Monday, May 15, 2006

New Jersey invite

I was waiting for Alex to post first so that mine would appear at the top of ultimatetalk, but he needs the hits more than I, so I’ll get started.

DoG won the NJ Invite this weekend, besting the hosts 17-16 in the final. Alex and I drove down together, just like the old days, except that his two kids accompanied us as far as his parents’ house in Westchester County, and in addition to ultimate, we discussed potty-training, child sleep patterns, and the like.

On the various fronts:
1. I was reasonably satisfied with my performance. Many deep cuts, some of them thrown to me. Couldn’t get to two of them despite sprawlout bids, caught the others, most of them flat-footed. Melvin pointed out last year that I catch more hucks while on the ground than anyone else, perhaps trying to insult me, but unwittingly complimenting me on my fine reads. No embarrassing moments that might lead me to question whether I should still be playing. Devastating popping/clambusting against Pike. More than held my own against Hoagie Haven. And, most importantly, a devastating payback against one of the Pike guys.
Trey from the sideline: Hey, who's got Parimello?
Me: That's Parinella.
[passage of time]
Me: Nice game, Troy.
2. Best performance from a class of tryouts since ever. Usually at the first spring tournament, half of the tryouts are of such quality that I can comfortably forgo learning their names without fear of later embarrassment. Not so this time.
3. Introduced "Rules Corner" in which I discuss an arcane rule that I do not want to see anyone on my team calling but that we should be prepared to have called against us. (Gotta be ready for Bravo, after all.) Forch preempts me by making such a call himself. Someone directly to the right of the person directly to the left of me screams out, "Pussy call!"
4. Questioned the cult status of Hoagie Haven. Sure, it was good, but didn't appear to be worthy of the "if you’re anywhere near Princeton, you gotta stop here" name. I’m sure the Anchorman crowd is going to respond that I once again do not know what I’m talking about, but I just have to learn to live with their innocence.
5. Very interesting tiebreaker possibilities going into the final games on Sunday. It was a 7 team round robin with 4 games on Saturday. After the first round on Sunday, the top four teams were done with each other so all tie-breakers had been worked out. DoG had lost to Pike, Pike had lost to Twisted Metal, TM had lost to DoG and Potomac, and Potomac had lost to DoG and Pike. Each had one game left (over two rounds) against one of the bottom three teams. The finals would be DoG v Pike, unless DoG won, Pike lost, Twisted won, and Potomac lost, in which case it would be DoG v Twisted. The Potomac game was scheduled for the third round, which is when the finals were also tentatively scheduled for, assuming that Potomac wasn’t going to be in the finals. They couldn’t, as it turned out, but if they lost they wouldn’t have been included in the tiebreaker, which could have changed the way the criteria played out. DoG was in the Bnogo-like position of it being in our best interests to lose our last game, since our big point differential victories against TM and Potomac would have guaranteed their elimination. But we won, and Pike won, setting up the earlier final.
6. We lucked out on the weather. It poured all weekend in New England, but Saturday in NJ was 70 and sunny, and Sunday was in the 60s and overcast but dry. I packed expecting to be miserable in the rain, and so had to settle for being grumpy that it wasn’t the bad weather that I packed for. It’s tough being a curmudgeon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim-
You've referred several times to how excited you are about this season's team, and I assumed because everyone was coming back and there'd be nice continuity. So I'm curious as to how many tryouts you guys have and how much they might contribute.

I know you might not want to name names, but maybe you do (and you claim that you can actually remember them!): any additions in particular that excite you for next year? Who are they- from out of town or local rising talent? Forsee any problems bringing them into the system?

I'm always curious as to how teams bring in new talent, especially a long-running one such as DoG.

parinella said...

The biggest factor affecting talent acquisition for most teams is luck, followed by being in a position to benefit from luck. "Luck" is having someone's girlfriend move to Boston to go to business school. Being good enough and cool enough that this someone picks your team instead of the other team or playing with his old team is being in position. It also might mean that you're good enough and cool enough that recent college grads include Boston (or Providence, or Hartford) among their top choices, but they still have to find jobs on their own, unless they're hippy coffee baristas who want to live in Seattle regardless.

And if you have enough things going your way, you can count on luck. If Seattle is a cool place to live, then they have a natural advantage over uncool places with an equal frisbee heritage, like if you have a cross-country romance and one of the couple decides to move. Over the long run, that'll make a difference, though for any particular year, it's just luck.

Regarding new players, the system will adapt to them if they have unique skills. If Nord wants to move here, I'm sure we'd be willing to huck and hope to him more often than we would to me, but we're not going to make it our offense.