Author: andrewlenz (Page 317 of 331)

Monday, May 29, 2017. (Court Day #32)

I got up a couple hours early in order to get to Santa Cruz Memorial Park by 6:30 a.m. to help put up U.S. flags in the military section of the cemetery to commemorate Memorial Day and honor the fallen veterans. Hey, I can give up a couple hours of sleep! They gave up far more than I did today! Freedom isn’t free, as they say.

Afterward, my friend Patrick invited me out to breakfast so we met at Santa Cruz Diner afterward. Patrick’s son Casey is my son Nicholas’ best friend. They’ve known each other since preschool and still hang out now that they are at UCSD and UCLA, respectively.

Pickleball

My wife was off walking the dog when I got home at 8:30 and I texted her about me maybe going to pickleball. To her credit, she’s been super supportive of me getting out for exercise and she called me and said it was perfectly fine with her.

I checked SantaCruzPickleballClub.org (now SantaCruzPickleball.com), for details on playing. I overheard yesterday someone talking about being at Brommer today. After checking, sure enough Mondays are the day for Brommer Street Park. I’d never been there, so it’d be a new experience.

Parking was super easy, as I knew from mapping the location out on my phone beforehand. There’s a large adjacent lot. There was plenty of parking when I got there a couple of minutes after 9. I’d been warned about the playing surface and it was both better and worse than I was expecting. Of the six painted court outlines (no filled in blocks), four were intact surfaces. However, the other two had potholes where the court surface was gone, leaving about a 1/4″ depth hole. Of the few games I played on those two courts, it only affected one serve which was replayed.

There were a number of players at Brommer that I’d never seen before.

Playing with Jerry and Rich

I got play a game as Jerry’s partner and I held my own. We played against Rich and a woman that I can’t remember. Rich was the novelty. I’d never seen Rich before. Rich is a middle-aged short stocky muscular dude. Not sure his heritage . . . Latino? Filipino? Anyway, he’s a strong player. Fast serves. After the game, Jerry said I’d do better if I don’t move through my shots. I hit the ball too deep (out of the court) as I moved forward on a return of serve. I told Jerry, “I probably heard that once a month for the last four months. The trick is implementing it!”

I chatted with Rich later and he said he’s been playing for about four years. He also said he injured his shoulder about six months ago and he even recently got a cortisone shot and that the injury is affecting his play. I told him that I couldn’t tell and he was still really good. He said, “I used to be able to hit a backhand with such spin that 80% of the time it would be hit back into the net. I can’t do that anymore.” I have my shares of aches and pains . . . a slightly sore right ankle, slightly sore right and left hip . . . but I count my blessings that I don’t have a long chronic severe injury like Rich. Pleasant guy.

In one game, Kim (instructor at Cabrillo College) stopped me and said, “Make sure to hit it deep to keep them at the baseline if they are there.” I graciously accepted her advice. She was right. I’ve given the advice to others myself. Mistake. I know better. It might have been on a backhand, I’m not sure. I’ll just have to pay more attention. It’d be nice to have my new “action camera” back. Hmmm. I just checked the FedEx tracking number. It was delivered five days ago on Wednesday last week. I haven’t heard from them. I’ll have to drop Akaso a note and see what’s up. Maybe they already shipped out the replacement refurbished unit.

Newbie Ted

I played a game against Leslie McGarvey and a fresh face, Ted, son of Tim. I don’t remember who Tim is. Stuart started calling Ted “Teaspoon” . . . “TS” is an abbreviation for “teaspoon”—Ted Son of Tim. Anyway, Ted is a very youthful 40. Someone asked what he did for a living and he said he was a lawyer. I wouldn’t have taken him for a lawyer. Ted was raw, having never played before, but he had a mean forehand. He wasn’t super accurate or tactical, but that’s expected. Leslie is a good player. Fast low serve and not a lot of mistakes. My partner said that she’s a 5.0 player. I looked her up later and she won a two gold medals at the recent Bay Area Senior Games: Mixed Doubles 60-64 and Women’s Doubles 60-64. (Obviously, I didn’t memorize all the names of local winners that I listed in one of my own blog posts!) Even with Leslie playing with a beginner, we got taken down easily, something like 11-5 or thereabouts.

Brommer has its own signup board which is kept with all the rest of the pickleball supplies in a large shed outside the chainlink courts area.

Grita was looking to put together a stronger game. Peter had already asked me and put his name down after mine on the signup board. Jerry said he was in for Grita’s game and said, “Andrew would be ok as a fourth.” Well, that’s a vote of confidence! I told them that I didn’t want to leave Peter hanging. Peter, knowing that I was missing out on playing, said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you from playing by signing up with you.” I’m not sure why others may have been avoiding him—or us!—Peter is a decent player and upbeat. Not a great player, but not rotten by any stretch.

Jerry Louis—in red, it’s hard to believe that he’s in his 70s—sitting next to 1st time player, Cary, explaining something to Janet. Tom (visor & black shorts) stands in the background.

The next to last game of the day was Grita and me against Janet and Stuart. There was a somewhat stocky asian fellow named Dave sitting watching. Dave was in a game earlier with Stuart, Dean, and Kent . . . that means he’s an advanced player. Stuart was giving advice to Janet throughout the game.

After one particularly contested point, Dave yelled, “There was a YouTube video right there!” A good rally.

Stuart attempted to lob a ball over my head but it was unsuccessful. Being a snotty upstart, I teased him, “Stuart! Lobs are a low percentage shot!” He laughed and countered, “I’m going to make you pay for that!” Within a few points, he attempted to lob it over my head again but I leaped up and returned it for a winner. I have to take the good moments when they come—especially against good players!

