Wednesday, September 23, 2026 (Court Day #970)
A couple of days ago, Dave Cox reached out to me and asked if I wanted to be a fourth on Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. After check staffing and what I needed to get done, and with no idea who the other two players would be, I agreed.
Today, when I left my house just before 8:15 a.m., it was sunny with mostly clear skies and 55°F. But now officially being fall, it seems that having the temperature below 60°F in the morning is now more common.
This morning was an example of the difference between the west side and the east side. Immediately, after getting off the freeway at a very backed up Soquel Avenue exit, I drove right into a solid bank of fog. But then, as I started getting closer to Brommer Park, it started breaking up a little. Funny.
Even with the heavier traffic on the freeway, I was still pulling into the Brommer lot at 8:30 a.m.
Brommer Park
When I walked in, Dave was warming up with Lena.
I figured she was part of our foursome, but Dan Dewey and JP were standing nearby and joined the court and Lena stepped off.
Games
We did a short warm up then launched into games.
In the first one, Dave and I lost 10-12 against JP and Dan.
We mixed up partners. JP and I lost 2-11. I returned 2-3 of Dan’s serves long.
Dan was next in my rotation and he and I won 11-4 in a very quick game.
Then it was back to Dave and me. We won 11-3.
JP and I were leading the last game 9-8 but then ended up losing 9-11. There were two or three shots where I made the right selection, but failed on the execution, primarily hitting the ball too long of the court.
We finish up that game at 10:05 a.m. I packed up my things and headed home to squeeze in some work before heading to the Bay Area.
Analysis
Aside from the first warm-up game which was a 12-10 win for JP, he lost every game. His closest loss was with me in the final game (9-11). There was merely a one point spread in score averages between Dan, Dave, and me and less so (0.75 spread) if the first game is thrown out.
And?
I walked away from the courts feeling like my time there was incomplete. I was getting dialed in, then it was time to go. It usually takes me a few games to get really warmed up. I felt that I had my good moments and my less than good moments.
I was having some strange issues with serving today. I missed a couple left or right which is very unusual. It wasn’t quite the yips, but I had to dial back my serves a little bit and be a little more careful. It was odd.
Dan has started developing a serve as a weapon, that’s good! The more challenging, the better! After the first game or two, I got acclimated and returned all of his services properly. Maybe not as deep as I wanted our placed exactly what I wanted, but my returns play. My returns were in play.
The Po-Po
The police down in Long Beach wrote 40 citations to players using the courts after the dusk closure time:
https://lbpost.com/news/pickleball-tickets-deforest-park-long-beach-police/
Club Hands
I learned a new pickleball term from a podcast. “Club hands” (or “clubby hands) describes when a player generates a lot of power at the net with very little swing.
MRI at Stanford
I left Santa Cruz around 2:30 p.m. to head to Stanford to get an MRI on my lower body as part as an of an ongoing research project. This was the final and third year of me getting scanned. I do have to say that lying on my back and having my legs locked into a straight position with the weight of my leg resting on my heel caused significant pain in my right knee. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was a 7 or 8 out of 10 and enough that the thought of me squeezing the “alert bulb” in my left hand crossed my mind. It was very, very uncomfortable, but I could manage the 45 minutes or whatever it was for the scan. But I was very happy when I could move my leg afterward!
Once the scan was done, I met up with my son about 15 minutes away—he is up taking care of his girlfriend’s cat at her apartment while she is traveling—and we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. My degree is in computer science and he’s working for a A.I. company doing audio such as voice recognition and so we talked tech stuff, along with football, and some family stuff.
I should add that each time I get my knee scanned, I give the Stanford folks permission to share any issues with my doctor. Apparently, they’ve never found anything to report, since I’ve never heard anything from my doctor. That’s good news.
Cartoon
Do you have pickleball on your mind?
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddo2vevSHxL
Words from Surgeon
A good overview of pickleball injuries from an orthopedic surgeon.
Number of days on a court: 970
Number of total hours: 3,550
Number of paid coaching hours: 237.5
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