Saturday, July 4, 2026 (Court Day #944)
My body is a bit of a mess right now. My right knee has a bit more pain than typical. And there’s a little bit of a new strain near my right collarbone. While I seem to be past the mild recurrence of tennis elbow, there is still some tenderness in my right forearm. And I’m continuing to deal with mild plantar fasciitis in my left foot. Like I said, a bit of a mess.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever played that Brommer Park on a Saturday before. With the holiday, I have a few options for locations to play today. I could drive out to Scotts Valley and play at Skypark for club play, but the waits with no doubt be long. It could go to Derby Park as I’m sure there are regulars that show up to play on Saturday mornings there, but I’m skeptical that I would get consistent challenging play there. And I certainly don’t want to drive all the way out to Aptos to play at Willowbrook. That leaves Brommer Park.
I left my house at 8:40 a.m. under completely cloudy skies with a temperature of 60°.
Brommer Park
I pulled into the Brommer parking lot at 8:53 a.m. The parking lot was very light as far as cars.
Shawnté and I teamed up and lost a close one 10-12 against Kyle and lefty Aaron.
I played a game with Lefty Aaron against Matt Babb and Micky. Aaron was taking the game very nonchalantly. There were at least two or three shots that I think he would’ve made had he been less lackadaisical. That’s not to say that he didn’t play well. He did. He has angles, depth, and power. It was a close game, but we lost after being ahead. And make no mistake, I had more than my share of less than stellar shots.
There was an assortment of games that weren’t memorable.
More Games
Two guys who I didn’t know were coming out of a game they had just won and Dan Dewey and I took them on. This would be Mark and Jim.
Mark is from Texas. He used to live over the hill in the San Jose area. His parents have a beach house here in Santa Cruz, so he’s visiting.
He partnered with an older lefty named Jim. I would guess that Jim is in his mid-60s.
Jim has quick hands. And Mark is a solid 4.0 player. Mark was all over the court.
Dan and I won the first game which was and back-and-forth and very close.
It was so close, everyone wanted to continue that group of players and we played again. This was another very close game but, this time, our opponents won.
We had a rubber match and Dan and I won that last game 11-9.
I wrapped up play at 11:15 a.m. to get home and spend time with family.
Ow.
By the end of the session, the only body part giving me trouble was my right knee. Driving home, there was no pain in my knee while in a resting position—it only hurts while under some strain.
Celebration
Every year, our extended family and some friends get together to have a party and celebrate Independence Day. We have a home-brew parade where the family and kids will decorate a vehicle—in the 1970s, this was an Army surplus Jeep that would sometimes be troublesome to start!—then we play musical instruments and march around the neighborhood. Drums, whistles, horns, cowbells, whatever we have around. (If I’m inspired, I’ll play bagpipes, though that’s less common now that I no longer compete and don’t play in a pipe band.) The parade used to be in my grandparents’ circular driveway, then it moved a few decades ago to my parents’ house where they live on a road that forms a circle. This year was the USA’s semiquincentennial, that is, 250 years since its founding. I have distinct memories of the bicentennial at my grandparents’ house in 1976, 50 years ago, so the gathering and mini parade has been a family tradition for at least half a century!
Monday, July 6, 2026 (No Play)
This is hilarious! This is something that I often think about when I see these types of barriers!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ-oftASI4K
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 (No Play)
In the quest to keep paddles’ ball spin under control, USA Pickleball is abandoning roughness testing for a new system of firing balls at the paddle being certification tested and using high speed video cameras to determine the ball’s exit spin rate.
https://usapickleball.org/usap-news/equipment-news/update-regarding-the-usa-pickleball-spin-rate-test-and-implementation-timeline/
Ok. Let’s nerd out for a second on a tangent.
The USAP’s maximum allowed spin rate is 2,100 rotation per minute (RPM). Another way to think of this is 2,100 divided by 60 seconds which results in 35 rotations per second.
At 40 miles per hour, assuming each player is 2 feet inside the baseline (40 feet apart) it would take 0.68 seconds for the ball to travel from one player to the other. Of course, there is air drag and therefore any ball will slow down from 40 MPH over the course of its travel path. One source says a 43% loss of a ball’s speed was observed. Another says a ball lost about 15 MPH over its flight. Assuming 40 MPH at contact and losing 15 MPH, that would mean an ending speed of 25 MPH—or a 37% drop. So we have 43% or 37%… let’s pick 40% to have a middle ground. Assuming a consistent drop in speed, we can just average that speed over its travel, that is, 32.5 MPH. (If it were not constant, then calculus would come in!) Skipping some math, that is about 47.67 feet per second on average, or 0.83 seconds to travel the 40 feet. 0.83 seconds would give enough time for a maximum of 29 ball rotations under USA Pickleball rules. So, it’s not crazy, like, say, 200 rotations from one end of the court to the other.
A bit more.
A pickleball diameter can vary by 0.1″, therefore the circumference can vary too (9.03″ to 9.34″), but we’ll say 9.2″ for kicks. 40 feet is 480 inches. If we were to simply roll a pickleball 40 feet, it would rotate just over 52 times. Compared to a maximum of 29 ball rotations as discussed above, there has to be at least 44% fewer rotations through the air when compared to simply rolling a ball across the court. Now, all that changes with different speeds, of course.
Ok, nerding out done.
Something came to mind. My son Nicholas mentioned that a telltale sign of A.I. content is seeing m-dashes… like this “—”. I’ve been doing varying degrees of graphic design for work for at least 30 years and kerning, leading, glyphs, and m-dashes are all part of the territory. Rest assured, I don’t write any of these blog entries with A.I.! Though I suspect the periodic typos or grammatical errors that slip in should be proof enough!
Number of days on a court: 944
Number of total hours: 3,496
Number of paid coaching hours: 221.5
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