There and Back Again: An Open Letter to Sam Biddle

Last week an article was brought to my attention that a person referred to as Sam Biddle was taking lazy pot shots at my beloved, fledgling sport of ultimate. Because I don’t want to give his site any boost in traffic, I will paraphrase his article: “Ultimate frisbee is the dumbest game on two feet, played by people who lack shame and self awareness.”

Well Mr. Biddle, I may not be aware of myself, but I am now quite aware of you.

First off, Mr. Biddle, my apologies for the delayed response. I only write two blog posts per month so that I can give the people something worth reading– it’s a strategy you may want to consider.

See, normally the people who attack the things I love hide behind easily acquired anonymous usernames. They are smart. You, however, held your hand high above a pile of steaming defecation and proudly declared “This is mine. Look everyone, come see what my donut stuffed bowels have lazily plopped out on this internet page.” And so I looked. Then I left. Then I came back and I looked again… and yet still I could not comprehend why anyone who regurgitated such bile into a public place would leave a flag over it waving their name.

“A name means a lot. It is the only one you got.” An old women told me that; she made the best homemade donut holes. Fun fact: The french name for donut holes is “pet de nonne” and translates into “Nun’s farts”. Right here, I am ever-so-tempted to mention how I provided the reader more useful and humorous information in that one sentence than you did in your entire blog…

Sorry, Biddle. I get easily distracted by both donuts and facts, but I suspect you are only interested in one of those two, so let’s get back to the topic at hand. I utilized the Google and typed in your name. Very little came up; a couple blogs here, a brief mention there, and a page with a big red prohibition sign over your picture. The only other time I’ve seen that symbol is for “no smoking.” I will ignore the parallels between your blog and cigarettes, for I don’t want to give cigarettes a bad name.

While on the cusp of reading some of your writing, I wavered and an imaginary cricket started to talk to me in voice like Michael Caine.

“If one has plans to speak on the truth of Mr. Biddle, one should at least dabble in some of his prose. It would be quite uncouth to…”

Then another cricket appeared and shoved the first one off my shoulder and said, in a voice that sounded a lot like Stephen Colbert, “Stop. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. Pretending you read his stuff will be better than actually reading it, trust me.”

No, crazy Colbert cricket, leave me alone. I will not stoop that low. I will do real research.

I entered the Biddle blog, and yes, it was boggish: the dead carcass of a bloated tech article rubbed my ankles, hack jobs of wealthy CEO’s hung from the walls. Really though, there was nothing there, nothing but decaying words of misplaced hate sprayed down with age old jealous spite. Then it dawned on me: this is troll territory. It’s been barely disguised but this is surely a troll’s blog. I couldn’t breathe; the smell of infested sewage had clawed it’s way into both nose cavities and was eroding my comprehension of decency.

Then I saw you. The Biddle in true form. You were chewing on the hind leg of a young tech startup. Right then, the munching stopped. Tense silence. Do you remember? I certainly do: the fear seeping from my body in the form a cold sweat. Had you heard me? Could you smell me? I began to back up slowly until my left foot betrayed me by stepping upon some poor soul’s brittle bone. SNAP! In a howl, you reared up.

“Biddle in True Form,” by Beau Kittredge

Now dearest Biddle, it was dark and I was drenched in dread so my sight may not have been perfect. But I tell you in all honesty that there are no words that could describe that creature and that is why I have attempted to sketch you. Feel free to add details I may have missed.

Anyway, you never caught me. I got away safely by screaming and clawing my way back to the normal internet. Once there I went to clear my mind with a fix of some cute cat photos on reddit, yet something had followed me by attaching to my shoe as toilet paper does. I took a peek, it was a photo of you in your human form.

Here is a picture of Mr. Biddle

As an avid BBC Sherlock Holmes fan I couldn’t help but perform my own deductions. First it easy to see you have taken the body of a direct descendant of the hobbit known as Samwise Gamgee. An interesting choice for sure but the real story hides in the details. The hair: combed over yet disheveled, pretending not to care about appearance but secretly wanting to hold on to the cute boy appeal because of a strong fear of aging. The face: pinched in the brow and borderline pudgy, it is stuck in a constant form of perplexed and misled ambition, as if the world owes it something yet never paid up because the world never does. The small shirt: speaks to a slight weight gain probably due to recent increases in consumption of the alcoholic beverage positioned in the right hand. The sweatpants: good choice, sweatpants are comfortable. The book: a book called Lacrosse For Dummies, which is odd. Why would you perform such research on lacrosse and not ultimate? Ultimate is following a very similar growth trajectory and both of them use a flick of the wrist. My guess is that you were drawn to the words “For Dummies” or thought “Lacrosse” meant a Lava Cake mixed with a Hot Cross Bun.

