Sunday, June 1, 2025 (Court Day #809)

My wife Kristen is friends with Julie, the wife of my doctor. Julie and her husband are on vacation in Japan with their kids and Julie spotted this new food item and she shared the news with Kristen. Yes, Burger King has unveiled a “Pickleball Burger” in Japan! I have to laugh. Climbing on the pickleball popularity train!

Burger King Japan adds a Pickleball Burger to the menu… but what’s so pickleball about it?

The article explains that Burger King has entered a sponsorship agreement with Pickleball Japan Federation.

Nicholas

My son Nicholas came to town for the weekend and I noticed that brought along his Engage pickleball backpack which I’ve given to him as a gift. That was an obvious sign that he was hoping to play. Knowing that he is not comfortable with the level of play at Brommer Park, we piled into the car shortly after 8:30 a.m. and I took him down to Derby Park instead.

Derby

We arrived around 8:40 a.m. and easily found parking on the street near the entrance. There are two or three games going already. Nicholas and I were able to get onto a court and warm up with a young Black gentleman named Aaron. Aaron said that he had not been playing for very long, but after playing with him, it was obvious he had some kind of racket sport background. When I asked him, he said that he had played racquetball.

Being that Aaron had said that he was new, I opted to partner with him against Brian and Nicholas. For being new, Aaron played really well. He was already a high 3.0 level player if not a low 3.5. He had very strong parts of his game and also weak parts of his game nut that comes from being a new player. Aaron and I won that game handily. I think the final score was 11–2 or 11–4.

The way that the game rotations formed up, I was out of sync with any of the strong players. Tall Charles O. arrived later on in the morning. Tony Sloss was there, but we didn’t connect up for a game either. I could’ve not signed up and waited, but that would’ve easily meant losing 15 to 20 minutes of play.

My last game was paired up with Ted against Rick Abend and Charles D. The best rally of the game was the very first rally. There are a few good rallies, but most rallies were pretty short.

That last game ended about 11:55 a.m. Nicholas had kindly not signed up so that I’d be able to leave on time and go teach my classes at Skypark.

It was a wrap!

Number of days on a court: 809
Number of total hours: 3,172
Number of paid coaching hours: 138.5

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