Tuesday's Game and Other Objay Darts

I forgot to mention, forgot to mention Tuesday, home of a ridiculous upset from Confessions (and the ancient Greeks). The previous week we played against the winless team from Thursday night and were destroyed, losing something like 15-7 and looking pathetic in the process. So when we faced the undefeated Thursday team on Tuesday night, prospects were not good. When Nipar, Hoyt, and Angel didn't show up, our prospects were worse. When Tim and Heart Attack tore hamstrings in the game and we were down to nine players, two of whom had reliable forehands, one of whom was the has-been-playing-for-eight-months-now-Beck... prospects were non-existent.

And yet, somehow, we persevered. We looked terrible; it was fairly windy, and we couldn't complete three passes in a row in our defense-less endzone drill before the game. Our opponents (Town Tricycle, including Nappi, Nicole, Joe, a new stud named Will, Todd, and a see-below-injured Vince) threw a zone that gave us a lot of trouble, and even went zone plus one on us on occasion. It was the usual zone with one player dedicated to covering me. One on one matchups are not a problem normally - it's just like man defense - but when the cup is around our (by definition) inexperienced throwers, it can be hard to get to a place where they can realistically get the disc to me. So all signals pointed to a blowout by the bad guys, even though Vince (oft-mentioned VOTS superstar) was injured in an ATV accident the weekend before.

Fortunately, we figured out our predicament early on re: the inability to complete multiple passes. And anyone can run hard, so... we decided for a broad strategy of huck and play Z. And it worked - we got lots of short field turnovers and converted enough to take the W! Crazy times! Lots of good hard play from everyone on the team, some good catches on long hammers / hucks and/or some good endzone cuts. I had one nutzoid lefty layout grab on a blade for a score, and otherwise threw a whole ton of hammers and hucks (for scores, sure, but a lot of punt-turns, too). It boiled down to a 12-6 win. Incredible. The VOTS universe is still reeling. It hardly means we're now going to march to the championship, but it was good to see us use what we had to steal a win. Yeah VOTS!

The rest of our week was interesting too. One of Beck's friends from high school (whom she hasn't seen in some ten years), Mike, was in town, partially to visit his girlfriend / her family and partially to do some med school interviewing in Tucson. Mike's been working various places in Africa over the past couple of years and decided to take the med school route. He's now living in Brooklyn (I think) up in NYC, has finished his post-bac coursework and is doing the usual 25 applications game. His girlfriend Sharon is from Kenya, and though her mom moved here a few years back, she and her siblings had just come over to the US three weeks ago. Yikes! And to Phoenix of all places! Mike stayed with us out of respect for traditional views concerning premarital apartment-staying, but spent most of his time with his SLF and helping the family get affairs in order - getting Sharon's brother enrolled in high school, getting IDs for everyone, taking Sharon to universities in the area to figure out what she needs to do to enroll, teaching her to drive, etc. Really nice guy and gal in quite a state of flux at this point in their lives; fun to meet them and hope things work out well. We had a fun dinner with them and another Brighton-High acquaintance (Erik?) at a local Mexican dive on Thursday, too.

Played softball on Friday night and split a double header. The only real highlight was when the ump called the batter out for a line drive that hit a players glove and tumbled to the ground. I was on first at the time; I stayed put when the line drive came off the bat, but when it hit the ground, naturally I had to run to second. The guy who dropped the ball picked it up and fired to second for the out - or so I thought, as this was approximately when the ump said "Out!" So I walked to third toward our dugout, even stepping on third on my way. And I was not five feet past the base when the ump called me out again for "leaving the field of play." Double play. Huh? So the ump's defense was that he called the batter out "when the third baseman caught it."

I replied, "But he didn't catch it."
"Well, whether he caught it or it was an intentional drop, either way the batter is out."
"Well, he didn't catch it, and if you thought it was an intentional drop, then it's a dead ball."
"Right."
"So... why didn't you call dead ball?"
"Well, I had already clearly called the batter out, and I didn't call you out on second."
"But that's all beside the point if it's a dead ball..."

This conversation goes exactly nowhere. So dumb. The only funny part is that later on in the second game, we were down by ten runs in the last inning with no real chance of catching up. So i swung for the fences and popped it sky high foul down the 3b line. The third baseman gorped it. I came back to the batter's box and asked, "he touched it, am I out?" in a joking manner. Only the ump didn't get it at all. "No, it's just a foul ball." Either this was an expert-level deadpan counter-joke, or he had completely forgotten about the other call. Whatever.

ASU continues to roll on. I've got a lot of work coming up w/ TAing the Bio 311 course, though this is the second writing run-through, so hopefully things will go more smoothly. We shall see. Other work is subtly piling up. And I've been having trouble getting sleep, sporadic chills and some kind of weird asthma-type issues of late. I feel particularly crummy today. Hmmmm... we'll see how the rest of the semester goes.

Beck and I saw the cute Gervais comedy The Invention of Lying last night. Pretty funny if a bit uneven. I, being a nerd, contest that human history would have included Napoleonic events without lying. I also don't know how the overt Religion = Lying will play in certain circles. Ah, well. It was fun and passed the time.

Anyways, that's enough blogging for today. I am unsure whether I will try to review Dark Side before this coming Saturday; technically it's not a Phish Halloween album (it was covered on 11.02.1998), so I think I've met my quota effectively. Still, I'll give it a shot if other things don't stand in the way. Which they will.

Here's to missing a Phish festival in favor of reading 100 Bio & Sci essays! Have a good week, everybody. Oh, and congrats to Frank for passing his prospectus defense! Keep it up, Geoman.

The Longest Way 'Round is the Sweetest Way Home

Argh. Back in the swing of things here, ASU-wise, and I can already feel the blog getting crunched by other writerly commitments. Sadness, but ah, well, so it goes. Things are busy - putting the final touches on organizing part of a course from the TA end for the fall semester, working with a fellow student on mouse-models and schizophrenia, trying to do my own reading for long-range thesis-type goals. The usual, and hopefully nothing I can't handle. I have a lecture to give in a couple of weeks for a big (250 or so) lecture course, so that should be exciting. I'll keep you in the loop.

In more body-related news, Ultimate / softball / exercise in general have come to a grinding halt, courtesy of my still-inflamed knee. I've missed a tournament, several practices, and a full night of softball thus far, and I still can't seem to do anything resembling running without extreme discomfort and that fluid-in-the-joint feeling. I saw a sports-med doc (who was great) today on campus, and the good news is that it doesn't seem to be anything ACL-ish or otherwise serious*. I had X-rays taken, and there are calcium deposits in the surgical canal and along the articular cartilage and some signs of arthritis, all of which was expected, but otherwise good joint-spacing and no obvious damage. My physical exam was also normal, but we all know how that can turn out**. So the rule is more rest, ice, and some PT exercises. In the grand scheme it's good news, but I don't know if I'll be able to play wtih Sprawl this year or be ready for the beginning of the VOTS season. Bummer, but I'll survive.

* - Just FTR, I was resigned to retirement if this had turned out to be another ACL injury. This falls under the general category of beating one's head against a wall at this point, plus I really don't want to put the Beck (or myself) through a surgical recovery again. It was an interesting sensation - that clear moment of "well, okay, I'll just ride a bike for exercise from now on" - and I think I was emotionally committed***, even if I was never *really* tested on it. I don't know if I should include some sort of quasi-Buddhist and/or Heat-based sentiments about being able to drop something in 30 seconds, but I achieved, at least in principle, a willingness to let it all go. The actual experience of doing that is probably different from the act of anticipatorally resigning to it, though, so I suppose I shouldn't puff my chest out too far. Still, i think I'm down with the notion that like Lisa's bracelet, athletic endeavors are fleeting.

** - Once upon a time, your hero tore his ACL, only didn't realize it, so he kept running in severe pain for the next month. In that time, his hamstrings got really strong and good at preventing forces from pulling the tibia out of joint. When it all got to be too much, he went in to an orthopedist, full or worry at the prospects of his athletic career. A resident saw him, performed the requisite drawer tests, and concluded that everything was good. At worst it was a meniscus tear, hero should not worry about anything, just relax, he (the resident) not realizing that now power-hammed hero was preventing his (the resident's) feeble arms from eliciting a positive drawer test through sheer protective, unintentional will. The head surgeon waltzed in half an hour later, did the more sensitive and more painful pivot test, revealing that indeed, that tibia was a-floppin' in the breeze, and the leg was acl-less. Lesser men would forever distrust medical science; hero merely had his soul crushed and bemoaned his hopes having been gotten up. The moral of the story is to not always trust a negative drawer sign, but today I managed to completely relax my hammies, and all was good - there was nothing to protect it seemed, so I was not guarding. Huzzah.

*** - Yeah, ha ha, I should be emotionally committed. You're all very clever.

Beck and I have been partaking of the entertainment* of late; I'm a little tired at this juncture and will try to post some reviews later, but we say Funny People, went to a comedy club, and saw District 9 with D&C, all within the last week or so. We also saw the final few (disappointing) episodes of Battlestar Galactica, another show I'll let run through my head a bit more before commenting further upon. This paragraph was half the point of posting tonight, but really, these 5 AM wake-ups are catching up with me.

* - Speaking of partaking of The Entertainment, I should clarify that my post of quotes from the last two weeks of pleasure reading was entirely taken from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which I reread over the last two weeks. I thought the references to Hal and Orin and the AFR would make that obvious, or at least prompt you to google them, but I admit that was pretty presumptuous of me. Sorry. That's gonna get a big hairy review / commentary in the near future, but in the interim, just know that I continue to recommend this book above all others. Let me put that another way - when I think about my loved ones who have not read this book, it makes my inner child's soul ache. I know it's a huge commitment, I know the writing can be taken as unneccessarily showy, I know the structure all but requires you to read 200 pages before you have half of a clue what's going on, but please, please reconsider your past shortcomings. For me. Many props to Infinite Summer for inspiring the reread. And yes, I will continue to browbeat and guilt you into reading this book. I am unoriginal in this respect.

Alright, big plans for tomorrow. Gotta write. Gotta be coherent. Gotta get to bed now in service of that. Hasta la pasta.

Bury My Heart @

On the plus side: big day at the softball park last night. We swept the double header, and I went six for six, all line drives, with two doubles and a spray of three to right, one up the middle (drilled the pitcher, oops) and two to left. I played third base and made all my plays. Exciting times; we hit up Zipps on the way home and caught the tail end of last night's epic Sox-Yankees game (in which A-Rod walked off in the 15th to a 2-0 win). And Beck came (to the softball game and Zipps) and captured photo evidence (of the softball games but not Zipps). Here's the walk-up-to-plate-and-hit-double-to-right routine (and before you criticize the lack of a straight front leg, not that the pitch was low and outside, necessitating the knee-bend):

On the minus side: why was I playing third base? Knee is still gimpy. Nothing terrible, just hurts laterally and continues to have fluid in the joint. Running is pretty okay, it's the stopping that's really bothersome, which obviously puts a damper on my Ultimate plans for the weekend. I guess it had only been five days since Sunday's breakdown, so maybe last night was a little early to expect to be back. Frustrating, but survivable. I will continue to rest, ice, ibuprofen and skip practices in the meantime. Oh, and not eat, since without the calorie-burnage of running and Ultimating, I can quickly become 1.4 Nyets.

Another 48 Hours... of EXTREME ATHLETICISM

Starting at 8 on Friday night and running til 8 or so on Sunday, I'm going to be all athleticking, all the time. Double header of softball last night, Sprawl scrimmage this morning, Hat tournament this afternoon, hiking in Prescott tomorrow... and lotsa lotsa water and calories inbetween.

Softball went great last night - just a really, really fun time. it was Jason's first game back since his shoulder surgery, and he was throwing (the big concern) just fine, hitting and running well, too. We were playing Beer Goggles, No Drama's arch nemesis of sorts, and we managed to split the double header. We lost the first game on a walk-off hit (and I flew out with the bases loaded and two outs at one point - my only non-hit of the evening, and it came a bad time), and won on a walk-off hit in the second game. Tres exciting, not to mention pretty rare for two walk-offs in a double header to come from opposite teams. I went 6-7 on the night with 3 doubles, AND I sprayed the ball all over the field, one down the third base line, two in the hole, one up the middle, and two to right center. I also scored from first on a grounder to the third baseman, so that was fun. In the second game, we went into the bottom of the 6th down 6-3 and came back to win - I had the honor of scoring the fifth run AND pinch/courtesy running for Brock and scoring the tying run on an error by the third baseman (that would have ended the game - OUCH). Ed doubled down the line to bring in Jason from 2nd, and that was all she wrote - seriously, I had a ton of fun last night; really enjoy this team.

Of course, I got home at 11:00 and was far too wired to sleep. Beck stayed up with me and we watched the thrilling conclusion to Independence Day, an epically BAD MOVIE. Not just because it's terrible, but the scene where Goldblum et al explain what a computer virus is ranks up there with the all time expository dialogue violations - it takes approximately 0.012 seconds to realize that they're going to use a computer virus to disable the aliens' shields, but that doesn't stom them from spending the next 45 seconds riffing on variations of "SO you're going to use a virus... to shut down their shields? Yes, I'm going to use a computer virus to shut down their shields, permitting us to shoot their ships, now that their shields are down because of the computer virus." UGH. Stayed up way too late watching that, knocked off a few more pages of YOU KNOW WHAT, and finally got to bed around 1.

Which is significant because I woke up at 5:30 to eat and get ready for our 7 AM Sprawl practice this morning. It was more of a scrimmage plus some situational scrimmaging, and we hopefully got a lot of great work done in the humid oven that is phoenix today. ("Humid" may or may not mean 17% humidity. It's relative). I had a good day with no turns and a couple of nice layout grabs, one a LEFTY grab for a score, which hasn't happened in forever (at least in Ultimate - the lefty grabs are a lot more common in softball).

Well, I should say I had a good morning, because after of 4 hours of practice, I'm headed back out into the heat for a VOTS hat tourney at Benedict Park. Wish me luck / non-death!

Hello.

THAT was the best two month nap I've ever had.

Well, what happened was a confluence of a number of things. One, I got mired in writing two term papers, both of which I waited a little too long into the semester to start writing (though I had done a fair amount of reading for both along the way). That'll be a good mistake to not replicate. Still, the relevant-to-you consequence was that I spent several days in a row hammering away at papers, both of which i was not thrilled with and so required a lot of nitpicky editing and brain-wracking editing. Basically the sort of stuff that would have made for the worst blog-reading you've ever encountered, things like, "Today, I fixed minutiae X about topic that you do not care about Y; it took me Z hours and this is all i've been thinking about for days and I have become a unidimensional log bump." See, you didn't need that. If you're really interested, one paper was on scientific realism and the need for a working understanding of scientific model justification amongst policy-makers; the other was on the possibility of cross-cultural translation in cultural psychology and a recommendation for statistics-based methods of validating comparisons of intercultural test results. Sexy, sexy, i know.

Two, my hard drive crashed. Well, first my computer turned into a discombobulated pile of mechanical do-nothing, which turned out to be due to the hard drive slowly corrupting and the CPU having trouble accessing the appropriate files for start up, running programs, etc. I spent a couple of days practicing all kinds of ninja-witch magic on my computer getting it back up to form, and it ran well for abut a day before whatever corruption that was going on in the hard drive finished itself and it (the computer's soul) emitted its death croak. Because I am so SMRT, though, I had backed everything important up (well, most everything*), and manged to rebuild my computer on the backup hard drive I installed a while back. Reincarnation, yes. The end of this was that after finishing my papers and having absolutely nothing exciting to write about, I had spend several days frustratingly banging away at my computer. I had become unidimensional in another dimension (what?), and not only that, it was a dimension that made me want to avoid the computer at all costs. So I didn't blog through that ordeal either.