All this photographic evidence strongly points to a man who never quite made it in the world of athletic endeavors. A man who, sadly, was bullied by big, mean jocks in his past. Back in high school, those jocks had the power and they abused it by picking on you. If only you had tried to play ultimate, you would have been accepted and all this could have been avoided. Fast forward to now, is it not ironic that you have the potential to be heard by so many and yet you waste that power by picking on a small, adolescent sport like ultimate? The sport of ultimate is the tiny, bedraggled high school kid with big bifocals, still being dunked head first in misconceptions and beaten down by older stereotypes, still fighting back for just a little respect. Yes, we may be scrawny now, but so too once was Captain America. One day this sport will be injected with experimental serum from the military (this serum will be in the form of a huge deal with TNT, where Charles Barkley will mispronounce our players’ names). Even while riding success as our steed, we will remain fiercely noble and kind. We will be the sport America wants with the kindness America needs.

Why do I say this? Well, Mr. Biddle, I will tell you why in the form of list because lists are hot right now. The top five reasons you should convert to loving ultimate:

1) It costs less than a pair of sweatpants to play, which is great for those who don’t make much money.

2) It’s a terrific workout: if all kids played, child obesity would be down at least 78%.

3) It has a community open to everyone regardless of race, beliefs, or sexual preference.

4) There have been zero recorded shark attacks on people playing ultimate.

5) It teaches teamwork, trust and respect for your opponents both on and off the field.

Now that’s that done, I have a sneaking suspicion that my list did not convince you, so I will I will try another a list and add money: a list of challenges with a winning sum of $10,000 to a charity of your choosing. My friend Martin is good for it. Anyway, I invented these by concluding that perhaps you thought my sport a pushover full of rotund hippie hippos. Think of this challenge like the TV show Pros vs Joes. You can be Joe. Or it can be like Man vs Animal and I can be a sloth. Now I know this may seem odd, but having to tell people you lost to a sloth would be grand. Here are my challenges:

1) The handler catch: You have the entire field to work with, and you can pick any thrower. All you have to do is catch the disc twice while I am covering you. The thrower has 10 seconds to throw the disc and the catch must be made at least 20 feet away from the thrower. You get 10 attempts. If you catch two or more, you win!

2) The deep reception: You will start 40 yards away from the endzone I will start 10 yards behind you on the 50 yard line. There is thrower with the disc also standing on the 50 yard line. You start running for the end zone, the thrower will try to hit you in the endzone. Same bar: if you can catch 2 out of 10, you win.

3) The throw: An orange cone sits 70 yards away from us. As we stand back to the wind, we take turns throwing at the cone. If you can strike the ground closer to the cone two out of ten times, you win.

If you sign up now, I will let you try all three!!! What a deal. However if you somehow lose you must do two things: 1) Come watch the opening game of my AUDL season, and (the hard part for you) 2) after the game you must write another article without prejudice about our sport. If you still think it should be linked closely to the word lame, thats fine. At least the next time your literary defecation will have a slight smell of knowledge. Go Biddles.

Waiting with bated breath, yours truly, Beau Kittredge.

This blog’s question is: What is a Biddle? Example answer: The mixture of snot and saliva perched on the lip of toddler who is yelling nonsensical words in order to gain attention, usually pertaining to a loaded diaper.

Oh yeah, and thanks a lot to all the people who answered the first question. Some were funny and some reminded me why I keep playing. The winner of the last contest was Edwin with “I knew I love Ultimate when I was more excited to play Ultimate than to play League of Legends.” Edwin, please email neeley@skydmagazine.com to claim your prize.

Because last time’s voting turned into an odd social experiment, this time the winner will be chosen by my roommate, Ash. Plus the winning answer will be uploaded onto urbandictionary.com.