November 7, 2025 • 18 mins
In this special on-site episode, I share reflections from the Major League Pickleball event in Dallas, drawing out lessons that apply directly to your journey as a player. From the mindset of Ben Johns to the mental fortitude of Christian Alshon, and even a reflection from the World Series, these lessons all point toward one truth: growth in pickleball is growth in life.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/269-lessons-from-dallas/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
I don'tknow if you can hear in the background,
but they have celebrate good timesby Cooling the Gang.
They're Cooling the Gangfrom back in the day.
So this is a on-site special...
It's actually a regular episode ofPickleball Therapy, the podcast that
will give you a pickleball improvement.
I'm your host, Tony Roy, here at the MajorLeague Pickable event here in Dallas.
(00:23):
We have a pretty packed week next week, soI'm recording the podcast a little
bit earlier than normal this week.
We have an action-packed podcast today.
We're going to be covering some differenttopics that come from the pro environment,
but really help you with your pickleballplay and your pickleball ideas.
There's a couple of things.
One is an observation, one is a post bythe best male player on
(00:47):
the planet, Ben Jones.
We're going to talk a little about theWorld Series, which is baseball, I know,
but it applies topickleball, as you'll see.
And then at the end, I have a call toaction for you because of some recent news
that I learned about in my pickleballcommunity, my local pick-up-ball
community, that really struck a cord.
And so I wanted to share with you a callto action for yourself that I'm
going to try and do myself as well.
(01:09):
As we dive into the podcast, if you havenot yet checked out the Pickleball
Therapy book, highly recommend you do.
I think we're approaching somewhere around300 or 400 players who have already
had a chance to read the book.
So hopefully you can get your own copy ofit and start applying those
principles in your own play.
We're also going to have the print versionwill be available for the holidays.
(01:31):
So if you want to give one toyour friend or a loved one or something
like that, that'll be available to you.
And thenwe're looking into purchasing a bunch of
them so that we can have some autographedones if that's what you're interested in.
So happy to do that for you.
If you're interested in those, send usan email to support at betterpickleball.
(01:52):
com and let us know whatyou're interested in.
There'll probably be a minimumnumber, like 5 or 10 books.
But anyway, that's an option.
All right, let's dive into the meat ofthe podcast, how some of the podcast.
The first thing I wanted to lead with isthere was an article that Ben John put
out, and I know probably 80% or 90% of youknow Ben John is, but there
(02:13):
may be some of you do not.
Ben Jones is the bestmale player on the planet.
He has been dominant in the sport forgoing on, I want to say five years now,
something like that, might be six, buthe's been the dominant force in
the male game for a long time now.
He's able to sustain a high level of play,and he's a really, really
deep thinker about the sport of pickleballand how to navigate this sport to improve.
(02:38):
And what he shared was this idea aboutlearning being the key
to your improvement.
And as you know, if you're listening tothe podcast or you're a new listener,
you'll find out if youkeep on listening to it.
A lot of what we talk abouthere is about learning, right?
It's about your pickleball journeyand being a better pickleball player.
And that involves learning in some form.
So what Ben said, I think thatwas That's really interesting.
(03:00):
There are two pieces that I want tofocus on here and play with a little bit.
One thing that he said waswhen he started playing, he said,
basically, I, Ben, was confidentthat I could out learn anybody.
What that means is he was willing to putin the study, put in the work, put in the
time it took to become the bestin the sport, which he has.
(03:22):
And it was, he wasn't reallythrowing down a gauntlet for others.
He was perhaps throwing down a gauntletfor himself to say, I'm going to out learn
anybody else that wantsto play this sport.
And you can think about that for yourselfin terms of your local play community,
where you're at, which iswhy not out learn everybody?
Set that as your goal.
I'm going to out learn everybody.
(03:43):
And it's a nice It's a nice goal, becauseit's healthy to learn, and it just it
keeps you focused on what's going toreally give you improvement in your play,
which is to continue to learn, continue togrow as a player, and
continue to develop your game.
Now, the other part that he talked aboutthat I wanted to lean in on here
is this idea of copying others.
(04:05):
Now, he approached it two different ways.
One way he approached it was,he talked about how early in his career,
he would look at other players and seewhat was effective and then
copy some version of that.
He actually said that he could prettymuch track everything that he...
Every shot that he hasto its origin source.
But there's a caveat here.
There's maybe a word of warninghere, which is that he...
(04:29):
Now, given In his current base of play andhis current understanding of
the game, he's actually not...
He's no longer just copying other playersjust because they have a good shot.
And he gave two examples, which are histwo current partners, Gabe Tardieu in the
men's and Analee in the women's games.
And he said, Gabe has certain shots, and Ithink he was referring to the under the
net quick flick of the paddle, a veryextreme roll volley at its very edge.
(04:53):
And so that's a shot that Gabe has, andBen thinks it's a nice shot and great
shot, but it's not something he's going tostart doing, it's just flicking the
paddle around the way the game does.
Analee also has some shots, some attackshots and concepts and things that are
just things that Ben is not goingto incorporate into his game.
So what Ben has found,he's found this balance.
He has learned so much of the game becausehe outlearnts everybody,
(05:14):
that he's able to then decide whichelements of the game he wants to bring
into his play and which elements of thegame, or which type style, which shots he
wants to bring into his play, and thenwhich shots, which styles
he's going to leave on the tableor leave for somebody else to do.
So he's created his ownidentity as a player.
The fundamental principle that Ben talkedabout that I think is really helpful for
(05:37):
anybody listening to the podcast, anyplayer listening to this podcast, is this
concept of learning, ofpickleball as a learning venture.
And one of the things that we like to sayin our coaching of a better pickleball is
that this life, this learningjourney in pickleball is lifelong.
It's a beautiful thing about our sport.
You can learn pickleball.
You're never going to exhaust it.Never exhaust it.
(05:58):
I don't care how much youstudy I've been doing this.
I've been playing pickleball for going on10 years, coaching for
going on eight years.And I can tell you, I still learn.
Even today, I was out there watching someplay, and I'm seeing different concepts,
different ways of approaching thegame that these players are using.
And so it makes me thinkabout the game further.
It pushes me further as acoach and further as a player.
(06:19):
So it's a lifelong journey of learning.
And that's a beautiful thing.
Pickleball will alwayshave something to give you.
So that's the story about learning.
The second pro area that I wanted toexplore has to do with
another pro player named Chr.Alshon.
He's a very talented player.
He's been playing for a few years now, andI've been watching his ascension through
(06:44):
the pro ranks with interest because he'sa very athletic and promising player.
But one of the things that used to holdChristian back, at least from my
perspective as a coach, wasthe mental side of his game.
Again, very athletic, had a lot of shots,a lot of power, but could break down
mentally sometimes in tough situations.
(07:04):
And so it was really rewarding to see himplay this last tournament, the PPA
tournament before this one in Vegas, theRate Cup, where he and Andre Diascu made
it to the gold medal match, the finalmatch against Ben Johns, who we just
talked about, and Gabe Cardew,who else we just talked about.
And they battled, him and Andre battledall the way to the end of the match.
(07:26):
Those finals matchesare five-game matches.
So The match went five games,and the game five was decided by a
12, 10, just nail fighter at the end.
During thatfifth game, highest pressure situation,
everything you can think about,Christian had a couple of situations that
arose around the 8, 8, 8, 9, and furtherphase of that game that would have
(07:52):
probably tanked him before,mentally tanked him before, and would
frankly, mentally tank alot of players out there.
Things like a net cord and a missing ashot that was very routine
in a different situation.
Those two situations there, again,critical moments of a critical game and a
critical match, are the things thatway heavily, normally on the mental aspect
(08:18):
of the mental side of our game andhow we're interacting with the sport.
But Christian was not fazed by those.
