Adventures of Andrew Lenz and a Yellow Ball

Month: August 2017 (Page 2 of 4)

Schooled

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Our softball team won last night so we head to the playoffs next Friday night. Of my four at-bats, my first was a walk. My second was an infield grounder with two outs and I got thrown out at 1st base to end the inning. My third was an infield grounder with two outs and I got thrown out at 1st base to end the inning. (Again. Miserable.) My fourth at-bat was a stand-up double (with an RBI). At least I ended on a positive note. We wrapped up the season 5-5. We had one forfeit due to not enough women showing up and another game where we had to leave an outfield position empty for the same reason. You’d think with 9 women for 5 positions, you’d be ok. But that’s softball some years. As the #4 seed we go up against the #1 seed—who ended the season 9-1. A very strong team. At least, their only loss came against us! We’ll see if we can pull off an upset!

I was hoping to squeeze in some pickleball this morning, but with one person on vacation and another calling in sick, it’s into work I go. Alas.

My quads are a little sore from sprinting around bases last night. Bursts are much shorter in pickleball, so I should be fine playing tomorrow.

Sunday, August 20, 2017 (Court Day #59)

I arrived at 9:05 to Derby Park. It was overcast and would remain so for all day.

Things of note.

Greg offered to play with me against Kent—advanced player—and a lefty named Mark who was visiting for a month from Palm Springs. (His son is a UCSC student who is doing a summer class.) I had just played with Mark as my partner and knew that he was a solid player. Greg said he wanted a chance play with the “new, improved Andrew”. I told him that the new, improved Andrew wasn’t warmed up yet! (Even though I’d played 2-3 games—but sometimes it takes me 3 hours to play well!) The game was a schooling. Greg was maybe responsible for 2-3 points of our 11-0 loss . . . I got credit for all the rest. One or two returns in to the net, a slam into the net, a dink that was too high and got hit for winner . . . it was bad. So much for showing Kent how I was better than I was five months ago! Ouch! Embarrassing! Greg was a good sport about it, though. 

Oh, and it turns out that Greg is married to Angie, the woman I’d talked to whose daughter is heading into her junior year studying English at UCLA where my son is heading into his junior year studying Applied Mathematics. Though Greg said their daughter is studying abroad this year—not in L.A.—and they’ll be going to visit her at some point. Our daughter Charlotte—studying at Tufts—is hoping to go to Barcelona to study abroad in a year or two. My wife Kristen and I would like to head over there to visit her and sightsee. Parents like to do that!

The newbie Rolando returned. Apparently, he’s gotten hooked too. I told him that I’d play with him as my partner. “Are you sure?” Yes. We played against Eric and another player of marginal skill whom I can’t remember. It was a close game that Rolando and I won, not that it meant anything—I’m sure we weren’t trying all as hard. As Karen Long said, playing with less skilled players allows you to relax. But, also sometimes lazy and unfocused. I found myself not playing close attention and missing shots that I should have made. I made a conscious decision to be more focused and play as if each shot counted as important. These games are opportunities to improve just like a more challenging game.

In one of the games on the day, I noticed my right wrist was aching a bit. We’ll see if that was a one off thing.

DiehardPlayers-20Aug2017
The last two courts in use. Janet and Oleg take on Wayne and Gary on the near court.

The last game of the day was Stuart and myself against Oleg and Wayne. Stuart said, “I’ll play with Andrew . . . that’ll be fair.” As I walked to our side of the court, I said, “No, it’s not!” And it wasn’t. We took the lead and kept it for the whole game and won by a 2:1 ratio. Wayne has a rocket forehand with really good placement. His backhand is inconsistent at best—he can often get it over, but it’s a defensive shot typically. And his soft game is a surprise when it appears. Oleg is human and occasionally makes mistakes, but not often. He’s doing fantastic for only having played less than a dozen times. If I was picking teammates to win, I’d take Oleg over me. Stuart was relatively flowing with positive comments on my play. Gee, it only took me about four hours to get going…

Things wrapped up just before 1 p.m.

I felt today was a regression. While I had my moments, but overall, I wasn’t happy with my play. But it’s time on the court, right? I can only get better with time.

Number of days on a court: 59
Number of total hours: 170

Was That Gentle?

