A PrettyGood play

When I first heard the term "The World's Greatest Play", I thought it was a once in a lifetime thing. It was a youtube video of an Ultimate play. A man was running towards a disc as it sailed out of bounds. He jumped at it, caught the disc, and threw it back in bounds. Another player caught the disc in the goal. Score.

I was a bit underwhelmed. "That's really cool," I said, "but how does it qualify as the world's greatest play?"

"No, no," my teammate explained to me. "That's not describing the play. That's what that play is called. That's a Greatest."

It's just called Greatest for short, following the tradition of shortening names to their unquestionably boasting adjectives ("Ultimate" for "Ultimate Frisbee"). There are also spin-offs of the Greatest; a Worstest is when you think the disc is going out ouf bounds, jump at it, catch it, and throw it back in bounds mid-air, only to have the disc hit the ground as you land in bounds. You could have just caught it, but now you look like an ass. Hence, "Worstest". 

But there's a real spectrum to this play. There are a lot of moving parts. There are a lot of different stages to the Greatest that you can successfully perform, without it being a complete greatest. Even if you do everything right, if there's nobody there to catch the disc, it was all for nothing. 

I'd like to fix that. Not completely, but one possible outcome at a time.

This happened to me this past weekend. I ran deep. The disc went up, but the wind caught it. It began drifting out of bounds and travelled down the field just outside the line. If it hits the ground, we lose a lot of yards, since the disc goes back to where it goes out of bounds. Even if I jump and catch it, unless I'm dragging my toes and touching in-bounds when I do, it still counts as out of bounds and we lose the yardage. So the only way to keep it is to get the disc back in bounds somehow.

There was nobody downfield, so even if I could get a decent throw off, nobody would be there to catch it. I wasn't at all close to the end zone. And I absolutely was not throwing the disc back for a loss of yards (I've done that before. You look like a complete ass if you can save the disc from going out of bounds only to lose 20-30 yards on an errant blady throw)

I ran full speed and dove at the disc. It was too low to the ground to do a real catch-and-throw before I landed. I hooked my finger under the rim as I twisted on to my back. I flung it back in bounds just before hitting the ground. 

My ad-hoc plan kinda worked. When I got up, I could see the disc in bounds, still rolling downfield. The wind was furiously helping, keeping the disc from ever coming to a full rest. 

Success.

This was not a Greatest. But it was a successful leap out of bounds to keep the disc in play. I propose we call it a PrettyGood. Because it's really not great. But it's pretty good. 

Side note 1: It was pointed out to me that, since I didn't actually catch and throw the disc that it might be considered an intentional mack, which is technically against the rules. The rule makes sense (you can't intentionally bobble a disc to gain yards on a catch) but I'm not sure it was intended to apply in this case. What do you guys think? Was this against the rules? I doubt it would ever be enforced if it was.

Side note 2: After rolling, I ran towards the guy who picked up and got a handblock. It was immensely satisfying. :)