Now, he and Andre ended up losing thatfifth game, but it wasn't
because he tanked mentally.
It wasn't because he had a mentalcollapse, or he just lost it
mentally because of those situations.
And that's credit to Christian.
(08:40):
And there's a coupleof takeaways from here.
One is, you can see the resultsof putting in the mental work.
I don't have first-hand knowledge of whatChristian has done to improve his
mental strength, his mental fortitude.
But I can tell you you can see it.It's evident.
It's evident in in his behavior,especially in those moments.
(09:03):
The other takeaway is that partnerinteraction is very important.
We play a team sport.
You're not on an Island out there,and he's partnered with Andre Diascu.
Andre Diascu is one of theelder statesmen in the pro game.
He's a young man for mostof us, including myself.
(09:23):
I believe he's 37 right now.
But in the pro-rank,that's an older player.
Most players in the pro-rank are19, 20, 23, things like that.
So Andre is an elder statesman,and he brings a very solid approach to the
approach to the game, verystable approach to the game.
And I think he's been a reallygood influence on Christian.
(09:45):
And when those situations happen that arepotentially derailing mentally, Andre is
able to help Christian out in thosesituations, some words of encouragement,
some positivity from the partner.
And that's just such an importantaspect of pick-up-all doubles.
I think we lose sight of that sometimes,particularly if you're playing league
play, competitive play, you play with aregular partner, having each other's back,
(10:06):
knowing that there's no recrimination oneway or the other, you miss and things like
that is such a powerful part of this game.
And the flip side is also true.
When you have negative energy coming fromyour partner, intended or unintended, it
can really drag down the play of the otherplayer as well as the
play of the overall team.
So that's the second pointI wanted to share with you.
(10:28):
The third point I want to share with youfrom the pro-world of sports is
not pickleball, it's from baseball.
And it had to do with the World Seriesthat just occurred between the Toronto
Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Quick shout out to my friend Jim Ramsey,who's the analyst at the
a PPA analyst, statistician, if you will.
A really nice guy, came from baseball, didstatistical studies in baseball,
(10:52):
now doing them in pickleball.
He and I had a conversationbefore the World Series.
We were talking about pickleball, and Ijust asked him, What do you think
about the World Series or the playoff?I should have said.
During the playoff because Iknew his baseball background.
And he told me that he thought the Dodgerswould probably win the whole thing
because of how strong they were.
And so shout out, he called it right.
(11:13):
Numbers don't lie, as I should say.
But what I wanted to talk about here interms of the World Series and how we can
learn from it relative to our games inpickleball is when you look at the outcome
of the World Series,Before you look at the outcome, I should
say, before you get to the outcome of theWorld Series, when you look at the games
(11:36):
and when you look at the individualat bats, the pitches, the plays
that happen, it's a back and forth.
There's a lot of uncertaintyas to what's going to happen.
You'll have amazing catches by one team,and then an amazing
play by the other team.
(11:57):
You'll have amazing pitches.
You'll You'll have bad pitches.
There was one situationwhere a player was hit.
This was in game six.
I believe it was in the ninth any,but the Dodgers were up in that game.
But the Dodgers pitcher hit the firstbatter for the Jays on the hand.
I think it was on the hand.
But it was a 0-2 pitch, meaning there wasno balls, two strikes, and yet the pitcher
(12:23):
hit the batter, which iscrazy to think about, right?
In that situation, you walk the firstbatter, we're up by two
runs, but they still held on.
In game seven, Toronto is upthroughout the game, pretty much.
Yeah, they're up throughout the game.
They scored first, up throughout the game.
And then the Dodgers hit a home run, tieit up, and then end up winning the game.
(12:48):
So the way I think about that when I thinkabout pickleball is
when you're inside a pickleball game,pickleball is
a series of a lot of rallies,and then you can go
one step further than that in detail.
It's a lot of shots.
It's a lot of decisions.
(13:09):
In that jumble of shots and rallies,you're going to have some amazing You're
going to have some amazing shots, andyou're going to have some dumb shots.
You're going to have some silly mistakes,and you're going to have
some amazing put aways.
You're going to have somesolid play and not solid play.
The same is going toapply to your partner.
The same is going toapply to your opponents.
(13:29):
And it's basically this jumble of shotsand decisions and events that happen
during a pickle ball game that at somepoint we say, okay, you won or they won.
And that's it.
One team got to 11 before the other one.
The same way that during the World Series,game seven went into extra innings,
and it was an 11-inning game.
(13:51):
But let's say baseball had decided thatgame sevens were going
to be 15-inning games.
Then that score wouldn't havebeen the final result necessarily.
But we've decided they'regoing to be nine-inning games.
The other thing is if you made it aneight-inning game,
then Toronto would have won.
But it's a nine-inning game.
And so that means that the Dodgerswere able to tie the game in the ninth.
(14:12):
There's only three outs for the hometeam, just like for the away team.
So it's like all the rulesput together this game that's played
called baseball, and weagree to these rules.
And then at the end, once it all shakesout, you have a winner
and you have a loser.Same thing in Pippaball.
We agree to normally play 11-point games.
If you get to 11 beforeI get to 11, you win.
(14:33):
If I get to 11 beforeyou get to 11, I win.
If we're playing a 15-point game,that's a different scenario.
In that situation, maybe theteam to 11 doesn't win that game.
The point is that you accept the structurethat you've agreed to play by, then you
understand that the makeup ofthat game is a series of...
It's a jumbal ofpieces that, in this case, shots and
(14:56):
decisions and strategies and things likethat, movement that at the end of this
game, we'll decide who thewinner and the loser are.
And there's nothing more than that.
It's just that.
You can't really ascribe more meaning tothe outcome of a game than just how
that jumble of of back and forth went.
(15:17):
Those are my three tipsfrom the Pro Arena.
Now, I'm going to share a call to action.
It's a sad story, but Ithink there's a positive...
The call to action, I believe,is a positive call to action.
So that's why I wanted to share with you.
So I heard news this past week that insideour local, in our local pickleball
(15:38):
community, a member of the pickleballcommunity is no longer with
us, and it's by his own hand.
Apparently, he was notdoing well, and I hadn't seen him
in a while, and we were friendly.
We weren't best friends,anything like that.
We had each other's phone numbers.We knew each other.
We saw each other in pickleball circles.
I hadn't spoken to him in a while.
(15:59):
That's where the call to action comesout, because I feel that when I heard the
news, I was saddened by it, of course, butI also asked myself, well, is there
anything I could have done differently?
And what occurs to me is maybe a message.
Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't help.
I don't know, but I never sent it.
So we'll never know.
(16:20):
So my call to action is if you play in agroup and say you haven't seen
somebody for a minute, right?
You've lost touch with someone who used toa regular part of your pickleball
community, maybe take a minutethis week and reach out to them.
Just send them a message andsay, Hey, how are you doing?
I haven't seen you in a minute.
How are you feeling?
(16:43):
Never know how that's goingto impact that person.
I'm pretty sure it won't be a negative, soit won't be a bad thing to receive that.
So it can only be a positive or neutralevent for that person.
I myself, I'm going to try anddo that over the next week.
Identify a couple of players who I haven'tseen in a while, and just
(17:03):
shoot them a message.
Nothing heavy, nothing too crazy, butjust checking in, see how you're doing.
And maybe that'll help them in whateversituation they're in, if I
haven't seen him in a while.
So that's the call to action foryou this week for the podcast.
Sorry to end on a sad note,but these things happen.
(17:25):
And I think, reminding ourselves of whatwe can do to maybe to positively influence
the life of another isalways a good thing.
So if you if you have a minute to rate andreview the podcast, that's always welcome.
If you thought that anything in thispodcast might help one of your friends,
going into the CTA again here,share the podcast with them because if it
(17:49):
was something that you thought helped youor you thought would help them,
why not share it with them?
Anyway, I hope you have a great week, andI will see you in the next episode of
our podcast, which will berecorded, I'm thinking, in studio.
See you well.Until next time.
I don'tknow if you can hear in the background,
but they have celebrate good timesby Cooling the Gang.
They're Cooling the Gangfrom back in the day.
So this is a on-site special...
It's actually a regular episode ofPickleball Therapy, the podcast that
will give you a pickleball improvement.
I'm your host, Tony Roy, here at the MajorLeague Pickable event here in Dallas.
(00:23):
We have a pretty packed week next week, soI'm recording the podcast a little
bit earlier than normal this week.
We have an action-packed podcast today.
We're going to be covering some differenttopics that come from the pro environment,
but really help you with your pickleballplay and your pickleball ideas.
There's a couple of things.
One is an observation, one is a post bythe best male player on
(00:47):
the planet, Ben Jones.
We're going to talk a little about theWorld Series, which is baseball, I know,
but it applies topickleball, as you'll see.
And then at the end, I have a call toaction for you because of some recent news
that I learned about in my pickleballcommunity, my local pick-up-ball
community, that really struck a cord.
And so I wanted to share with you a callto action for yourself that I'm
going to try and do myself as well.
(01:09):
As we dive into the podcast, if you havenot yet checked out the Pickleball
Therapy book, highly recommend you do.
I think we're approaching somewhere around300 or 400 players who have already
had a chance to read the book.
So hopefully you can get your own copy ofit and start applying those
principles in your own play.
We're also going to have the print versionwill be available for the holidays.
(01:31):
So if you want to give one toyour friend or a loved one or something
like that, that'll be available to you.
And thenwe're looking into purchasing a bunch of
them so that we can have some autographedones if that's what you're interested in.
So happy to do that for you.
If you're interested in those, send usan email to support at betterpickleball.
(01:52):
com and let us know whatyou're interested in.
There'll probably be a minimumnumber, like 5 or 10 books.
But anyway, that's an option.
All right, let's dive into the meat ofthe podcast, how some of the podcast.
The first thing I wanted to lead with isthere was an article that Ben John put
out, and I know probably 80% or 90% of youknow Ben John is, but there
(02:13):
may be some of you do not.
Ben Jones is the bestmale player on the planet.
He has been dominant in the sport forgoing on, I want to say five years now,
something like that, might be six, buthe's been the dominant force in
the male game for a long time now.
He's able to sustain a high level of play,and he's a really, really
deep thinker about the sport of pickleballand how to navigate this sport to improve.
(02:38):
And what he shared was this idea aboutlearning being the key
to your improvement.
And as you know, if you're listening tothe podcast or you're a new listener,
you'll find out if youkeep on listening to it.
A lot of what we talk abouthere is about learning, right?
It's about your pickleball journeyand being a better pickleball player.
And that involves learning in some form.
So what Ben said, I think thatwas That's really interesting.
(03:00):
There are two pieces that I want tofocus on here and play with a little bit.
One thing that he said waswhen he started playing, he said,
basically, I, Ben, was confidentthat I could out learn anybody.
What that means is he was willing to putin the study, put in the work, put in the
time it took to become the bestin the sport, which he has.
(03:22):
And it was, he wasn't reallythrowing down a gauntlet for others.
He was perhaps throwing down a gauntletfor himself to say, I'm going to out learn
anybody else that wantsto play this sport.
And you can think about that for yourselfin terms of your local play community,
where you're at, which iswhy not out learn everybody?
Set that as your goal.
I'm going to out learn everybody.
(03:43):
And it's a nice It's a nice goal, becauseit's healthy to learn, and it just it
keeps you focused on what's going toreally give you improvement in your play,
which is to continue to learn, continue togrow as a player, and
continue to develop your game.
Now, the other part that he talked aboutthat I wanted to lean in on here
is this idea of copying others.
(04:05):
Now, he approached it two different ways.