* - I'm still missing some of the miscellaneous software that I can't find discs and/or registration codes for - things like a photoshop clone, my music recording software, etc. Non-essentials, and I'll eventually get it together and put them back on the machine. No worries. The big things - photos, music files - are all good to go and thoroughly backed up. Take that, fallible human artifacts.

Three, I made an executive decision, partially in an effort to save money and partially just because I wasn't using it, to cancel my GoDaddy account and thereby rid the world of nyetjones.org. That website is all backed up, too, so I'll start the slow and insanely boring project of transferring all of those blog entries and any other redeeming content over here sometime soon. I don't know if anybody even noticed this - certainly no one has contacted me about it - which just speaks to the pointlessness of maintaining such an unviewed website. This, in addition to my blogging apathy, only furthered the elimination of my active online presence, and at some point in here I began to seriously question the audacity of updating the unseen millions (okay, unseen twelves) w/r/t my daily activities. This is what is known in the biz as a lack of motivation.

Four, perhaps obviously, the vast majority of my blogging of late had been all about Ultimate, and there were no league games to recap. I could have told you all kinds of exciting things about pickup, but that would have been even dumber than the VOTS writeups. I also could have told you about some exciting softball times (2nd place finish in spring league; lotsa stupidity in the il Vileno realm)... actually, that Il Vileno stuff probably contributed to my apathy quite a bit. Lotsa effort, totally unappreciated. Eff that; no more discussion necessary.

Five, after finishing those two papers, my job has effectively turned into full-time reading. I'm getting a lot done and forming a strong base on which to build whatever thesis plan I'm going to design this year, but again, the daily accounts of "today I read pages 231-398, yay" did not seem especially enticing. I've also been running into repeated super-stupid arguments or, more exactly, clear exhibits of the world of academia being entirely self-concerned/located and not really interested in any application to the real world outside of itself, which is somewhat disheartening. This is a little bit of a difficult feeling to convey, especially since it's not like it's something I wasn't aware of; the concept of ivory tower is hardly a hidden one. But seeing its mechanisms up close, repeatedly, just got old, and I didn't want to blog about a broken-record wah wah of my feelings of how insular the academic world is and how difficult any authentic interaction with the world from within it is likely to be. I chose to silence my inner Eeyore.

Effectively, I've been feeling like quite a boring human being of late and did not want to blog about it terribly much. But I've decided over the past couple days that July 1st was a good enough time to snap out of the fnuk and realize that there have been quite a few things going on of late that I could have thrown on here. In no particular order:

1. Julliette got married! Huzzah! We went to New Orleans. I will post about this.
2. Andy got married. Huzzah deux!!! We went to Long island. I will post about this.
3. I say Mike whilst in Nueva York! And new SLF Jen! I will post about this.
4. Beck's been playign real life women's frisbee! On a team I am coaching! I will post about this.
5. I made the local club team Sprawl! I am an O-line player! I will post about this.
6. Phish has been back on tour! This is unspeakably great! I will post about this.
7. I organized a Saturday morning competitive Ultimate game for money. This is all kinds of awesome. I... have pretty much relayed everything you need to know about that.

Alright. That's a good framework to start, and between those beauts and the backlog of old posts that I'll throw up soon (throw up, HA - no really, you can go down memory lane a read a whole lot of Ali-Ben content!), you should have some entertainment coming up. Soon. I promise. No, really.

Oh, and I have about 2000 saved links to share, none of which will be current any more.

Houseguestapalooza Phase II, III, IV

Another outline of Houseguestapalooza events, more for my organizational benefit than your informatic one.

Saturday - Cubs game, draft/pizza, giuseppe's
sunday - hr derby, brunch, oldtown scottsdale (frisbee), softball
monday - arcosanti, pizza from cibo
tuesday - luxe, heard museum, grilled fish / steak
wednesday - SMoCA, house of tricks, aaron, pizza, frisbee
thurs - phx art museum, SMoCA, Los Olivos
Fri - hung out, dinner here, poker
Sat / Sun - Grand Canyon
(Tournament, Chuy's)(House clean, Sonic, softball)
Monday - Tucson / Frisbee
Tuesday - hangin' / grill
Wednesday - museuming (Scottsdale), grill (kabobs)
Thurs - hangin, pasta
Friday - hangin', ASU (Margie), Michelina's w/ Dan & Christina
Saturday - IKEA, Tempe Arts Festival (Frisbee Practice/Reading), red devil pizza
Sunday - hiked superstitions, hung out, chihuly, p.f. chang's
Monday - Mesa (Margie), Grilled Chicken Dinner w/ Margie's Dope Beets / Cactus
Tuesday - nate worked all day, Caesar Chavez day so no Phx library, hangin' / spark & wrig shave, nursery, frame shop (GPGDS), Giuseppe's for dinner, sitting at kitchen table recounting week's events.
Wed - Off to Santa Fe

Mao.Tse.Game-Tying.Dong

Another comeback win for E-league softball powerhouse Il Veleno with a healthy dose of schaudenfreude taboot. The quick story is that the other team's catcher was a shaved head psycho intense dude who was pretty obnoxious all game long - screaming in his player's faces, yelling at people left and right no matter what - and he seriously irked everyone on our team. The capsule example happened in the top of the 6th - we were up 5-2, and their team started a rally to tie the game. With a runner on 1st and 2nd, shaved head catcher dude draws a walk, turns around and yells something in the general direction of our bench, and *dances* down the first base line and on to second. Seriously, spin-arama Barry Bonds-style after an E-league Softball BASE ON BALLS.

So much wrong with this level of intense ridiculousness. The obvious: it's E-league, and no one should be even approaching the volume of amped up silliness this guy displayed. It's co-ed. You drew a *WALK.* A SLO-PITCH WALK. This is not impressive, my man. And behind all of this is that you are PLAYING CATCHER in a co-ed game, and I'm sorry, but in every co-ed softball game I've played, you reserve catcher spot for the woman who hasn't played very much softball in her life so she doesn't hurt you in the field. This is chump city, and the antics only draw attention to the fact that you are a breathing absurdity.

FTR, I did give the guy a Seth Meyers-worthy "Really?" when he got to second base after the walk. Pretty politely, actually, but it was very much a nice version of "could you please CTFO?" He replied "Someone was talking shit," as though this qualified everything and made dancing down the first baseline a reasonable act.

So we got out of that inning down 7-5, and there were some very miffed Il Velenos on the bench as we faced our last at-bats. I was up 3rd in the inning, behind Andrew and Sara - Andrew drilled a single, Sara grounded out to short. One on, one out, and I walked up to the plate, still incredulous at spazmo-the-wonderdork's antics, and just decided, "I'm going to tie this game now." The thought did run through my head, I promise; I didn't point out to the bleachers a la Ruth or anything, but I did so mentally. First pitch a tad inside, I turned on it, and another shot landed on the sidewalk behind the centerfield fence - another non-cheapy Mao Tse Dong for the Nyet. Yeah! Game-tied! And no dancing around the basepaths, either. (In his defense, shaven crazy guy was quite gracious after the game - actually the whole team was, and I even got high fives from the other team's 2nd, ss and 3b as I *ran* around the bases. Very nice friendly vibe from the vast majority of their team; funny how the atmosphere can be charged by one player (he said knowing the fully self-reflective implications of the comment).

Tres exciting, and we came back to win it in extra-innings (where, incidentally, they invokved some Commie-non-baseball rule where you start the inning with a runner on second. Silliness!). Beck also had a great game - hit the ball hard every time, got on base 2 of 3 times, and knocked in an important run. TBN in the house!