Thursday, August 17, 2017 (Court Day #59)

I arrived at 6:05 p.m. at Skypark. Like clockwork, I was the odd man out yet once again, sitting alone on the bench watching others with play or warm up. After a few minutes, Janet took pity on me and invited me as the fifth person on their court to warm up with her and her husband Bruce. Then Janet kindly offered me her place in their first game, but I insisted—I had to strongly insist!—that she play. It was only a few minutes before I in a game of my own.

It was a light crowd. 17 people for most of the evening, with people coming and going. Olga and Oleg would be late arrivals again, it was around 8 p.m. by the time we saw them.

Eric was back from his short out of town trip. We played a few games as partners. We won one game by a very wide margin, like 11-2 or 11-3. Then moved on to play Larry and Bruce. We lost 11-6 or something, Not a close game. But in our rematch with them, we flipped the score and won solidly, never losing the lead. It’s funny how that works. I can understand why tournaments are best of three games, instead of just one game.

Kristin mentioned in a discussion on the bench that when she went to Derby Park for the first time recently she felt that she wasn’t much welcomed—that there were cliques and she wasn’t worked into games. It’s a disappointment to me. We never want visitors to feel unwelcome to Santa Cruz courts. She also described a partner who kept correcting her play—yep, Mike, that’s you!—and it was an unpleasant experience. Such a bummer. I hope she comes back, she’s a super nice person.

Alan was funny. A wise voice from the bench with a recent mantra: “Was that gentle, Andrew?” Uh, yeah, no. I’d just smacked the ball out past the baseline. Alan was reminding me yesterday morning repeatedly to be gentle since sometimes I overkill on hitting the ball hard. As I constantly try to remind myself, it’s “placement over power”.

Tonight was another instance of it taking some time to get into my groove. My best game was at the end.

One thing that was weird was the lighting. For some reason, the lights made it difficult to judge depth. There was a ball that I completely misjudged. I just couldn’t tell where it was. Eric commented on it as well. So did Oleg. I’m glad it wasn’t just me! I just hope that if I ever play in a tournament, it’s not under lights . . . or at least not under lights like these! Though I’m not sure why it didn’t bug me in previous outings. Maybe just a combination of mysterious factors.

An area to work on is hitting “out balls”. There were probably half a dozen that I hit that were sailing out of bounds. Oh, there are plenty that I let go, but ideally, I should let all of those go . . . in particular the ones that I have to jump up to hit—is it a lob that’ll land in or is it more of a drive that’d be long gone? Work to do.

One thing I’ve been doing varying my serves. If I don’t know my opponent’s skills and tendencies, I’ll try different approaches. Lob serve. Low and hard to the backhand serve.. Short soft outside serve. Some people can power a low, hard serve back and make it difficult for the server to approach the net—or properly return the ball at all. Others like lobbing serves. But some have difficulty controlling those serves and have trouble returning with any power. Some receivers have poor backhand control and return balls into the net or providing an engraved invitation to the serving team to come to the net—or sometimes even popping up an outright winner. Even if I determine which serve works, I still like to mix it up now and then. We don’t want an opponent to always know what we are going to do. Same thing with receiving. Mixing up the return. In a game with Eric, when I served right to left to one opponent, he’d return it every single time to Eric’s forehand. It was like clockwork. I never came to me. He was predictable. That meant I could cheat toward the net knowing it was not coming to me. Knowing what your opponent is going to do is an advantage.

The last game for the diehards was Terri and myself against Oleg and Terry. They pulled out to a fast lead, 5-1, I think. But Terri and I climbed back and won 11-7. We had some great rallies in the game. I surprised myself with some of my good shots. It was a lot of fun. As I told Oleg after, “You are always fun to play with. You make me work!”

Aside from a number of shots in the last game—any game against Oleg will bring out some good shots to stay in the game!—the entertaining shot of the day was against Larry and Kristin. Kristin hit a shot from the backcourt which hit the net and dropped straight down. I leapt forward, popped it just over the net and back down the other side. Winner! Kristin kidded me about how proud of myself I looked!

After the last game and the nets were down, i noticed Oleg had his finger in some kind of small digital device. His wife Olga said it displayed one’s pulse. Oleg’s rate was a mere 86 beats per minute. Olga said, “Try it yourself.” Oleg obliged and extended the device hanging around his neck. I put my right index finger between the two halves. 115 BPM. I laughed, “You were running me ragged!” I do have to wonder if my heart rate should be lower. I don’t think I’m too out of shape. Overweight by maybe 25 pounds, but after six months of regular pickleball playing, I should be at least somewhat fit. Hmmmm.

By 9:30, I was in my car and heading home. No Brommer for me tomorrow. Meeting with two reps and a tech at work in the morning.

Health

Right groin muscle. Sore. Right knee. Minorly sore. Still not bad. We have our last regular season softball game tomorrow night. If we win, we go to the playoffs. If we lose, we’re done. The pressure is on!

Number of days on a court: 59
Number of total hours: 169.5

Not bad

Tuesday, August 15, 2017 (off day)

Fortunately, I was able to locate one of my two lost posts from Google search’s cached version, the post about Terry Long’s class on August 2, so that one is back in its entirety. The other (Brommer ribbon cutting) was too new to be cached, unfortunately, so the original version is gone forever, but I typed up what I could. Some specifics are gone, but it is what it is.

Here’s a link to the discussion I posted at the WordPress forums about it:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/wordpress-app-deleted-the-published-versions-of-old-drafts?replies=1#post-3003860

Today, I went to Outdoor World, right next door to work, and bought some new sunglasses to replace the mysteriously broken pair. It’s always hard finding ones that are the right size and shape, but I picked one for $30. I’m not a slave to brand names. As long as they work, I don’t care. When I’m on the cover of People Magazine, I’ll start worrying! (Maybe!)

Wednesday, August 16, 2017 (Court Day #58)

I arrived at Derby Park at 9:05. It was overcast and would stay overcast all morning. I bumped into Jim LaMarche outside the courts with his young grandson, Jonah. Jim is a very talented, famous children’s book illustrator and author. He’s humble too. I get to see him at my work when he comes in for art supplies. “So, you are a pickleballer?” “Yep.” Finally, someone who knows what going on in those courts! “I might try that someday. I used to play tennis.” “Anytime!”

It took me a little less time to “get going” this morning. No waiting three hours to get in a groove. That’s promising.

Mike was back, he had been traveling. We played a game against Greg and Ted. It was a good challenging one, back and forth. I didn’t give Greg many reasons to take back his compliment that he made the other day.

While playing with Mike, I did hit a few shots a bit too high that turned into winners for our opponents. Drop shots and dinks that were high enough to get smacked. “Keep it low” as they say. Yeah. Every time. Easier said than done!

Oh, a first today. Ted hit a ball that dribbled off the top of the net and bounced off the ground support for the net’s center post. Ted thought it was a winner for him and Greg. Mike and I had to break him the news that it was a “let” and had to be replayed. It was good for Mike and me, we had a chance to replay what would have been a lost point!

Janet and I played a game against Ted and Marianne. Before we started, I leaned over and asked her, “How many points do you think we’ll win by?” “Five.” It ended up being six at 11-5. Marianne had some amazing moments. She is getting so much better! I served an angled short serve—right to left—figuring there was no way she was going to get it, but she sure did! I was impressed! She had some other excellent shots too.

Wayne and I played a game against neighbor Dave and Tom. (Visor Tom. There are way too many Toms around!) It was a close game, though Wayne and I won 13-11. I wasn’t expecting to win. Wayne did better with his backhand in this game. Plus he broke character and did some very nice soft shots. Nice work, Wayne!

In one game, it was fun having Ted stare at me incredulously and say, “How did you get that?” After the game, Ted was talking to Dave about how I am playing so well. Dave agreed. I think they have short memories. They seem to forget the shots I hit long or slam into the net! Consistency is where I need to go next.

Play wrapped up at noon. Ted kindly invited me to join him for lunch, but an ad deadline was looming at work. As it was, it was 8 p.m. by the time I was able to head home to dinner. Hey, you play in the morning, you pay at night!

It seems I’m on the winning team more often than the losing team regardless of partners. Oh, I still make lame shots and I still contribute to losses, but I’m doing better. I want to play against stronger opponents, I want to get my clock cleaned. I need to have my weaknesses clobbered over my head. Maybe I can get a game against Mike and Grita again. That was a challenging game!

Health

Aside from my pinky still rough and sporting a bump from my bizarre softball injury nearly three weeks ago, I’ve been doing fairly well. I did feel my right glute briefly in one game today and, surprisingly, my right shoulder is a little sore when I raise it. And right hip can feel a touch sore if I move is just a certain way, but it’s all minor. Compared to recent months I’m relatively injury-free. I’ll take it!

Number of days on a court: 58
Number of total hours: 166

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