One way he approached it was,he talked about how early in his career,
he would look at other players and seewhat was effective and then
copy some version of that.
He actually said that he could prettymuch track everything that he...
Every shot that he hasto its origin source.
But there's a caveat here.
There's maybe a word of warninghere, which is that he...
(04:29):
Now, given In his current base of play andhis current understanding of
the game, he's actually not...
He's no longer just copying other playersjust because they have a good shot.
And he gave two examples, which are histwo current partners, Gabe Tardieu in the
men's and Analee in the women's games.
And he said, Gabe has certain shots, and Ithink he was referring to the under the
net quick flick of the paddle, a veryextreme roll volley at its very edge.
(04:53):
And so that's a shot that Gabe has, andBen thinks it's a nice shot and great
shot, but it's not something he's going tostart doing, it's just flicking the
paddle around the way the game does.
Analee also has some shots, some attackshots and concepts and things that are
just things that Ben is not goingto incorporate into his game.
So what Ben has found,he's found this balance.
He has learned so much of the game becausehe outlearnts everybody,
(05:14):
that he's able to then decide whichelements of the game he wants to bring
into his play and which elements of thegame, or which type style, which shots he
wants to bring into his play, and thenwhich shots, which styles
he's going to leave on the tableor leave for somebody else to do.
So he's created his ownidentity as a player.
The fundamental principle that Ben talkedabout that I think is really helpful for
(05:37):
anybody listening to the podcast, anyplayer listening to this podcast, is this
concept of learning, ofpickleball as a learning venture.
And one of the things that we like to sayin our coaching of a better pickleball is
that this life, this learningjourney in pickleball is lifelong.
It's a beautiful thing about our sport.
You can learn pickleball.
You're never going to exhaust it.Never exhaust it.
(05:58):
I don't care how much youstudy I've been doing this.
I've been playing pickleball for going on10 years, coaching for
going on eight years.And I can tell you, I still learn.
Even today, I was out there watching someplay, and I'm seeing different concepts,
different ways of approaching thegame that these players are using.
And so it makes me thinkabout the game further.
It pushes me further as acoach and further as a player.
(06:19):
So it's a lifelong journey of learning.
And that's a beautiful thing.
Pickleball will alwayshave something to give you.
So that's the story about learning.
The second pro area that I wanted toexplore has to do with
another pro player named Chr.Alshon.
He's a very talented player.
He's been playing for a few years now, andI've been watching his ascension through
(06:44):
the pro ranks with interest because he'sa very athletic and promising player.
But one of the things that used to holdChristian back, at least from my
perspective as a coach, wasthe mental side of his game.
Again, very athletic, had a lot of shots,a lot of power, but could break down
mentally sometimes in tough situations.
(07:04):
And so it was really rewarding to see himplay this last tournament, the PPA
tournament before this one in Vegas, theRate Cup, where he and Andre Diascu made
it to the gold medal match, the finalmatch against Ben Johns, who we just
talked about, and Gabe Cardew,who else we just talked about.
And they battled, him and Andre battledall the way to the end of the match.
(07:26):
Those finals matchesare five-game matches.
So The match went five games,and the game five was decided by a
12, 10, just nail fighter at the end.
During thatfifth game, highest pressure situation,
everything you can think about,Christian had a couple of situations that
arose around the 8, 8, 8, 9, and furtherphase of that game that would have
(07:52):
probably tanked him before,mentally tanked him before, and would
frankly, mentally tank alot of players out there.
Things like a net cord and a missing ashot that was very routine
in a different situation.
Those two situations there, again,critical moments of a critical game and a
critical match, are the things thatway heavily, normally on the mental aspect
(08:18):
of the mental side of our game andhow we're interacting with the sport.
But Christian was not fazed by those.
Now, he and Andre ended up losing thatfifth game, but it wasn't
because he tanked mentally.
It wasn't because he had a mentalcollapse, or he just lost it
mentally because of those situations.
And that's credit to Christian.