And all of this witnessed by the iPJ / iPMM, who are in town in slots 4 and 5 of Houseguestapalooza. Full on write-up of all relative-related antics in the offing, of course, so get ready for that. ALWAYS fun, though, to hit homeruns for the fanbase. Meghan/Greg, you missed out!

Post-note: Also played Ultimate yesterday, and quad is sore but not impeding me at all. Good!

Post-note 2: Played left and SS last night, and on one play at SS, I charged a slow roller, back handed it and side-arm whipped it to first, full on Nomah in his prime style... only to have our firstbasedude drop it. I mean, chest-level throw, just dropped. This would have been the third out and ended the game with us up 5-3. So his drop permitted the later heroics, so whatever, we'll take it, but it was weird - on the next grounder, I turned to fire but was so worried about him dropping it that I short-armed it a bit - wide of the bag, not terrible and definitely within reach, but dude just watched it sail by, didn't even take a stab at it. This is not to criticize dude, just to realize that softball / baseball catching is not an easy thing to do, and I continuously forget that I've got baseball camps etc. in my head that just make things like not stretching over to catch a throw completely alien to me. Hard to know what to do about this, because with people flying down the basepath - both runners were fast - it's not like I can just lob it over there. Ah, well.

Post note 3, confessional style: I had a bad act at pickup yesterday. Lazy forehand huck goes up, I run over to grab it, jump, come down with my leg planted and a newer guy just flies across my face, bumping me and maybe six inches to a foot from just plowing me over. I was completely exposed with a planted leg, recipe for disaster, and it certainly felt like he had come charging in with no real play on the disc and almost broke me. I got really scared and really angry, went 0-60 in 1.3 seconds and just spiked the disc where I stood. Turnover, HA (Cisco actually thought I had forgotten that I was on defense and thought I had scored, which would have been vastly funnier). I think I just got startled - friends from the sideline said it didn't look particularly bad, but in the moment it felt really reckless on his part. Of course, I immediately felt terrible, and after the point tried to explain that I had just gotten scared, I've had two knee surgeries, etc. It remains really hard for me to keep these in-the-moment reactions in check - in my head, it was a really stupid play on his part (and regardless of how bad or not it looked, he had absolutely no play on the disc and should have been slowing up well before that - I had time to catch it, land, and THEN he flew by me, so he was nowhere near anything legitimate w/r/t making a bid on the throw), and it's difficult for me not to respond with a what-the-hell-are-you-doing? Worse, the guy ended up leaving a couple of points later. It was 6 o'clock already, so he may have just been planning on leaving after two hours of frisbee anyways, but now I feel terrible if I chased someone off just from being scared. All of this is just to bookend the psycho-catcher story, and note that I get it, if you are "wired" a certain way in can be hard to turn it off. Of course, getting mad because you almost got injured by a dangerous play and dancing to first are not entirely the same thing, but still, I see the connection.

The Mark of Zorro: 1-2

Ugh, just ugh. As mentioned, during Friday night's CHAMPIONSHIP tournament, my right leg's adductors tightened up a bit, largely because we had to sit for an hour waiting for the semis to start. Nothing bad, just tight, and I played through it just fine. During Sunday's Ultimate pickup, they were tight and a little sore, but pretty manageable, until late in the day when I tried to stop suddenly to set a mark, and I felt a sharp twinge in my groin. I immediately took myself out (though did proceed to play softball that night, where I managed to limit myself to jogging - got to jog around the bases, actually. MAO.TSE.DONG.YEAH!) and hobbled around the next day, but felt pretty good really by Monday afternoon. Rested it and went to the game on Wednesday early to try to loosen up.

No dice - I jogged about a mile and a half, did some build-up sprints, plyos, and a bunch of lateral movement kind of drills, and it felt fine. But I stretched a little (bad idea with an injured groin, of course, but I had to test it somehow - didn't want the first stretch to be a violent lunge on the field), and then even just trying to throw, every time I moved quickly to catch a disc or pivoted, I could feel that little tightness. So I had a decision to make, and STUNNINGLY, if you know me at all, I took my cleats / braces / arm bands off and put on tennis shoes. Coach-mode for this game, and as we already knew we would be missing Nat for the game, this was sub-awesome. A good decision if a hard one, I think, because missing one game is certainly preferable to playing hurt, having something pop and missing a month or whatever. I guess we'll see in the long term if the rest pays off.

There were what I can only call ecstatic giggles of non-competitiveness from the other team - don't know how much to attribute to general schaudenfreude and how much to relief or whatever, but outside of their captains and some of their better players (we were playing Who Hucks to the Huckers - super team name, btw - so this included Justin, Joanne, & Rob, all super standup players and all-around great peeps) who were completely on the level and were sorry that I wasn't able to play, there were a whole lot of smiles coming from the other side. This continued in the game - a fair amount of "not really getting the big picture" loud-mouthed cheering from some of the mid-level players on their team - but more on that in a sec (and of course, I was probably just frustrated / sensitive to such shenanigans because I could do little to affect the situation).

So game on, and the first point pretty much encompasses a lot of went on - a couple of good passes to move it about 30 yards up the field, and then Jeremy tried to hit Paul in stride with a leading, perpendicular throw (I'll, I don't know, diagram what I'm talking about here in a separate post, but trust that it's a difficult / low margin of error throw that's only worth making in very particular situations, and this was not one of them), overthrew him, and Paul missed it, giving them the disc at midfield. JT picks it up and puts up a garbage, swill-ass floaty huck, but it's Justin on Jack in the endzone and Justin skyes him for the goal. JT's fist-pumping his way off the field, and whatever, he's excited, but it's a little bit of a "you do realize he just bailed out your crap throw, right?" kinda moment.

So that first point summed it up - a bad decision augmented by bad execution, a short field for the opponent, and a decent play by the other team that got interpreted as AWESOME because the outcome was good. This sort of thing continued all night - overly aggressive, bad decision type throws that resulted in turns and very short fields for the bad guys. Particularly in the first half, we gave them the disc in transition / short field situations that permitted them to score in one to two throws - a lot of these were iso-type plays for Rob, and to their credit, they executed very well and took advantage of our gaffes.

Our Zone O was particularly worrisome - on the one hand, it was just the usual confusion of a League team trying to figure out who should be where and whatnot, but on the other, it was just a severe lack of patience and knowledge of the types of throws that should be attempted against a zone. We moved it pretty well, all things considered, but invariably, after ten nice throws, someone would try to jam it into a tight spot or send it deep for no apparent reason. Missing Nat and me meant a lot of sliding around position-wise for other players - for example, Jack ended up handling quite a bit, and while he is a perfectly competent handler, not having him available to pop is a huge detriment to our team. So yeah, there were some snags, and we weren't dicing their zone D by any means, but we *were* moving it just fine... and then player X would try to jam it down to the sideline to player Y for a turn, or player Z who doesn't *really* have a hammer would try it out for a turn. Very frustrating to watch - the entire time I kept thinking that it was not that I'm such a great player skill-wise that I could single-handedly impact a game, it's that I can anchor our zone O so one, there's a little more rhyme/reason to what's going on, and 2, no one is compelled to try those risky throws because I am right there to demand the disc back and such. Ugh.

Were I an honest blogger, this would be the paragraph where I point out all the bad play of our team, the particular bad decisions and the general lack of stepping up / controlling the game that we got from our handlers. And the repeated ill-thought-out throws from some of our mids, our inability to get our women better-involved, etc. A lot of people - Tom, Craig, Paul, Genevieve, to name a few - had personal (and uncharacteristic) bad nights. I am sure people looked at this game and try to explain it as "Oh, Nat/Nyet didn't play," but I'm hoping its less that - b/c that would be really bad if two people were so essential to the team that their absence were a death blow - and more a combination of "Nat/Nyet weren't there AND the people who were there had individually off nights, too." I think that's probably accurate - sure, Nat and I may have made a big difference, but I'd like to think it's not the difference between last week's highly competitve team and this week's borderline incompetent appearance.

