Flatball (With Pictures!)

So I was poking around the ol' hard drive a while back (yes, I am a geek), and I found a bunch of pictures and video clips from the frisbee team I played on five years ago. I was entertained by these, and figured that for those of you who've never seen a game, I could illustrate just exactly what's going on out there. Well, more or less, anyway...

So, the basics. Here's a six year old's rendition of an ultimate frisbee field:

As you can see, it looks a lot like a football field. One big difference would be that the end zones are 25 yards deep, and the rest of the playing field is 75 yards between end zones. The goal of the game is to catch the frisbee in the opponent's end zone, scoring 1 point. You cannot advance the disc by running, only by throwing. Play is continuous - when the disc is dropped or intercepted, you just keep playing (kinda like soccer). And there's no contact allowed (and no setting picks, either).

Actually, there are more rules than that, but this'll be enough to be going forward. If you understand the concept of "caught disc in the end zone = 'good'" (or 'bad', if you're on defense), then you can follow along with the videos.

So, here we go. Click on the pretty picture to watch the video associated with it. Except where noted, all of these files are around 400k, so it shouldn't be too much of a drag on your 'net connection. Let's break things down into categories:

Long Throws:

This is a fun one. If you listen carefully, you can hear Christy's defender yelling "No Huck!", which means "I'm horribly horribly beaten so please don't let them throw long!". Oops. (Better still, in the picture there you can see the defender yelling. Heh.)

And proving that long throws are gender-indiscriminate, here Liz hucks one long to Christy.

Dives:

Here's Mike, making a nice dive on a catch for a score.

And here's me, blocking a short throw.

And proving that dives are gender-indiscriminate, here's Sarah going flat out for a great catch.

Long Throws with Dives:

Here are Jay and Dan, respectively, making some nice runs and catches.

Defense:

Two entries from Matt. The first is a great diving play. In the second, note the sheer amount of ground he makes up to make the play.

Blocks:

On defense, the person guarding the person with the disc gives a ten-count to the person throwing... kinda like counting three-mississippi before you rushed the Quarterback as a kid in the backyard. They also try to block the throw, when possible. Here are the two best blocks I've ever seen:

Liz actually blocks this with her foot as it's on it's (the foot's) way DOWN...

This one sort of speaks for itself. I have never seen anything else remotely like this play.

Ouch:

Turn up your speakers and listen to the sound of a disc hitting a man squarely in the face. Not good times... but good D!

Oddities:

A great throw to break the zone defense, straight to H. Unfortunately, H isn't looking. But all is well in the end...

For those of you scoring at home (or even if you're me), that's yours truly on the throw... bounce it off Matty... caught by Becca. If you advance the video manually you might have a shot at seeing it... or at least getting the idea.

Wow:

Ok, so at the start of each play, one team throws from their own end zone to the opposing team, who starts in their own endzone. What you see here is Mike, having just thrown to start the point, at the end of running down the length of the field to block the first throw. This is a rare play, and a heck of a block.

I'd like to publicly thank Reed for bailing out my high throw in such a spectacular fashion. Note early in the clip how I gesture with my head which way he should be going... Kudos to Jake for the play-by-play.

Y...eah:

Dan, absolutely refusing to sell his body out for the sake of getting the whole point. Bad camera-age.

Yet another reason why you should never allow Jake access to a recording device.

Big big files:

Alright, for those of you who have been lamenting the small, blurry video, these last two are for you. They're 3.5 and 5 Mb in size, so be warned, and probably don't even try it if you're still on dialup service...

That's Liz... to Christy... to Jim... and as I recall, everyone was ok.

And finally, the infamous Matt-Car clip. Matty runs the length of the field, catches the disc in the very back of the end zone, drags both toes, and slides into Skip Steadman's car. You then hear MER on the clip saying "Oh, he put his head in the car!". Good times.

Yeah, so that's that. Hope you liked!

--9/20/2004