(08:40):
And there's a coupleof takeaways from here.
One is, you can see the resultsof putting in the mental work.
I don't have first-hand knowledge of whatChristian has done to improve his
mental strength, his mental fortitude.
But I can tell you you can see it.It's evident.
It's evident in in his behavior,especially in those moments.
(09:03):
The other takeaway is that partnerinteraction is very important.
We play a team sport.
You're not on an Island out there,and he's partnered with Andre Diascu.
Andre Diascu is one of theelder statesmen in the pro game.
He's a young man for mostof us, including myself.
(09:23):
I believe he's 37 right now.
But in the pro-rank,that's an older player.
Most players in the pro-rank are19, 20, 23, things like that.
So Andre is an elder statesman,and he brings a very solid approach to the
approach to the game, verystable approach to the game.
And I think he's been a reallygood influence on Christian.
(09:45):
And when those situations happen that arepotentially derailing mentally, Andre is
able to help Christian out in thosesituations, some words of encouragement,
some positivity from the partner.
And that's just such an importantaspect of pick-up-all doubles.
I think we lose sight of that sometimes,particularly if you're playing league
play, competitive play, you play with aregular partner, having each other's back,
(10:06):
knowing that there's no recrimination oneway or the other, you miss and things like
that is such a powerful part of this game.
And the flip side is also true.
When you have negative energy coming fromyour partner, intended or unintended, it
can really drag down the play of the otherplayer as well as the
play of the overall team.
So that's the second pointI wanted to share with you.
(10:28):
The third point I want to share with youfrom the pro-world of sports is
not pickleball, it's from baseball.
And it had to do with the World Seriesthat just occurred between the Toronto
Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Quick shout out to my friend Jim Ramsey,who's the analyst at the
a PPA analyst, statistician, if you will.
A really nice guy, came from baseball, didstatistical studies in baseball,
(10:52):
now doing them in pickleball.
He and I had a conversationbefore the World Series.
We were talking about pickleball, and Ijust asked him, What do you think
about the World Series or the playoff?I should have said.
During the playoff because Iknew his baseball background.
And he told me that he thought the Dodgerswould probably win the whole thing
because of how strong they were.
And so shout out, he called it right.
(11:13):
Numbers don't lie, as I should say.
But what I wanted to talk about here interms of the World Series and how we can
learn from it relative to our games inpickleball is when you look at the outcome
of the World Series,Before you look at the outcome, I should
say, before you get to the outcome of theWorld Series, when you look at the games
(11:36):
and when you look at the individualat bats, the pitches, the plays
that happen, it's a back and forth.
There's a lot of uncertaintyas to what's going to happen.
You'll have amazing catches by one team,and then an amazing
play by the other team.
(11:57):
You'll have amazing pitches.
You'll You'll have bad pitches.
There was one situationwhere a player was hit.
This was in game six.
I believe it was in the ninth any,but the Dodgers were up in that game.
But the Dodgers pitcher hit the firstbatter for the Jays on the hand.
I think it was on the hand.
But it was a 0-2 pitch, meaning there wasno balls, two strikes, and yet the pitcher
(12:23):
hit the batter, which iscrazy to think about, right?
In that situation, you walk the firstbatter, we're up by two
runs, but they still held on.
In game seven, Toronto is upthroughout the game, pretty much.
Yeah, they're up throughout the game.
They scored first, up throughout the game.
And then the Dodgers hit a home run, tieit up, and then end up winning the game.
(12:48):
So the way I think about that when I thinkabout pickleball is
when you're inside a pickleball game,pickleball is
a series of a lot of rallies,and then you can go
one step further than that in detail.
It's a lot of shots.
It's a lot of decisions.
(13:09):
In that jumble of shots and rallies,you're going to have some amazing You're
going to have some amazing shots, andyou're going to have some dumb shots.
You're going to have some silly mistakes,and you're going to have
some amazing put aways.
You're going to have somesolid play and not solid play.