To accentuate the positive, though, we teamwide kept running until the very last point. Jeremy's hustle and heart were impressive; Miller was still playing tight D through the final point. Beck played good D all night; Salina did a good job covering the wing in the couple of occasions where we threw a Z. Jack admirably stepped into the handler role and stayed positive all night despite highly frustrating circumstances. Our hustle aspect was not lacking; it just couldn't really get going because of all the poor throw decisions. People stayed relatively bright despite a terrible night - so in the grand "fun, run, smart" triumverate, we really only failed on the last measure.

Oh, yeah, the final score: we lost 15-6. Sorry that I'm not going through the usual play-by-play here, but really, it was a lot of head-hanging, incredibly bad throws that got D'ed on our half of the field, they picked it up and put it in. Huzzah for them - again, they played efficiently - but good lord, the guys on their teams who were screaming and jumping all over themselves, j***ing in their pants when they were up 9-2 just have NO CAPACITY to differentiate when they're playing well and when their undermanned opponents are imploding. I suppose the nice thing would be to just let them have their day in the sun and be done with it, but they carved themselves a big hate stick for the next time I play them with their antics. I hereby vow to remind a couple of dudes in particular of their place in the Ulti-verse the next time I line up across from them. Grrrrr. :)

None of this is anything to do with their captains, as I mentioned above - Justin, Joanne, and Rob (not a captain but a high level player from Sprawl) all "got it" pretty quickly, and while they didn't lift their foot off the accelerator - nor should they have - they approached the situation entirely the right way, just kept playing hard without ranting or being stupid about it. And they did do stuff - trying to get some of their less-experienced players more involved, etc. - that is exactly the type of thing you SHOULD be doing in a blowout like that. We played in a lot of blowouts last season, and when we got ahead, of course we called deep plays for Alexxx, called different people in at handler, what have you.

What we did NOT do is start effing around, throwing behind the back, no look junk. Which is what Kuby did - up 14-6 in a game with the other team clearly down in the dumps, he throws a no-look blade in an attempt at a score. I immediately called him on this from the sideline in a relatively nice way - "Just so you know, that's kinda BS" - which was probably borne partially from frustration on my part. But seriously dude, no matter how innocent you play, I *know* you are not throwing that garbage if the score is 14-12. I TAKE UMBRAGE, FO' REALS. Maybe he's too stupid to even realize how that looks - his captains were apologetic and claimed this - and maybe I'm being overly sensitive. But now you know not to do that, and now when we run into you in the playoffs, you have given us BULLETIN BOARD MATERIAL. Huzzah!

And yeah, I realize this is all ridiculous; I'm just trying to salvage something from a horrible game that made us all generally feel like crap. Though I did, by all reports, do a decent job of keeping things positive on our side despite the circumstances. We'll pick it up next week, and hopefully with a week of rest my groin will be good to go. Until then, I'm liking the balance of league thus far - lotsa close games on the Wednesday side, and it certainly seems like there's more parity than we had last time. We'll see how it plays out.

P.S. Lest it be forgotten, the other team also capped things with a cheer to the tune of the Annie song: "O Zorro, O Zorro, we love you, O Zorro, you're only a Nyet away." While flattering and all that... um, yeah, thanks for making my teammates feel like crap, like they need me around to play well. They don't, and hopefully this off night will be shown to have been just that by season's end.

Mao.Tse.DONG.

The 265 foot fence could not contain my Ruthian 300 foot blast... yes, tonight, for the first time since April-or-so 1996, the Nyet Dog hit an out-of-the-park homerun. True, it was E-league softball, but it was a crushed no-doubter that sailed into the top of the tree that stands a good fifteen feet behind the fence in left center. A three run shot, and trotting around the bases while yelling at Genevieve to pick up the pace in front of me was GOOD TIMES. Even if the field was small, this was not a cheapy, and there are few feelings like hitting a ball on the nose - just perfect, Zenny fluid contact - and jogging around the basepaths carefree. Beck has made the requisite fun of me for trying not to smile as I walked back to the dugout and received congratulations from my stunned Il Veleno teammates.

So hooray for the Balladeer - an upbeat verse tonight that *almost* makes up for the groin I pulled at pickup tonight before the softball game. Beck and I had some celebratory greasy NY Pizza after game (with Ulti-pals Volo and EBay) and I am currently sipping a good-job-Nyet Newcastle. Tomorrow, it will be back to more serious, worklike things, but for now, yay for that 1996 feeling.

Oh yeah, and we won 16-2 or some such. Rolling lately, eh?!??!!

Recycled Post Titles I: No Bed of Roses

Scottsdale Softball Friday Night C-League juggernaut NO DRAMA won its third consecutive league championship last night! The second of which I've been a part! YEAH, THAT CHAMPION FEELING.

We futzed around in the regular season, sweeping two teams 2-0 and splitting with the rest to give us a 9-5 record, good for the third seed. The tournament was standard issue, 8 team single elimination, and we drew the 6th seed to start the day. We came out mashing, winning that opening game 19-4 on a run-rule. I got to play all kinds of different positions - 3rd base, SS, left-center, right-center - and fielded well (except for one ball that i pulled up on so as to not run over our RF; ended up missing that one as a result). I also came out mashing - big line drives to left and right field, and in my third bat one-hopped the wall with a line drive. So i was feeling pretty good, and some of my spotty hitting struggles of late seemed non-existent.

Unfortunately, there are only two fields for the playoffs, so the 3-6 and 4-5 games happen at 6:20, and the 1-8 and 2-7 games happen at 7:15. We had to wait an hour before our next game. This being softball, several of our team members went to various fast food establishments to get things like Baconators and five dollar footlongs. Oh, dear. I stayed put to watch the 2-7 game as the winner would be our semi-final opponent. The 7 team only brought 8 people, so that laugher ended quickly with the 2 seed - our arch nemesis and team o' jerks Beer Goggles - winning 20-something to 1.

So this team has historically been gripey with us and with the umps - they're good, can hit and field and all that, but really are just not pleasant to play against. There's been something of a long standing rivalry between this team and mine, NO DRAMA, since well before I came to the team, no love lost, the whole thing. The only real connection i have to the beer goggles, aside from the couple of times I've experienced their gripey attitude, is that one of their players named D_____ is a cantankerous Ultimate player who has stormed off the field on occasion. Not a fun person, one of the people I cross off on my draft lists. So we were hyped for a second round matchup.

OH SNAP - I don't know, I can't explain, have no idea what happened, but we came out STROKING. Were up 4-0 after one and got them out 1-2-3, then came the inning that would not stop. We batted around twice - with 12 batters - and after the mayhem, it was 21-0. They were the hometeam and scored 4 to avoid the 2nd inning run rule, but we tacked on 6 more in the top of the third to go up 27-4 and then shut them down in the last inning to walk away with an embarrassing, ass-kicking run rule win in the SEMIS! Unsurprisingly, as they fell behind by a ton, they got gripier and gripier with one another, at us, at the umps, at everybody. Eric slid into second, accidentally bumped their secondbasewoman, and immediately came up apologizing, but that didn't stop their pitcher from cussing at Eric. Ed took a walk late in the game - on four terrible pitches - and their SS griped about Ed being a "big pussy" - this after their team took multiple walks in their game against eight people. Ha, ha, ha is all I have to say. Their pitcher quick pitched me - he threw a pitch when i only had one foot in the batter's box, which isn't really the biggest thing in the world (or necessarily illegal), just discourteous. I responded by smashing a double to left on the next pitch. I hit well - we all hit RIDICULOUSLY well in this game, just screaming liner after screaming liner. Anyways, to wrap up the semis account, it was a total humiliating laugher, and here's the quote from one of the umps:

"I know we're not supposed to root for or against teams, but I loved watching Beer Goggles getting it handed to them."

Ha! Personal triumph and schaudenfreude wrapped up in one!

