Table Tennis Chats
Sometime after the Cary Cup Championships (March 18-20), I'm going to ask in my blog and on the forum who would attend. Assuming there is enough interest, we'll have a test chat, and then I'll start scheduling guests - coaches and top players.
Ping-Pong and third baseman J.J. Hardy of the Baltimore Orioles
Yep, he's a table tennis player! Here's an excerpt from an online interview:
Q: What are some things you like to do when you're not playing ball?
J.J. I've got a lot of little hobbies. Fishing – now that we're out here in Florida for Spring Training, I fish pretty much every single day when we're done here. In the off-season I spend a lot of time playing Ping Pong, try to keep my game up there. Not as much golf anymore, I used to golf quite a bit. Kind of shot that down, now more Ping Pong and fishing.
Q: How did you get to become a Ping Pong player?
J.J. My dad was a professional tennis player, and he still teaches for a living, and we grew up around it and I have a brother who is about 17 months older than I am, we played Ping Pong growing up and it was a sport that we kind of clicked at, and having someone as good as I was at it, and me as good as he was, kind of kept us getting better. I take a lot of pride in my Ping Pong.
Things from 1981 I'd forgotten about
As I've reported, I'm spending a couple weeks with Tim Boggan doing the page layouts and photo work on his History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. 11 (!). We're covering 1981 right now, which is right when I shot up as a player, starting with winning the North Carolina Open, going undefeated and winning the North Carolina Teams, and then pulling of a series of upsets at the U.S. Open. Here are some excerpts from Table Tennis Topics, now USATT Magazine: