Kashyap dragged their boss, Scott out of the office and then an 8th showed up after about 20 minutes and saved the gold team from running 3 on 4. It was obvious that Phil had explained the gist of the rules to Scott because he thought poking me in the eye was a perfectly legitimate defensive strategy early in the game.

You have to love the surprises you always get in a game of Ultimate and we all enjoyed witnessing the two shortest pulls of recent memory, by Todd of all people. In trying to fairly report the facts, I’ll note that they were against a slight breeze and it looked like he might have been trying a new throw (the 65 yard roll pull) but neither throw came close to approaching that yardage and we actually got some extra rest in walking down to pick up the disc that lay much closer to the pullers.

Kashyap may have earned himself a new nickname… "Mandolin” as he came out with a heavily taped finger and wearing one glove to protect a wound suffered at the blade of that dreaded kitchen gadget…not the small guitar-like instrument. I'm not sure what's harder to imagine, him slicing julienned carrots or playing the Orange Blossom Special.

The field was a little soggy yesterday and I enjoyed sliding around some and bringing a couple layers of mud back in with me. Even with cleats the traction was questionable. Just ask Phil, who, when getting ready to make a cut, found himself completely sprawled out with his face in the mud, nobody within 10 yards of him.

The holiday toxins, in the forms of turkey, spiral ham, marshmallow covered yams, 15 dozen cookies, Merlot, Riesling, and a nice new Cab-Franc, began to drain from the body after a few trips up and down the field. The rested upper leg tendon reminded me it didn’t get enough rest and required a hot bath last night but it was great to be back on the field.

Thanks to Travis & Rodney who have tried, with moderate success, calling games in my absence. Let’s enjoy these unusual temps before winter returns next week.

Pull!