On to the finals against the cleverly named "Master Batters." Not a whole lot to report - they had a tall pitcher with a weird hitch delivery who threw knuckle balls. He gave us a touch of trouble at the start, but we figured him out well enough after an inning or two. They were good and nice - lots of joking around on the field, and good competitive play. We fielded GREAT - Brock in particular played out of his head at SS - and came up with some huge clutch hits. An 8-4 victory with Ed running down the last flare to right field - NO DRAMA CHAMPS!!!

Great night of softball. I hit just fine, and didn't really have to make very many plays in the outfield - the better teams tend to not hit it in the air as much, so I think I only had one or two plays out there all night. NEhoo, fun times, and I think we're officially on the books as a dynasty. Do I smell a B league in our future? (Hopefully NO!).

Slump / Slumdog / Slump Dogged

Had a really, really bad pair of softball games on Friday night. Not only did I top the ball every time up (still managed to get on base 5 of 6 times, but still, damn), I overran a ball in the outfield and made a big fat error. No good. We did win both games which puts us in good shape for the playoffs - first game's Friday at 6:20; I'll let you know how it goes. Man, a bad streak in softball lately, but I did a good job of keeping my head held high and a positive attitude for the future. Hooray for small victories.

Beck worked on Saturday, and so did I - headed over to Mama Java's, read four articles AND wrote my phil paper for this week (posted earlier). Yeah productivity! Met Beck at home, had some crunchy turkey burgers (Cajun style!), and went to see the super-Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire at a local cineplex.

So, the Slumdog... I did enjoy the story-framing, the soundtrack, the cool multi-locale, the must-have-been-technically-challenging cinematography, and the overt attempt to enlighten mainstream Western audiences as to the plight of a huge chunk of the world's population. And the kids were fantastic - charismatic, pulled off the street urchin charm with aplomb. There was just something - and maybe this is more of a product of post-hype effect - lacking about the movie for me. Ebert pointed out in his review that behind the above-mentioned aspects and the fact that it's a mainstream American movie in India with Indian characters, this is a film with a rather traditional plot: brothers with a protective yet conflicted relationship, a wet-blanket love interest who inexplicably inspires deranged loyalty from the protagonist, a severely Westernized gangster motif of late redemption, and the requisite happy ending. So I see it as a movie with some fantastic moments, some beautiful story-telling, but ultimately a hiddem fomulaic-ness that seaps through if you pay attention.

Side note - some triumph of the human spirit commentary has accompanied this movie, and I just don't know how to respond to that. For every ounce of credence that I want to credit to the characters' perseverance, I want to equally note the horrors of a culture that permits that sort of stratification and abuse, worse that we feel there is somehow a possible happy ending offered by a game show. Don't want to delve too much into this - again, I did enjoy and appreciate a lot about this movie - but I question the ability of at-least-somewhat formulaic fiction to give me elated feelings about a reprehensible set of cultural circumstances.

Fast forward to Sunday - Beck and I hit up the circumference trail at Squaw Peak, ate a delicious brunch, did some house work, then headed to pickup. Went extraordinarily well - Beck had a great afternoon with some good catches and throws, even a jumping above-head catch on a deep throw - good times! I had a pretty great session, too, with a crazy layout on the very first point of the day, a bunch of skies and Ds, no turns (except for a ridiculous joke thumber I threw at one point) and several just spot-on hucks. I brought it, for whatever reason, and other than getting charley-horsed by Nipar on a skying catch, the day went perfect (my quad is really sore, but pretty much better now (Tuesday evening)).

Next stop: softball, after a healthy dinner at Tom's BBQ in Tempe. Delicious sausage sandwich and red beans and rice; I may have to get back there soon. The softball game: not so delicious. The other team consisted of reasonably good female players backed by a bunch of 6'3" and over men who could all mash. Those guys had no business being in an E-league or playing on a field that small - one of their guys hit a HR, but it was a 252' blast - not exactly something to be too excited about. Just a waste of time, and they effectively kicked our arse. Beck hit the ball well, and after slamming another couple of ground balls, I finally hit a line drive triple to right center toward the end of the game. Yay! Of course, I followed this up by making the last out of the game by inadvertently crossing the commitment line, and I know there's some serious marriage joke in there somewhere. Still, it was an effectively athletic slump-evidence-free double header, and I'll take it.

So a fun weekend. Back to the grind the past couple of days - I had a full day of reading / meetings yesterday, and another full day of reading, a presentation, a class, and general exhaustion today. Curenty waiting for the beck to get home from surgery, but that may not happen anytime soon. The Zorro has a matchup with the tallest team in Spring League tomorrow; I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.

Slumping

I made a joke in an e-mail I sent to The Mark of Zorro about my dropped disc last night. Beck, ever the pragmatist, read this, pointed at it, and said, "it's over. It's done. You need to move on." And she's right.

Genevieve, co-captain, reads this, and says, "That was funny. You drop one disc and you act like you've personally offended the team. Of course, that's probably what makes you good, you don't blow things like that off." She's right, too.

I've hit a little bit of a slump in the sports department - not huge, but I've popped up a couple of times in key softball situations, and now have dropped 3 discs in the past 2 and a half weeks (and dropped discs are pretty rare for me). Part of it is nagging injury stuff - still not quite 100% with my shoulder, my fingers all mashed up - but it's really just mistakes, and it bugs me quite a bit. Still, in the grand scheme of things, I hope my obsessing is effective obsessing; it's not like it's keeping me up at night, I just want to get back into better focus to avoid this stuff.

(The sabermetrician in me notices that this is probably just undue pattern imposition on my part, that this crap just happens every once in a while and it's easy to perceive it as clustering when it's just unfortunate coincidence. So, you know, maybe my nervous system isn't failing me after all).

Just reflecting a little on the role of self-scrutinziation is sports performance. There are sweet spots where the obsession can motivate and not-so-sweet ways of overdoing it such that it becomes detrimental obsession (and worse, gets you "thinking about it" the next time a disc floats down). I'm not going to pretend I have this down by any means; it's nice to have Beck to keep my perseverations in check.

Cold, Dead Hands, or A POST OF THE MUNDANE

For the second time in a week, I can't stop thinking about something. Last week it was that painful class (thanks for the messages of support); it kept me up late and my hard drive of a brain just spun and spun as I tried to figure out what had gone wrong and what else I could've done to prevent such a nasty experience. This time, I've lost my knitted fuzzy orange fingerless gloves that Beck made for me, and I CAN'T STOP RETRACING MY STEPS. ARGH!!!

Beck assures me that it's okay and she can knit me a new pair, but I really, really liked those gloves as they remind me of her and cold Grafton days and guitar and typing and hot coffee (hot for me anyways) and they are awesome bright orange to the point that some of my co-students (?) suggested that perhaps they had been stolen and used as highway flares. HA HA. I've been taking special care to always leave them in the same place - in my fleece pockets - and it just drives me nuts that they've vanished.

The clues - I definitely moved them from my brown fleece jacket to my orange one on Friday as I figured I would need them to drive home after the softball game. (Huh? you ask. I wear the green fleece to sporting events as it is older). I had both gloves in my right jacket pocket, and I guess they could have BOTH fallen out in the dugout? So maybe they're in Scottsdale or with a softball teammate, but I've e-mailed the team to no avail.

I went to Mama Java's the other day and definitely thought about taking them with me, but I don't think I ever actually picked them up and put them in my green hoodie pocket. I checked said pocket and called Mama Java's, again no dice.

Sunday, I wore my fleece to both Ultimate pickup and our stupid E-league softball game (stupid only in that it was gratuitously low level softball and if I lost my gloves for it, I'll be upset). We started on one field at frisbee and moved to another, plus we had Beck's and my stuff and we switched over to softball. So they could be somewhere at Rhodes, again if they BOTH fell out, which seems unlikely. I posted to the VOTS board to no response. Beck and I then went to the softball game, where I ran back to the car to get her wallet; I guess they could have fallen out sometime in there. So maybe they're on a street near Kiwanis park, or maybe they fell out in the dugout - again, e-mailed the softball team with no luck.

