Adventures of Andrew Lenz and a Yellow Ball

Month: October 2024 (Page 1 of 5)

Pain in the Neck at Brommer

Sunday, October 27, 2024 (Court Day #733)

The right back side of my neck is still sore from Thursday, but it only hurts when turn my head quite far… so I try not to! But it’s not enough to keep me from playing.

I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:23 a.m. It was 63°F and sunny with scattered clouds and a hazy cloud bank hanging over the seashore and beyond.

First Game

My first game was Trevor and me versus Cassidy and Jay, which we won. Jay played pretty well. 

Jay, Jordan, Trevor

Jay and I played against Jordan and Trevor. Jay and I were down, then came back to lead, but then lost by 2-3 points. Jordan is always a good opponent.

We had a rematch and Jay and I won the second game 11-8.

By this time, it was only 10:29 a.m. and I still had plenty of time to play. Today is a break between my 4-week Sunday classes, so I had extra time.

René and I won a game 11-3 over Trevor and Kirk. Maybe we should split up to balance the teams, but René picked.

I was paired with tall lefty Greg. We lost 11-8 against René and Kirk. René made an effort to target me when Greg and I were way down to keep the game more interesting. 

Josh serving while I wait on the wall for a game.

Dave Cox

Dave Cox mentioned earlier in the morning that he wanted to play with me. Later, we teamed up against Josh (Bruce’s son) and white-haired mustache Chris. Chris is tall and probably in his 60s. I don’t remember ever meeting Chris before.

Dave and I went up a lot. But they came back and went ahead 9-8. But in the end, we won 11-9. Afterwards, Chris said that it was a really good game, and I know I certainly enjoyed it too.

‘Eh’ Game

At noon, Mustache Chris and I played against Asian Dave and René. René is still nursing a bum right shoulder. When they started falling behind, René lost interest and focus. And Dave, as a result, was also not totally into it and was playing a little bit lazy. Chris and I won in a lopsided fashion, it is something like 11–3 or 11–4. Too bad.

Beefcake

Mike O’Brien—who seems to have been nicknamed “Beefcake” by some of the girls lately—and I played a game against Kim and Alessandro. It was a fairly close back-and-forth game that Mike and I won.

Last Game

The last game was Mike and myself playing against Marco and a thirty-ish Latino guy named Matthew. Pleasant guy, Matthew. Mike and I lost 11–6. Marco was fresh off a tournament over the hill this morning and was playing very sharp. He said he filled in for Spencer there.

Afterward, Mike shared, “You are really fun to play with.” Nice to hear.

Time Conflicts

I left about 1:15 p.m. I would’ve stayed longer, but there was a man and his sister who were coming from Salinas to buy my daughter’s red Chevy Spark plus the Raiders are playing the Chiefs at 1:25 p.m. I watched the game live for a change instead of watching it on digital delay. (A perk of not teaching pickleball classes this weekend!) The man for the car ended up canceling out due to an emergency with his sister. Too bad, I probably would have stayed to play longer. Ah, well.

And?

Over the course of the four hours of games, I hit one serve long (after some distractions) and one serve into the top of the net.

I slammed one high shot into the net. I hit one backhand volley intended for outside of my opponent’s low backhand about a foot out outside the sideline.

Some of my drops were too high and resulted in a winner for my opponents.

Overall, though, I was happy with my play today.

Ouch

In the last game, the interior of my right knee was giving me mild pain with certain movements.


Monday, October 28, 2024 (No Play)

I must have tweaked my right knee a bit since it was aching a little this morning, though it didn’t bother me at all while I was out walking the dog. Whatever I did, it seems to be mild.

I may just crack 3,000 hours of time at a court at my next outing. That will be a big milestone!

Number of days on a court: 733
Number of total hours: 2,997.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Nifty Aireo Paddle, Draggin’ at Skypark

Thursday, October 24, 2024 (Court Day #732)

I left work early and arrived at Skypark at 5:45 p.m. It was quite the light crowd, though I still had to park down the street and around the corner. The courts were full, but there were only a handful of people waiting to get on. It did get a bit busier later, when we had about 8–10 people waiting, but it was definitely nowhere near as busy as Tuesday night.

Aireo

I decided to try out this new Aireo paddle. I played with it the entire night and I do like it. Little bit more poppy than my Players Rogue 2 paddle (which is very much a control paddle), but I can put a ton of spin to the ball with the Aireo. Aireo gave me a discount code to share, if anyone reading wants to order one: AL10P.

Arg

I was playing pretty well up until the point where it got dark. Then everything was just a little bit off. With hindsight, aside from just having a harder time judging the ball under lights, it was also probably me adjusting to the new paddle. What I haven’t done in quite a long time, I hit the white tape of the net at least half a dozen times.

I got to sleep after midnight last night and it was dragging a bit on the courts after a couple of hours of play. Maybe that contributed to my woes as well.

David L. was on his game tonight. He’s a great one to play against to develop your skills against aggressive power shots.

We wrapped up my last game with about 5 minutes of lights left, at 8:25 p.m.

Leaf Me Alone

A bit of a funny note, as I left Skypark a small leaf fell on my windshield right in front of my face. It was situated aerodynamically perfect to stay on my windshield, even when traveling on the freeway. It was only when I stopped at the stoplight just a mile from my house that it slid down to rest by my hood. Amusing.

Neck

I tweaked my neck a little bit, so it was painful to turn my head left or right and especially when I tried and lower my chin to my chest. My back was also pretty tight so leaning over to pick up a ball was uncomfortable. As I drove home, I was looking forward to Advil.

I hit a few out balls tonight, and there were also a few shots where I wasn’t position to close up to the middle. Like I tell my students, you want to follow the drive that you hit. To the right side of their court, follow the trajectory toward the right side of the court. Hit to the left side of their court, follow towards the left side of the court. You have to cover the middle.

Normally, I’d be depressed over my play. And I was. But not overly so. Just a bit. Maybe I was too tired to be depressed. Or I knew I was using a different paddle. Or that playing under lights is never my best. Or that my neck hurt. Or that there are ups and downs. Or all the above.

Tennis Worried

This month an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Here are a couple links to parts of the article:
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/10/08/tennis-pickleball-courts

A key takeaway is the claim by the U.S. Tennis Association that 10% of America’s tennis courts have been repurposed for pickleball. If I were the tennis guys, I’d be bummed too. What I dispute or at least question is the claim of 24.5 million tennis players and 10 million pickleball players. Based on local activity, it’d be more like a 20:1 ratio of pickleball players to tennis players. But, given, I don’t go where the tennis players go, but I’d be shocked to see 30-50 tennis players gathering daily like you see for pickleball in our area.

Number of days on a court: 732
Number of total hours: 2,993.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

New Guy Dan, Shaun White Olympian

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 (Court Day #731)

I dropped off my brother Matt at my parents’ house at 6:30 p.m. My dad is temporarily mostly bedridden with a very painful knee. He wasn’t complaining but when we convinced him to go to get an appointment, the doctor asked him about his pain on scale to 10, and my dad responded: “9”. So the doctor told him to stay off it for a while. I visited my dad for a few minutes then talked to my sister and my mom about him and also family plans for my mom’s birthday next month.

As I took the overpass and drove into Scotts Valley, it was 6:53 p.m. and 61°F. While there is still a little bit of light on the horizon, it was fairly dark.

Skypark

One of my first games, if not my first game, was with muscular Asian Aaron against Tim H. and his girlfriend whose name escapes me. I would say she is a solid 3.0 and she was well matched to balance Tim H.’s talent. Tim has dialed in his topspin lobs. They used to be quite unreliable, now however, they are deadly. In that game with him, he had at least two, if not three, lobs that appeared as if they were going out, but instead dropped comfortably about a foot inside the baseline. His girlfriend is coming along in her skill.

New Guy Dan

Mike Schmidt, who is retiring at the end of the year, was playing with a tall fellow, who I didn’t know named Dan. Dan said he has been playing for about six months. Dan is already easily a 3.5, if not a 4.0 level player. He has made astonishing progress. Granted, his soft game isn’t super, but he attacks very well. Manda and I were down quite a bit in that game, but then came back and tied up only to go on to lose 11–8.

We had a rematch, but this time Manda was making a fair amount of errors. He volunteered that he was tired.

While it was busy tonight, the rotation was fairly quick. The games were all fun, if not the most challenging.

Players packing up to go in the darkness.

Shaun White, Olympic Snowboarder

Gold medalist, Shaun White is into pickleball. This video appeared online a few days ago where he says that he tries to play as much as he can and that that his mom is addicted to the sport:
https://www.instagram.com/pickleballdotcom/reel/DBUvXoTyU8o

He’s been playing for a while, apparently. Here’s a video of him from a year ago. He’s running around his backhand and not getting up to the kitchen but there’s a good rough blank here.

Number of days on a court: 731
Number of total hours: 2,991
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

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