Tuesday, September 06, 2005

The Numbers Game

This weekend we were trying to figure out what jersey number yields the best team. In other words you take all of the 1’s on all of the teams and you put them all on the same team, all of the 2’s make another team, etc. – what number has the best team? Here are last year’s Championship Rosters for reference. It’s also kind of fun that certain types of players tend to gravitate to certain numbers. I’m not really sure what team would be best. The big ego 1’s have a strong squad, but have self-destruct written all over them. The 9’s have the deepest squad, drawing a player from every champies team. The 3’s and 7’s also have strong squads. Sadly, the 31’s only had 1 player at Nationals last year, but there's always next year.

10 comments:

Daniel H. said...

AJ, had you not lost that famous ro-sham way back in our Oglethorpe days, you could be a proud member of Team 13:

Mickey Madzinski (Ring)
Brian Lo (Pike)
Tim Eubanks (E. Pig)
Matt "Skippy" Sewell (Double W.)
Tom Matthews (DoG)
Pary Bell (Goat)
Eric Geile (BAT)
Brady Meisenhelder (Machine)
Rob "Lope" Steinmetz (Bravo)
Andy Fisher (Condors)
Dennis Karlinsky (Sockeye)
Grant Tyler (Kaos)

This team has a surprising ammount of height--most of the 13s I've met playing ultimate and soccer were . . . well, Michael Wood and Sonic (he was a 13, right?) are good examples (both in stature and disposition). Plus, there are outright thugs who finds their way to 13 on occasion.

Meanwhile, I will have to hang out with Dylan on Team 78 until I return to claim what is rightly mine . . .

wood said...

I've switched numbers twice since then Dan. First to 23 and now 7. What does that say about me? I'm still short with relatively the same disposition.

Alex de Frondeville said...

Clearly aj isn't referring to me when he talks about self-distructing, is he...? Big Ego, ok. I mean, after all, our jersey in '94 had explicitly written across the front, big ego ultiMatE (damn, I sound old). There was a surprising number of teams that did NOT have a #1.

Daniel H. said...

Michael, you comment reminds me that often the disposition can be more important than the number behind it. Case in point, Hale used to change his jersey number every year so he would always know what year the jersey was from--99 in 1999, 00 (not 0) in 2000, 01 (not 1) in 2001. That says more about Hale than any single number could (pragmatism was always one of his strong points).

I spend way too much time thinking about what having number XX on my jersey means (greater than any context I could give it), which probably says a lot about me.

AJ said...

Al:

I’ve just noticed that it takes a certain…umm…personality to be able to put the 1 on the back...lot of talent…but easily rattled….that’s all I’m saying:-)…I was actually more poking fun at Timmy Halt (who I’m sure doesn’t read this blog). His cockiness was very funny – two of my favorite Timmy comments – 1) a defender calls Tim on a push off and Tim says, “what?! Don’t you know how fast I am?” and 2)A guy calls a travel on one of Tim’s hucks and Timmy says, “just because you’ve never seen anyone throw that far doesn’t mean I traveled.” Of course none of this talent/cockiness could stop the Ringer laden Bonk! from melting down against the big hearted Quake of SL 03.

wood said...

My favorite Timmy comment... At Huckfest a few years ago, the day after that notorious night that ended at the Shack. We're in the finals, Timmy has the disc looking to jack it to Wooten (surprise), he fakes backhand, fakes forehand, fakes backhand, then throws the forehand and get handblocked. Timmy looks to the sideline and says "I just made his career!"

$ said...

I doubt us #1's would self-desctruct, Alex would never let that happen.

Plus, there's enough of us #1's Alex wouldn't have to play D, so we'd be ok.

$

Alex de Frondeville said...

Leaving out the Condors semi for the moment... I agree with the immortal $. Ahh, there was a time when I actually enjoyed D, but that was more in the Earth Atomizer days, when I had a team that knew how to play team D, clam, blah blah blah. I even went in for D points. Ended up with the 4th or 5th most D's on a just missing nationals semis team. Alright, I'll stop, but #1 still rules. Hello, that's why we are #1.

You know, when it came to choosing a number, there really wasn't any other choice. I guess that says all you need to know about me. (Let's see, psychologist would probably say something to the effect that selecting #1 is an attempt to boost a lack of confidence, etc.)

Anonymous said...

AJ, you never know what you can find on the internet. From talking about my jersey number, to my quotes, to even being able to throw the "big one," I am happy to know my spirit has not left Atlanta.

Google is good.

Timmy Halt
#1 - the only number that fits

Anonymous said...

It's ok, Timmy, the same thing happened to me today. Backhand, forehand, backhand, forehand--handblocked huck.

Then again, I make those throws with different hands, so it wasn't exactly hard to block…