Tuesday, July 30, 2024 (Court Day #695)
Today was the second day of my jury duty obligation. We were back at 10:30 a.m. for the first witness. After an hour, there was an issue with the next witness and we were released for two hours with instructions to return by 1:30 p.m.
By 3:30 p.m, we heard from the second witness and also heard the closing arguments. It was a very quick trial regarding battery and claimed self-defense. The verdict was obvious to all of us jurors and we were out of the deliberation room and back in the courtroom less than 15 minutes. After the verdict of guilty was rendered and the judge thanked us for our service, the prosecuting attorney invited us to chat outside the courtroom about the case.
Four of us stuck around and answered questions about the presentation of the evidence and the oral arguments. As everyone was turning to leave, I asked the attorney if Eric Seib was working today. When his face lit up and he said, “Yes!”, I told him Eric is a friend of mine. The attorney said his name is Angel Martinez and I told him that Eric plays bagpipes. Angel thought this was the greatest thing ever.
Angel and his female coworker took me up to the D.A. offices and retrieved Eric for me. While still in the back, when Eric was told something about “bagpipes”, he asked, “Is that Andrew?” (Yeah, we know each other!) Eric took me back into the “Authorized Personnel Only” offices. Jeff Rosell, the County D.A., stopped and said hello. We’ve done picture framing for Jeff over the years at work and Jeff and I are not strangers. Jeff said he was off to a Stray Cats concert tonight and thanked me for my service on a jury.
Eric and I caught up then make loose arrangements to try and meet up sometime in the next few weeks for lunch.
I returned to work and finished out my day.
I was looking forward to serving in a different kind of court! (Get it?)
Skypark
I was at the Skypark courts at 6:30 p.m. with my car reading 81°F. Toasty.
First Game
My first game was René and me against Francis and Fabrizio. I went in with zero warm up. They went up 2-0 with a lot of back and forth of sideouts, but then they never scored again.
Tristan
Tristan was back tonight. I found out that he signed up René and myself to play with him and Kai. Tristan said, “You can play with me.” René dropped 2-3 of Tristan’s serves into the net. I know from recent experience just how strong his serves are. I was able to return all of his last week, but it was not easy. Tristan and I went on to win that game 11-4. I was playing quite well, with the exception of a few rallies . . . ones where you kick yourself afterward for picking a dumb shot to make!
Busy
Tonight was one of the busiest nights that I’ve seen with the boatload of people waiting. The thing is, I know most of players by name and can carry on conversations with most of them and that helps pass the time well.
Ofer thought that Tristan and Kai were brothers. I walked up to Kai and asked him, “So, how long have you and Tristan been brothers?” He chuckled and said they’ve been friends since the third grade.
Darkness Game
Lights went out at 8:30 p.m. I was in the middle of the game with Rachael against Larry and Mike O’Brien’s son, Colin. Being we already are a month past the longest day of the year, it was already somewhat dark when the lights went out.
Rachel and Larry decided to move our game from the far end to the court nearest the gate where there is single light mounted. Even there however, it was still pretty dark so Larry decided he no longer wanted to play—I don’t blame him because the only eye protection he had was the sunglasses which he was wearing, but those made it even darker.
Rachel brought ice cream bars for everyone to celebrate Colin’s birthday this week. Unfortunately, my present to him was an overhead to the groin. It’s quite amusing to everyone except for Colin. Poor guy, Rachel and I were doubled over laughing. He did get me back a little bit later, I was messing around and returning every serve with a high return in the dark and Colin hit one back high and I either swung and missed it completely or the ball just spun away far enough that I couldn’t even try to reach it. Regardless, Rachel was in hysterics!
After the lights went out, people hung out and talked for a while. Paul Winn brought his latest batch of his homebrewed beer . . . he said it was an apricot sour with wheat and barley and a very little hops. I’m not a sour beer kind of guy, but it was good.
Overgrip Problem
In a game when René and I were playing against Spencer and Mo, the overgrip on my paddle started shifting so the wrapping was irregular and, for some reason, it was getting sticky up around the tape at the top. I held my paddle in the best of the two possible directions for comfort. Between games I did my best to peel off the tape and I rewrap it from the point where it started to get wonky. I need to redo the overgrip completely.
It was well after 9 p.m. when I was in my car and on my way home. I had a warm fuzzy feeling . . . no, not from the 5 ounces of beer sampling, it was from the camaraderie of our playing community. The ones that stick around until the end are a very nice group of folks.
Thursday, August 1, 2024 (No Play)
The following was shared on social media this week and attributed to pro player Collin Johns, the brother of Ben Johns. As clarified in Collin’s statement included further below, these private comments were cobbled together and shared without his permission.
I despise MLP for a variety of reasons.
- A top player like Ben is handicapped for being the best by having bottom tier players on his team. That’s the equivalent of taxing the very wealthy who worked hard to be wealthy, to the point of having to work harder than the average person to come out ahead. It’s unfair to penalize him like that.
