by Paul Teetor
There were players as young as 8 and as old as 77.
There was a grandmother-granddaughter team.
There were sibling teams.
There were father-son teams.
There were mother-son teams.
The pickleball craze that is sweeping America came to Manhattan Beach this past weekend when more than 300 players entered the fourth annual Turkey Tournament put on by the MB Parks and Rec department.
It was a testament to just how popular this sizzling hot sport has become since it achieved lift-off status just a few years ago.
Before the pandemic it was dismissed as a fad, a Hula Hoop-type of gimmick that was not a real sport and would not last long. Tennis stars like John McEnroe frequently made derogatory remarks about it and predicted its imminent demise.
But in just the last year McEnroe, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras have all played in professional pickleball tournaments and become investors in the sport. And recent tennis stars like Jack Sock, Sam Querry and Genie Bouchard are regulars now on the pro pickleball tour. If you don’t believe All Ball, then google it for yourself.
The three-day Turkey Tournament was a demonstration of just why the sport with such a quirky name is here to stay.
First of all, the sport that was once dismissed as being for seniors only has clearly left that criticism behind.
The most inspiring part of the tournament was seeing all the youngsters competing in the youth division. The kids were whacking the ball with abandon and at the same time showing an advanced understanding of strategy and tactics. Youth Division winners Drew Engle and Lawson Demien showed an uncanny knack for knowing when to drive the ball, when to dink the ball and when to smash it – the essence of a good pickleball player.
Young and old, whether experienced or a raw rookie, everyone is able to pick up a paddle and quickly find themselves in an exciting rally. So the sport is accessible to the general public in a way that tennis always longed to be but never was.
Most of all, the sport is pure fun – and fun is something a depressed and angry American public can certainly use more of. Go stand outside a pickleball court sometime soon and listen. Under the constant thwack-thwack of paddles hitting yellow balls, you’ll hear the sounds of players congratulating each other on great shots, the sound of laughter coming from partners laughing at themselves and the crazy shots they just tried, and the sound of people meeting new people they otherwise never would have met.
So congrats to the MB Parks and Rec Department for staging the Turkey Tournament. And congrats to Teri and Gunner Carter, the husband-wife team who ran the three-day event and coordinated the matches, which were held at the Heights complex and at the nearby Manhattan Beach Middle School courts.
Dodgers: The rich get richer
The Dodgers are the new Evil Empire.
It used to be the New York Yankees who held that unwanted title. They were routinely accused of trying to buy a World Series title by signing every high-level free agent on the market.
But that was back when legendary owner George Steinbrenner was in charge. His son, Hal, has proved to be more restrained with the team’s checkbook.
And so the Evil Empire label has now attached itself to the Dodgers, starting with last year’s $700-million-over-10-years deal with Shohei Ohtani. The Dodgers simply blew away the competition for Ohtani with their overwhelming offer, an offer that Angels owner Arte Moreno could have matched but chose not to.
Spend big bucks on a 10-year contract for an over-the-hill Albert Pujols? Moreno is all in. But spend even bigger bucks – most of it deferred for a decade or more – on a modern version of Babe Ruth, and Moreno walked away saying thanks but no thanks.
You think a team’s owner doesn’t make a competitive difference? Look at the financial ineptitude of Moreno. Look at the personnel bungling of Jerry Jones micromanaging the Dallas Cowboys into irrelevance. And look at the leader-less mess that the Lakers have been since Jerry Buss died. A great owner can’t win a title by themselves, but a bad owner sure can screw up a team for a long time.
Last week All Ball predicted that the World Champion Dodgers would do more than just run it back, that they would keep spending and add significant new players to their already magnificent core of hitters and pitchers.
But while we optimistically predicted that they would get the free agent market’s premier every-day player, Yankees outfielder Juan Soto – and the Dodgers are still waiting on his decision, as are the Yankees and the New York Mets — we didn’t predict that they would quickly snap up the premier pitcher available for signing by the highest bidder.
That’s what they got in Blake Snell: a two-time Cy Young Award winner and a guy who, once he got his groove back last season, pitched lights out for the Giants. In his last five starts he was 5-0 with a 1.23 Earned Run Average, five double digit strikeout games, a complete game no-hitter and a 3.8-1 strikeout to walk ratio. There’s every reason to think that now that he has recovered his elite form, he will keep it.
For a mere $182 million they now will have his services for the next five years, which should consist of his late prime as he is still only 31. He will be their ace until he no longer deserves that status or until one of the Dodgers kids – River Ryan, Emmett Sheehan or Bobby Miller – blossoms.
Snell will now join a starting rotation that features National League MVP Shohei Ohtani, who did not pitch last season because of elbow surgery but is expected to be back on the mound next year. Some people may have forgotten that Ohtani was a top-level pitcher with the Angels for six years, but President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and Manager Dave Roberts haven’t forgotten. They are counting on Ohtani to be an integral part of next year’s staff.
If everyone stays healthy – always a big question mark with the Dodgers pitching staff – they’ll have Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Japanese rookie who missed three months with arm strain but was great at the end of the season and in the playoffs.
They’ll also have Tyler Glasnow, last year’s big free agent signing who started out like an ace but ended the season on the injured list, where he has spent much of his career. They’ll have Tony “Smokes” Gonsolin returning from his Tommy John surgery, and fireballer Dustin May who has been essentially inactive since May of 2023. And of course they’ll have old reliable Clayton Kershaw, who has said he will re-sign with the Dodgers and plans to retire as a Dodger.
That’s a total of seven front-line starters, with Snell projected as the staff ace and the others filling in behind him.
In addition, the Dodgers are the front-runners to sign Roki Sasaki, the 23-year-old Japanese phenom who is said to be every bit as good as Yamamoto. The Dodgers are building a global brand, and the Japanese connection is a big part of it. The Dodgers are not only richer than everyone else, they’re smarter too.
Does all this pitching firepower leave any room – or dollars – for Walker Buehler, who closed out game 5 of the World Series in spectacular fashion but is now a free agent? There should be enough money if Buehler is smart and gives the Dodgers a home team discount to compensate for the nearly two years he missed with his Tommy John surgery. His comeback was halting this year, but when it mattered most, in the playoffs and World Series, he reverted to his pre-injury form and mowed down the Yanks.
Both sides need each other, and it is All Ball’s fervent hope that Buehler will re-sign with the Dodgers. We watched him grow up and supplant Kershaw as the team’s ace, then we watched him suffer a series of terrible injuries, mount a stirring comeback just in the nick of time, and close out the Yankees in game five of the World Series.
And what about Jack Flaherty, last season’s major trade deadline acquisition who was good in the second half of the regular season, but only had one dominant, ace-level start in the playoffs? It says here that the Dodgers should go all out to sign the graduate of Harvard Westlake High School and see just how good he can be over a full season.
After all, last season the Dodgers went through pitchers like Donald Trump goes through cabinet nominees – throw them out there, see if they sink or swim, then move on to the next guy. An astounding 40 pitchers took the mound for the Dodgers last season, including 12 different starting pitchers. If next season is similar in terms of injuries, they are going to need every healthy arm they can get.
Hey, maybe Darth Vader is available.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER
