Now that GBSL09 has come to a close in both the Amateur and Pro Tiers, it’s time to look at some of the surprises and disappointments.

First Up – The Surprises

Baby Genesis Device: This team was brand new to grifball this past season, so no one had heard much, if anything, about them. They were placed in Hammer Division 6 along with Team India and Red Army. In Week One of the season, they knocked off Team India 6-3. Most people didn’t think much of it due to the fact that India was missing a few key players. Baby Genesis Device continued winning and finally cracked the Amateur Top 10 in Week Four after handing Team India another loss.

After winning out, Baby Genesis Device entered the playoffs with a 10-0 record, surprising many in the grifball community. They landed a 6 seed in the Hammer Conference Playoffs and made it to the Elite 8 before losing a hard fought game to HLC.

Team Captain BobbyBirdseed has credited his team’s success to excellent team chemistry, “Most of us (Myself, Grauzz, Mcccfinest, and GIMP) are all friends in real life. Banjo was a preseason acquisition; however, it was a great move. Banjo is an amazing guy. Great attitude and he just went with the flow and did what he needed to do. He fit perfect into our little circle of friendship. I also think that, even though we did well, we were here solely for the fun of the game. Sure, winning is awesome, but it didn’t matter to us. Sure, we came to win, but not to get all serious if we won or lost. I think if more people did that, there would be higher quality teams (especially out of the Rookie league).”

When asked about how being underrated affected his team’s play, BobbyBirdseed said, “I can probably attribute being underrated to helping us a bit. Sure. I think any team where nobody expects them to get anywhere (which was well warranted, we were teamed up against India in our division, then Red Army) would see that as an advantage. Nobody expected anything from us. That was our strongest advantage in this season. I heard the term ‘some no name rookie team’ thrown out a couple of times. That quickly changed when the community started talking about how ‘Wow, they beat India!’ I think that was our biggest boost of confidence. We took it, and rolled with it. Eventually, we lost to HLC, but it was a well fought game. We were the first team this season to go 2 – 0 on them in a game. The loss only made us stronger I feel, because it was our biggest competition.”

Sadly enough, this team fell apart after the season concluded. Most of the team has too many real-life things to deal with and can’t commit to playing another season. BobbyBirdseed and Banjo are the lone players with the desire to find a new team for summer league, so I’m sure they wouldn’t mind receiving a few offers for new teams.

Cheap Ass Gamer: The perennial “launchers” came into GBSL09 with relatively low expectations from the grifball community. They had been labeled “overrated” and “lucky” on countless occasions. When the first Pro League rankings were released, CaG was ranked a whopping 13 out of 16. They were predicted to finish worse than all teams except ToT, Project 86, and American Dream. That said, it was quite obvious that most teams expected to blow right by CaG without any sort of problems.

CaG reeled off two wins in Week One against Anonymous and PiotP, before falling 5-4 to SI in Week Two. They continued their run of dominance in the Pro League with a 5-game winning streak, until they were again knocked off by SI, 5-4. Against preseason odds, CaG made the playoffs and earned a first round bye. Though, as luck would have it, CaG got matched up playing SI in the second round. SI won the series 2-0, with wins of 5-4 and 6-3.

Even with the playoff losses, CaG did an excellent job of proving themselves this season. Not only did they continue to establish their dominant launching game, CaG also proved that they could tank when needed.

The Disappointments

Tobogganation: Tobogganation is a Rookie/Amateur team that has been around since GBSML08. They haven’t ever advanced extremely far in the playoffs, but have been a consistently good team every season that will give anyone a run for their money. They started out ranked in the Top 12 of the GBSL09 Amateur League, but lost a close game in Week One to future champs, The Galloping Seagulls.

It seemed to be an average season for Tobogganation throughout the first few weeks of play. Then all hell broke loose. It was discovered that two of Tobogganation’s current players (Aspence501 and Thunder4400) and a former player (mclaggerz JC) had been playing on alternate accounts for other teams. This resulted in Tobogganation and four other teams (Backpack Express, Ching Chong, Red Kube Klan, and Retarded Face Kickers with Hammers) forfeiting all of their matches for the season.

Needless to say, a season can’t get much more disappointing than this. All I can think of is that 10 games a season just wasn’t enough grifball for these players.

Team USA: Team USA was the runner-ups from the GBWL09 Rookie League. They were a proven team coming into the season, losing only BlueCollarKid from a roster that included Digital Pain, B Marshall, and Snikklefritz. They were ranked 11th in the Pro League Preseason Poll, and some in the community thought they would actually have a decent season.

After the first week of the season, the team fell apart. Digital Pain, B Marshall, and Snikklefritz were nowhere to be found, and I’m not even sure it was ever discovered exactly why. Nevertheless, the playing responsibilities for this team were left to a group of Rookie players. The duo of I robot9000 and sabceef actually did a pretty decent job with what they were given to work with.

Team USA finished winless on the season with only 9 goals scored for them. After the transition of players they were in way over their heads in the Pro League, which was an enormous disappointment.