- The scoring system is designed to allow inferior players to keep the scoreline close and steal matches they don’t deserve to win. The advantage of returning outweighs how much better a team or player is. This keeps the scoreline close no matter what and the freeze allows the inferior team during the match to catch up arbitrarily. The scoring system is extremely dumb. Just because a system is widely used doesn’t make it a good one. A proper scoring system should give the better team a legitimate chance to demonstrate why they are better. If the underdog performs better under those conditions that day, they deserve to win. But not just because they stayed close and caught up at the end because of the freeze.
- It is portrayed as a “team effort” even though the results clearly hinge on certain matches where you personally have no control over the outcome. In theory, Ben and I could’ve won every single one of our matches but with our women going 0 and NINE to start the season, we have no ability to do more than offset that. As good as Ben is, he can’t play more than two matches and four points at a time in a DB. He is at the mercy of the rest of his “team” that are the bottom tier of available players. It’s a “team” yes. But with certain players carrying the bulk of the load to lift up players who aren’t actually pulling their weight.
- Singles might be exciting but it is not the focus of many top players. It is suddenly deemed important for some reason and made to be a big part of the event. I say that as someone who is very capable in singles. I am personally fine playing four singles points at a time. But I don’t believe it should be as important as it is.
- Players, owners, GMs, and fans are permitted to behave in the worst ways at MLP. It’s part of the culture. You can scream, stare down, finger wag, taunt, cheat, and use pretty much any bush league tactics you want with very little risk of repercussions. It’s an accepted part of MLP. As someone who values a level of sportsmanship, I hate this part of it. It brings out the worst in people, and players who are normally quarterfinal level suddenly act like tough guy jackasses just because they have a better supporting cast than another top player. AL’s on court behavior was shameful against us. So it isn’t just lower tier players. It is a long list of guilty parties. This makes MLP unenjoyable to me and others who have similar views.
- The venue selection is grossly unprofessional. This week was in a remote area of SLC at a facility without adequate spacing around the courts and horrendous lighting. The lighting is just so wrong. The Picklr literally put un-diffused lighting directly down the middle of the courts. Meaning direct LED lighting down the sight lines of the courts. This is absurd and grossly unprofessional to have players play a pro event in those conditions. Ben already has an issue with indoor lighting and this week was completely unworkable. You can’t compete if you can’t see the ball properly. Also, the last cumulative season event in DC was downright dangerous with where it was at, with no lights to finish matches within time constraints. The venue selection process is completely unprofessional by MLP.
- MLP just signed a ball contract with Vulcan. I’m aware they were under pressure to follow PPA on that. However, when it comes to standards for the players, this is a downright wrong. The quality of the ball affects the quality of play significantly which is unfair to the players and the fans. We don’t practice hard to perfect shots that no longer matter because the ball doesn’t bounce. And I don’t want to hear it is the same for everyone. It isn’t. The worse players benefit more because it is less about skill and more about luck. Pickleball also loses when our “top players” routinely whiff the ball. I’m sure that looks really good on ESPN when we can barely make contact. It’s infuriating and unprofessional.
- Paddle testing in DC was an unmitigated disaster. Not only do we have standards that are completely out of control, we can’t even rely on the testing equipment used to be consistent. This general issue is as much a problem at PPAs so it isn’t regulated to just MLP.
I am aware that there are many staff members who work hard to make MLP happen and fans who like going to the events. However, if MLP is asking for professional effort on the part of the players, they need to be held to the same standard. And the above factors are legitimate grievances. Particularly the ones that are unprofessional standards like the venue and the ball. If they want to pay us to stay home so be it. But we worked to receive a contract that includes being paid for “team events”. We will fulfill our contract duties and sign paddles and go chase the Vulcan ball around on court if necessary. But don’t expect us to enjoy doing it.
Ok, so there’s that.
Now Collin’s Response:
Here is the statement from Collin on Friday on his Instagram account:
“The list of grievances allegedly written by me and currently being shared is based on a number of texts that were privately shared in casual conversation. I never made any official communication or sent any emails to MLP. My opinions were reframed and forwarded to MLP without my consent, then subsequently leaked to the general public, which was never my intention. I fully admit that, like all people, I occasionally communicate my thoughts and ideas to friends and family, but the fact that my words were taken out of context, misrepresented, and released publicly is unfair and extremely frustrating. It is my duty to address concerns with MLP directly and privately as a catalyst to drive positive change within the sport that I want to see succeed. I appreciate the opportunity to compete in pickleball in any capacity, and any perceived diminishment to the sport of pickleball caused by this series of events is something that is regrettable. The list of complaints shared across the internet is not indicative of how I would choose to express myself.”
There’s some talk of an upset ex-girlfriend leaking the texts. Who knows.
Number of days on a court: 695
Number of total hours: 2,910
Number of paid coaching hours: 60.5
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