The same is going toapply to your partner.
The same is going toapply to your opponents.
(13:29):
And it's basically this jumble of shotsand decisions and events that happen
during a pickle ball game that at somepoint we say, okay, you won or they won.
And that's it.
One team got to 11 before the other one.
The same way that during the World Series,game seven went into extra innings,
and it was an 11-inning game.
(13:51):
But let's say baseball had decided thatgame sevens were going
to be 15-inning games.
Then that score wouldn't havebeen the final result necessarily.
But we've decided they'regoing to be nine-inning games.
The other thing is if you made it aneight-inning game,
then Toronto would have won.
But it's a nine-inning game.
And so that means that the Dodgerswere able to tie the game in the ninth.
(14:12):
There's only three outs for the hometeam, just like for the away team.
So it's like all the rulesput together this game that's played
called baseball, and weagree to these rules.
And then at the end, once it all shakesout, you have a winner
and you have a loser.Same thing in Pippaball.
We agree to normally play 11-point games.
If you get to 11 beforeI get to 11, you win.
(14:33):
If I get to 11 beforeyou get to 11, I win.
If we're playing a 15-point game,that's a different scenario.
In that situation, maybe theteam to 11 doesn't win that game.
The point is that you accept the structurethat you've agreed to play by, then you
understand that the makeup ofthat game is a series of...
It's a jumbal ofpieces that, in this case, shots and
(14:56):
decisions and strategies and things likethat, movement that at the end of this
game, we'll decide who thewinner and the loser are.
And there's nothing more than that.
It's just that.
You can't really ascribe more meaning tothe outcome of a game than just how
that jumble of of back and forth went.
(15:17):
Those are my three tipsfrom the Pro Arena.
Now, I'm going to share a call to action.
It's a sad story, but Ithink there's a positive...
The call to action, I believe,is a positive call to action.
So that's why I wanted to share with you.
So I heard news this past week that insideour local, in our local pickleball
(15:38):
community, a member of the pickleballcommunity is no longer with
us, and it's by his own hand.
Apparently, he was notdoing well, and I hadn't seen him
in a while, and we were friendly.
We weren't best friends,anything like that.
We had each other's phone numbers.We knew each other.
We saw each other in pickleball circles.
I hadn't spoken to him in a while.
(15:59):
That's where the call to action comesout, because I feel that when I heard the
news, I was saddened by it, of course, butI also asked myself, well, is there
anything I could have done differently?
And what occurs to me is maybe a message.
Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't help.
I don't know, but I never sent it.
So we'll never know.
(16:20):
So my call to action is if you play in agroup and say you haven't seen
somebody for a minute, right?
You've lost touch with someone who used toa regular part of your pickleball
community, maybe take a minutethis week and reach out to them.
Just send them a message andsay, Hey, how are you doing?
I haven't seen you in a minute.
How are you feeling?
(16:43):
Never know how that's goingto impact that person.
I'm pretty sure it won't be a negative, soit won't be a bad thing to receive that.
So it can only be a positive or neutralevent for that person.
I myself, I'm going to try anddo that over the next week.
Identify a couple of players who I haven'tseen in a while, and just
(17:03):
shoot them a message.
Nothing heavy, nothing too crazy, butjust checking in, see how you're doing.
And maybe that'll help them in whateversituation they're in, if I
haven't seen him in a while.
So that's the call to action foryou this week for the podcast.
Sorry to end on a sad note,but these things happen.
(17:25):
And I think, reminding ourselves of whatwe can do to maybe to positively influence
the life of another isalways a good thing.
So if you if you have a minute to rate andreview the podcast, that's always welcome.
If you thought that anything in thispodcast might help one of your friends,
going into the CTA again here,share the podcast with them because if it
(17:49):
was something that you thought helped youor you thought would help them,
why not share it with them?
Anyway, I hope you have a great week, andI will see you in the next episode of
our podcast, which will berecorded, I'm thinking, in studio.
See you well.Until next time.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.