Safe As Milk

There’s a 5:30am game that I got into. It’s higher level players so the tennis is good, but holy shit is it early.

I enjoy starting the day with a workout but the early hour blows my day up pretty good.

With one match left (and I’ve already played so much I may not make it in the lineup), I took my first L of the 6.5 Mixed Combo season this weekend, 5-7, 3-6. I took a nasty bite from the double-fault bug in some inopportune moments in the first set and then we just stunk it up in the 2nd.

Adding insult to injury, the match was on hardcourt so I was starting to get sore before I got back to the house. Playing on clay is so forgiving to these old bones.

A couple of Saturday matches of various effort levels, and a Sunday match with good tennis but the same fun levels. It’s almost always fun.

The morning session was a chill affair with some friends. My normal doubles partner is moving up a level, so I’m trying to get some reps with another pal who I think would make a good partner. We did okay against some guys at a higher level, and there is always room to improve.

Saturday afternoon’s match was a 6.5 mixed doubles bloodbath that we won in, like, 45 minutes. Afterward, my partner suggested we hit some singles since she “wanted to try to return that serve”. We ended up playing a full set of singles that I eked out 7-5. You can see all of that Zone 4 time was when she was running my big ass all over the court.

I’m not a fan of playing singles. There is a great deal of physics at work when I’m starting and stopping all of this body, and I tend to suffer.

Sunday’s match was my second run at the 7.5 mixed combo league where I’m playing with a 4.5 lady. Most of the teams in this league are a combo of a 4.0 and 3.5 player, but since my partner is a 4.5 she had to find a 3.0 to play with.

She’s explained to me that I was picked mostly for vibes, and also because I’m okay at the net. We won a fun match in a 3rd set tiebreak against a couple of good players.

I enjoy playing mixed doubles. And these combo leagues are a lot of fun because I get to hit with people that are, mathematically, better than me. We have a couple of weeks left in the season, which is fine, because we play outside and it’s starting to get cold.

It was another insane finish to an important ballgame last night. Lindor is a bad, bad man. Alonso had a clutch hit (while in the middle of an awful slump). And starting pitcher David Peterson got the save?!?!

Not sorry, sad Brewers fans.

Now it’s on to the hated Phillies.

These damn Mets pulled off a wild one yesterday to make the postseason for the first time since 2016 (and that was a super-stinker of a time).

Francisco Lindor hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 9th to put the Mets ahead after they gave up a 3-run lead in the bottom of the 8th. It was tremendous, as he has been this whole darn season.

The Mets had to go from Atlanta to Milwaukee after the doubleheader where they’ll start their series tonight. It would be wild to see them get past the Brewers.