Sunday, July 23, 2023 (No Play)

After a conversation with my wife a month or two ago, Tim, the owner of the Santa Cruz Running Company, followed up and let me know that they’d received some new Sketcher pickleball shoes.

Tim had said that they’d been receiving a lot of requests for pickleball shoes and as a running shoe store, not a sporting goods store, they had to convince the supplier that they should be allowed to stock the shoes. Now that they’ve got them. I picked up a pair.

My legs appear more tan than they have actually gotten this summer!

What’s most interesting to me is that they are washable, so the “leather” must be faux leather. The tread on the bottom isn’t quite as deep as other shoes I’ve had in the past . . .

. . . but perhaps they’ll still manage to hold up as long or even longer than my last pair of court shoes!

Monday, July 24, 2023 (No Play)

Someone shared online today that there are counterfeit Ben Johns Joola Hyperion paddles being sold on Alibaba direct from China. I suppose that pickleball has gone prime time when it’s worth the effort to make and sell knockoff paddles. This also means that the secondary (used) market is now entirely suspect. You need to know what to look for. On the real paddles, the “CARBON FRICTION SURFACE” is in an italic font but on the counterfeit paddles, it’s a standard straight up and down font. Unfortunately, bad paddles will not announce “Counterfeit” on them.

Tuesday, July 25, 2023 (No Play)

I had another PT appointment with Jae at 6 p.m. today. He says things are coming along, but I’m looking at another few weeks at least before getting back out on the courts.

This week, a pickleball related letter appeared in the nationally syndicated “Dear Abby” column, which can be found here:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/24/dear-abby-i-have-a-crush-on-my-pickleball-partner-but-shes-married/
I think the advice she gave is good. If you have a crush on a married player, keep it to yourself! If you can’t control yourself, steer clear of the temptation!

Monday, July 31, 2023 (No Play)

Yesterday, around noon, Matt Babb texted me and said he and his young son Lucas visited the courts at the very newly opened The Hub in Campbell for their free open house. Matt said it was a mad house, but pretty cool.

I tend to be a bit frugal with my money—I hope to retire before I’m 80!—but I may cough up the entry fee on some rainy day sooner or later.

Charles kindly checked in tonight to see how I was doing. The good news is that his shoulder is doing better and he’s playing right handed again.

I told him that I’m actually more concerned about my right wrist and that I have an appointment scheduled with a hand specialist in a few weeks after meeting with my GP on Thursday last week for a referral.

Thursday, August 10, 2023 (No Play)

Matt, one of my PT doctors, says I should give my knee another couple of weeks before playing. If I return on a Sunday at Derby Park, that would mean August 27. Fingers crossed.

Saturday, August 12, 2023 (No Play)

I’m getting sick of watching pickleball “how to” training videos. They are getting really boring after hearing the same things over and over that I learned years ago. One in a blue moon you’ll catch one little tip, but there’s only so much you can watch.

Sunday, August 13, 2023 (No Play)

This morning in our newspaper there was an insert for Big 5 Sporting Goods.

I was curious and sure enough there was a pickleball item in the flier. An entry-level pickleball paddle by Head. Speaking of, I’d need another paddle like I’d need a hole in the head!

My wife and I ran some errands. She wanted to stop by Santa Cruz Running Company to look at shoes, at the prompting of her PT.

I told her that I wanted to go by Play It Again Sports and see if they had some weights. I was in the market for some 20 pound dumbbells. I could get them cheaper online, but I always want to support my local retailers, so I bought a couple today.

While heading to get rung up, I asked a clerk about pickleball gear. He said they have a whole section. Indeed they do!

What a change since the last time that I looked! A few years ago, they had a couple of cheesy paddles and some balls and that was it. Now they have serious paddles by Gearbox, Engage, Selkirk, and others.

There were a couple of 20-something guys looking at the Gearbox paddles. I asked where they were playing. They smiled and said Brommer. I told them that I’m the USA Pickleball Ambassador for Santa Cruz and that it was good to see more young faces joining the game.

Monday, August 14, 2023 (No Play)

John McEnroe is back at it. Another promoted pickleball game. This time against retired NFL quarterback Drew Brees:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cv5-ov0AxmY/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Wednesday, August 16, 2023 (No Play)

There is no video of my shot in a tournament years ago with Eric as my partner, but this clip is almost identical. I was on the left side, a high ball bounced in our kitchen, I intentionally made a big backswing then dropped the ball just over the net for a winner . . . with our spectators commenting, “Great fake!” This is as close as you’ll get to a video of my shot:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwAaF40oR20/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Rule Change

Television networks asked USA Pickleball to change the rules and instead require referees to place servers and receivers in the correct positions proactively rather than players having to ask if they are in the correct place. Questioning the referee regularly before serves delayed the flow of the match.

As of two days ago, August 14, 2023, USA Pickleball made this rule change. Here is the official explanation:
https://usapickleball.org/news/mid-year-revisions-to-the-2023-usa-pickleball-rulebook/

Bumper Sticker

I saw this sticker at work today and couldn’t help but think of pickleball!

Saturday, August 19, 2023 (No Play)

I was at memorial service this week. (It was tragic. The man who was my best friend in 1st grade, Doug, lost his 16-year-old son Joe to a fatal and entirely unexpected stroke.) Before the service, I was talking one of Doug’s friends and he said he’d had two meniscus surgeries. When I mentioned to him that my knee still hurts at times, he replied, “Well, it takes a year to fully recover, doesn’t it?” And with that, I’m planning to play tomorrow. It’s just one week shy of three months since my surgery.

Parking

Parking near Derby Park continues to be a point of contention in the surrounding neighborhoods. Woodland Way neighbors asked pickleball players to park on Swift Street—a main artery—but now Swift residents are complaining. You can’t win. My wife forwarded an email notice she received about such a parking discussion on the Nextdoor app. I was reading through it—and while I had nothing to add to the conversation—a link to my blog (which you are reading) was shared:

Rising Numbers

According to the SFIA, the number of people who played pickleball ar least once in 2022 was double that of the number in 2020! It’s crazy.

Here’s an article from January that I just found out about:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/pickleball-popularity-explodes-with-more-than-36-million-playing.html

I found out that one of my staff—Paige, a young woman in her early 20s—recently took up the game and even arranged a “tournament” of her assorted inexperienced young friends. Unfortunately, she’s going to back to school for another degree and he last day was Thursday this week. When I told her we should play sometime, she said to give her a few months to improve first!

Health

I’ll be returning to the courts 15 pounds lighter, having been riding a stationary bike regularly once or twice per day, and lifting dumbbells for the last few weeks once or twice per day. I’ve also been eating better.

Number of days on a court: 601
Number of total hours: 2,646
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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