After the game, Dave asked me, “How long have you been playing?” “Four months.” Janet chimed in, “But Andrew is serious. He uses a GoPro to video his games.” Dave said, “That’s how to improve.” Dave asked if I’d seen the Pickleball 101 series on YouTube by Joe Baker. I told him that those videos are great and that I’d discovered them the first week I started playing. Dave said, “Many in our club play wrong. They don’t do enough dinking. If you go elsewhere, like Palo Alto, you’ll see it.” He finished off, “If you keep at it, you’ll get to be really good.”

I squeezed in one more game after 12. Kevin and me against two women. I think one was Cathy and the other was Susie. We won fairly easily. I wasn’t as tired as previous outings. Good thing!

The good shots are coming more frequently and while I still make bad shots, they are coming less often. I’m no “big dog” player, but I am getting better.

Oh, and another first. Five days playing in a six day span.

Number of days on a court: 32
Number of total hours: 92

Sunday, May 28, 2017 (Court Day #31)

I got up a little sore. Two Advil and I was off to Derby Park. I arrived about 9:15 with a game underway. I warmed up the Maree and her husband Mark.

I played a few games. The first were hit or miss. No pun intended!

Jerry Louis wanted to get his students to play games against each other so he could continue preparing for his class. Originally, it was going to be Eric, John P., Kim, and me but Maree was very disappointed that Jerry wasn’t aware that she’d signed up for the class too. So Eric stepped out and it was Kim and me against Maree and John P. “to make it even.” But it wasn’t. I played well and Kim and I handily beat Maree and John, leading the whole game and it was never in doubt. Afterward, John told me, “You played well.”

We had some visitors, Jack and Cindy from Saratoga. I’d never seen them before, but Maree was familiar with them. They were both pretty good players, but Jack was the stronger one. Grita—who hasn’t been around for a while—and I played against them. I played very well. Grita remarked, “I was here when you started, you are playing very well.” Jack and Cindy made us work for it, but Grita and I won by about a 2:1 score ratio.

I did get a first today. I had my first successful shot off of my hand! It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but it works. By the rules, anything below the wrist is a legal hitting surface—that includes any part of your hand. Not that you’d want to, of course!

On Thursday night in Scotts Valley, I had mentioned to Mark Dettle that my daughter Charlotte played pickleball for her middle school physical education class. I asked her this afternoon if she’d be willing to come out and play with me for a day during the summer. She said she would though she only did it during P.E. and so she didn’t feel that she’d be great at it. Still, it’ll be fun to get her out!

Number of days on a court: 31
Number of total hours: 89

Saturday, May 27, 2017 (Court Day #30)

I got out to Skypark at about 9:20 a.m. Looking through the fence pasted the tennis players, the pickleball courts were empty. “Is there no pickleball today for some reason?” I walked on regardless and was rewarded with spotting a court in use. 20 minutes late and just one game going? Weird. Walking around the far end to the entrance, I found Sheryl warming up with a woman I’d never seen before, Judy. I learned later that Judy was 82. Kudos to her for being out getting exercise. She didn’t move much or fast, but won some points on the morning. I asked Sheryl about playing and she said there was a signin sheet and an envelope by the gate nearest the parking lot. I had a $5 bill and not four $1 bills, so that’s what I stuffed into the envelope. (Honor system.) The signin sheet had a column for “punch card”. I’ll have to ask about that next time.

Four things of note.

1) Jerry Louis got three of his future students together for a game. Students taking his class next month. Eric, John P., and me. Jerry wanted to observe and taylor the class to his students’ needs. Jerry and I took on the others. We beat them pretty solidly, something like 11-6. I played a good game. Only missing one to two shots to being just lame. Jerry plays exceptionally well, making diffulct shots reliably and consistently.

Jerry shared that I’m being “lazy” and not getting up to the net fast enough. He also had made notes about “social play – strong/weak”. He said when playing a social game, take advantage of the opportunity of a very strong player and get them into the game so you can learn. Don’t always hit to the weaker player unless it’s a tournament. I told him that in our earlier game of Sheryl and me versus he and 82-year-old Judy, it wasn’t so much a matter of me thinking of “not hitting it to Jerry” but of Judy opening up herself for the natural winner shot that you take automatically. Sheryl and I made a specific effort later in the game to intentionally hit it to Jerry at every opportunity and I confirmed his suspicion of that.

2) Later, Terri and I played Jerry and Mara. Right before we started, I overheard Jerry saying to Mara, “…and they are both good players.” Yes, Jerry Louis said I am a good player! Great!

3) No matter how many times you try hitting backspin on a high arcing deep shot, it is almost guaranteed to sail long. It doesn’t gain you enough advantage, don’t try it. I learned the hard way!

4) By the time the last game rolled around, finishing at 12:15, I was beat. BEAT. As in willing myself to finish the game. It was warm and today was my third day playing in four days.

Oh, and I’ve been working harder on making every serve in. I think I missed just one all morning. I didn’t get any aces—made a few harder—but hitting it into the net or outside the service court is a wasted opportunity.

And, one more thing. The last game was Larry and me versus visor Geoff and Terri. In the game, Geoff turned to Terri, smiled in frustration and said, “I just made the best serve I can do and he still returned it. What’s the point?” It was the hardest return I had to make all day—he puts some good spin on the ball. Not as hard as one last night against Terry and his wife Laura, that was the hardest of all time that I actually managed to get back over the net. I have to admit, I shocked myself on that one last night. Geoff’s was one tier down, but still tricky.

The courts there did fill up over the morning, I think there were five going at one point. Also at one point John and I were looking for partners for a game and eight women were over at the bench with two courts open! Let’s play, people! (We did get two to join us!)

Ok. Back out tomorrow morning. I’m a glutton for punishment!

Number of days on a court: 30
Number of total hours: 86