I dropped Beck off at home and went to the grocery store, where I don't think i put them on... I checked the grocery store lost and found today, NADA.

So I'm still holding out for discovering them somewhere around my now torn apart abode, but sadly I think they've probably just vanished into the ether. I am digging through my dresser, my Ultimate bag, my orange fleece for the fifteenth time, thinking that my sad gloves have now blown apart somewhere in Phoenix and are resting alone, covered with 'Zonan dust. Dammit.

Commentary de Beck...

"You know, Charisma Carpenter is 45 years old, so she's probably all wrinkly underneath that make-up."

"Um, she's 38, according to IMDB."

"Whatever, she's way too be old to be in high school."

Duly noted.

We have a big Sunday - Beck's headed off to brunch with some Cooking Light-heads (apparently it's no boys allowed - actually, I think this is the female equivalent of G.R.O.S.S.), then it's pickup frisbee followed by CSPO team E-league softball for the two of us. Our efforts at being more active and social in 2009 are holding steady. Wish us luck!

Spring League Clinics

One of my favorite Ultimate activities is fast becoming the "Clinics" we run for new Ultimate players before League starts. It's hard to describe why it's so much fun - sure, part of it is introducing new players to the game, the inherent joy of teaching (if you're into that sort of thing), and the cashing in of all this playing and practicing and skills to really be able to show a group of initiates what it's all about. On top of that, though, is a nostalgia-driven love-fest, just remembering days on the quad and all the teaching / learning events that have taken place in your life. Everyone is hyper-vigilant about congratulating everyone on each nice throw and catch, quick to compliment a good decision even if the throw ends up being horrendous. On top of THAT, all the usual tom-foolery that happens when you get good Ultimate players together in a decidedly non-fiery competitive environment - crazy throws, heckling, etc. Just great, great times.

Jose pulled all the newbies aside on Thursday before we started scrimmaging and ran through some basics, even employing a "walk-through" point which beck and I had talked about as being a good idea to initiate newbies to structure instead of just throwing them in the mix. It worked really well; Beck pointedly commented how nice it was to have someone spelling things out in this situation as opposed to the unstructured mess that can occur when players who think they know exactly what they're doing refuse to specify what the design and structure are. After a few points of slow-paced walk through, stops and constant instruction, we gradually let the game develop a flow of its own, still stopping to instruct occasionally and incorporating a few more veteran players to give the night a sort of "evolved structure." It worked well, and I think across the board the rookies learned a lot more than they would have by just showing up cold for league games next week.

Just a FUN night. And for me, it really spilled over into softball the following evening - we were playing an 0-10 team, and the games was vastly more about having fun and letting people play and learn than who was going to win. Lots of friendly trash-talk barbs on both sides, just a happy night - and thanks to some rather incompetent batting / fielding / pitching on our part, um, I guess all around bad softball, the other team came back to win the second game in the bottom of the last inning. And as Brock pointed out, "From a utilitarian standpoint, that was probably the best thing that could've happened." True that.

Really looking forward to league and more sports clinics to come. I should probably get into coaching youth Ultimate once my knees finally shatter. Something to think about.

The Throes of Softball

Last Friday, I was playing the infield in our weekly softball game in preparation of playing a weekend-ful of Ultimate. Shortstop to be precise. Everything rolled along in a lovely fashion until the top of the third - one of their womenfolk grounded to third. Our 3b shot it over the firstbasewoman's head, and the batter, after passing first base, nonchalantly rounded TOWARD the infield on her way back to the bag. I yelled, "Tag her!," and our firstbasewoman did, and the ump properly called her out. Their womanfolk went nutso, yelled at the ump, demonstrated a "real attempt at second," screamed "This is BULLSHIT!" and slammed her bat against the fence as she went back into the dugout. All of this, and somehow she managed not to get tossed. I don't understand umps.

The next batter hits a liner to right and, not realizing that our RFwoman actually has a pretty decent arm, decides to try for two. I take the throw at second, and he is dead to rights by a good fifteen feet. Seeing as this is Friday night C League co-ed softball, I start walking toward him to tag him. But seeing as this is SUPER COMPETITIVE IDIOT Friday Night C League co-ed softball, moronhead tries to run over me en route to second, throwing a shoulder and elbow at me for good measure. In terms of general stupidity and violence, it was up there with Albert Belle crushing Fernando Vina with a forearm to break up a DP in 1996. (You will recall that Belle was suspended 5 gmes for his antics - IN BASEBALL). I held onto the ball, so the guy was out, but mainly I was dumbfounded - what the hell was that?

So I approached the guy and calmly asked him, "What the hell was that?" I do not lie when i say calmly; I was not in fight mode, I was in "really, exactly what are you doing?" mode. Cool, calm, collected, chilly-Nyetlike.

Of course, it probably looked like challenge-brawl mode from the sidelines, so the dugouts cleared. Mark of all guys (real hothead on our team; he's been routinely warned about bitching about calls and the like) makes a big show of holding me back, and I just continue to ask, "No, really, what are you doing? Why did you do that?" The ump, natch, stands there like a moron, later claiming that he didn't see it and just thought he had "gone in hard." Yeah, he went in hard standing up ten feet from the bag. WTF? So, big commotion, and a little naggy lady runs over from their dugout and yells at me to "stop being such an asshole." All I had done was ask those questions three. Yikes. Mayhem.

Everything calmed down after a bit, and we actually beat them by a run in the first game (though managed to lose the second). Fun times in Scottsdale, on a night where I was "taking it easy" so as to save myself for the weekend. Egads.

***************
FOLLOW-UP
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I get in these mixes often enough that there's certainly a boy crying wolf component. Trying to look at it from the outside, I think the real problem is that I take umbrage at events like the preceding and am loath to just blow it off and say, "whatever, you took a cheap shot at me and could've re-torn my ACL; whatever, that's cool." I am just not so inclined. Another piece of the puzzle of me.

Softball Addendum

Almost forgot about this - last night, ground ball to the short stop with a runner on first. The runner, Jolene, is not exactly a fan of the hustle, and as the SS ran over to step on second, she just stopped, about eight feet from first base. So she was directly between the SS and the 1b, actually doing quite a nice job screening the 1b. None of this was relevant as the batter did a reasonable job of hustling down the line and would have beaten the throw regardless. But when the SS's throw went sailing over the 1b, he immediately turns to the ump and starts screaming that she has to get out of the way, what is he supposed to do, hit her in the face? I was coaching 3b at the time and just asked "why should she have to get out of the way? She's in the baseline. There's no rule about relinquishing the basepath once you're out." He replies, "So you want me to hit her in the face? Okay, next time I will."

That's pretty violent and sorta a stupid thing to yell out loud on a field, but that's not what I found interesting. It's more that his reaction to her stopping five feet from the base and standing there was one of "this is out of the ordinary, and therefore must be illegal." My reaction to it was much more that there is a consistent set of rules within baseball/softball that can't possibly anticipate EVERY behavior, so you need to consider the behavior as it relates to more typical examples. Someone running from first to second in a normal situation might try to break up a double play by sliding into the SS. If they do so by going out of the baseline, they can be ruled out for interference, but if they stay in the baseline, even though they are out the moment the SS steps on the bag with the ball, they are still playing and still have every right to be in the baseline. It is the SS's responsibility to get around them if they want to throw to 1b. SO in last night's situation, likewise, though it's strange that she chose to stop running immediately, she still has no requirement to evacuate the baseline; he needs to move out to get an angle to the bag. It's actually an interesting strategy on her part - note that she wasn't "playing goalie," she wasn't actively trying to block the ball, she was just standing there.

Anyways, I found it interesting as a study in what people understand to be the nature of rules. I'm clearly more interested (and rightly so, I think) in a consistency within the rules, so you don't have arbitrary decisions about x or y being "not fair" on the ill-defined basis of being abnormal. The SS last night - though in some respects just wanted any situation which would have given him a better chance at turning two - reacted to a weird event with a visceral "that ain't right." I don't really think you can govern that way; I suppose you could add a rule that says the runner "must make an honest effort to get to the next forced base on a ground ball," but then there are other situations in which it is a generally accepted strategy for the runner to stop running in order to hinder a double play (e.g., on a grounder to second where the runner would inevitably be tagged, he may choose to stay put so as to force the throw to second and hopefully delay the relay enough to prevent the double play). Regardless, that would have to be a "known rule" beforehand, not something you shout about midgame because you're surprised.

Inconsistency in rules, though, in other contexts appears to bother no one. The boundary rules of football have always driven me nuts - in certain respects, the field boundaries pertain to the ball, in others, to the player's body, and sometimes, to multiple parts of his body (see "two feet in" rule for receivers in the NFL). Ultimate is much more consistent in this respect as on a caught disc, it is always the first point of contact that matters, not "where the disc is."

In other news, grumble grumble, get off my lawn.

fiveferfive / the week that was (II, 1)

Nothing diagram-worthy (diaphragm-worthy? HEYO!) from last night's softball game, but I did make all my plays in the OF and go five for five with 2 straight-up legit inside-the-park (sigh) HRs. The second one came late in a 7-7 game with 2 outs and nobody on, and we ended up winning that game 9-7, so groovy groovy jazzy funky on that. I took the week off from Ultimate in an effort to recover from the nasty job the Lei Out sand did on my adductors, and it seems to have served me well - no discomfort last night, so I'll be getting back on the field tomorrow for some pickup (and to get ready for next weekend's New Year's Fest). Hot times ahead! In the more immediate future, it's 1, lotsa Phil reading today; 2, Chinese New Year party with some of Beck's Cooking Light friends; and 3, birthday dinner with Danimal and Xtina. AND we have a veterinarian dinner tomorrow night! Butterflies be we.

The first official week back at school went well - I'm taking four classes, auditing one, doing some research / helping out with a class with Jason, and I suppose I should get on some of my own research interests. The four classes:

History and Philosophy of Scinece Weekly Lab Seminar (aka Weekly Departmental Discussion of Our Work Session)
Philosophy of Science Graduate Seminar
Cultural Psychology
Advanced Bioethics (Feminist Perspectives)
Neuroimmunophilosophy (Auditing)

The last class is a one-monther toward the end of the term, so nothing particular on that yet. We had our first HPS Seminar on Tuesday - last semester our class was combined with the Human & Social Dimensions of Science & Technology (HSDST, or HSD) lab of similar purpose, and the experiment crashed and burned. So we've divorced the two and put things back in an HPS-only seminar, which is FANTASTIC - Drs. Laubichler and Armendt are running it, and we had a great session on foundational problems of HPS and "Specific Theory," the question of how do you reconcile the particularity of case studies with notions of universality / the general. Cool stuff, and it seems as though having a smaller group to work with is going to help mightily.

Phil of Science (also Tuesday) was great Drs. Hamilton (my prof from last semester's semi-disastrous HSD class) and Creath, both of whom are actual in-the-flesh philosophers, run this course and do so in a fast-paced, know-yer-stuff atmosphere. We discussed a classic paper on scientific explanation which brought up, among other things, what the hey are you doing when you "explain" something. I tried to share this with Beck, but she responded with "isn't it obvious" and "this is just a semantic argument," both of which are fair assessments. If you permit yourself to play the philosophy game, though - admittedly semantic, but we are concerned with meaning, after all - it does get very hard to understand what explanation and hey, understanding are really getting at. This paper made the grand distinction between "Scientific explanation" and "mere description," and oddly, mere description seems to be a lot of what science does. This may be worthy of its own post entirely (post-worthy? Huh?), but think about Newtonian physics - when you have a body at location l₀ time t₀ with x mass, y velocity, z acceleration, etc., and then you have the same body at location l₁ at time t₁, you can "explain" how it got there by referring to Newton's laws. But what do those laws do, other than enable you to describe a bunch of intermediate positions between the two - how are these laws anything more than a method for compiling laundry lists of locations? Where is the understanding, really? The gist of the paper was that leaving that question aside, explanations tend to look like (conditions, laws) -> (outcomes), and there are some problems with that model. Sorry to wax on about this, but here's a funny example:

Condition: Joe is a man taking birth control pills
Law: Men who take birth control pills don't get pregnant
Outcome: Joe does not get pregnant

Does that strike you as an accurate explanation? Because it fits the requirements of the general scientific explanatory model (at least as proffered by this paper).

Anyways, that was Tuesday; Wednesday, I read a ton, worked on some stuff for Jason and eventually went to my Cultural Psychology course. The professor was wildly disorganized, and kept putting in under the guise of "I want to make sure you guys get out of this what you want," but really it just seems like he came in with a list of one hundred articles he thought were applicable to the topic and didn't do much work to structure the course. We'll see, but this could end up being a hodgepodge experience. The prof is also a HUGE evolutionary psychology fan, and Jason and I spent part of last semester reviewing a book that skewers the discipline*. So this should be fun.

* (Real quick - evo psych uses "natural selection" as a mechanism to explain certain psychological trends; classic example would be "men are unfaithful because it is to their reproductive advantage to sleep around." Overt Problem - Evo Psych stops at this level of analysis without offering an explanation of the underlying genetics or any mechanisms which would result in the observed outcomes. So you've got a lot of theoretical explanations of contemporary phenomena that don't ground themselves in evolutionary history or detail, which (obviously?) pisses biologists off; worse, evo psych often posit theories that fly in the face of known genetic mechanisms and therefore couldn't possibly be accurate. Evo Psych also aggravate general decent people on the street by hypothesizing things like "rape gives you a selective advantage," which would be interesting if demonstrable, but since its based on such armchair-guessing just strikes a lot of people as distasteful and controversial-to-sell-books. So, this semester could be fun; I'll tread lightly).

Neuroimmunophilosophy on Thursday was a bit of a bust; he was covering "basic immunology" which 1, I've already had several times over, and 2, is sort of categorically incomprehensible. Immunology is vastly complex, so to try to cover the entire shebang in an hour amounts to a long list of cell types and functions, all of which are vague and questionably useful as working definitions. Worse: they were presented in powerpoint with goofy animations and sounds and NO HISTOLOGY, so we saw nothing resembling "real" cells - not that histology cells are actually "real" - just a slew of jagged edged cartoon bubbles. Frustrating, but I can understand why the prof wanted to give everyone a grounding before diving into articles full of "cytokines" and "CD4+" cells and the like. Hopefully this will get better as we get into the philo; it is a combo grad / undergrad class, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

The main note from Friday was that I met with Andrew to discuss my HSD paper from last term and its implications for future research directions. Great meeting; he liked my paper, had several suggestions both for how to improve it and "next steps" for research. Word on the street is that he normally skewers papers, so pin a gold star on me. I am sure that ego-boost carried over into my HR walloping ways...

Addendum

You May Run Like Mays, But You Catch Like Nyet

I decided stick figure theater was the best way to convey my catch in last night's softball game¹. I've now made two of the best softball catches of my life in the Scottsdale Friday Night C League². Crazy. Just note that this catch was backhanded, made on a full sprint after about 100 feet, past horizontal and I landed on my face without hurting myself. Or, something like this:

¹My shoulder is not quite 100%, but no significant pain last night while swinging last night in a 5-7, 3 2b, 1 3b effort. Huzzah.

²These two, a homerun robbing layout over my shoulder grab at Rice while on Paul's team (Paul & John Doll both commented that the plays on Sportscenter's Top 10 the next day were weak by comparison), a layout line drive stab at shortstop for an unassisted triple play in Arlington, and a 50 yard sprint layout into a pile of branches catch of a towering foul ball at Rice. You know, if you're keeping track.