The One That Got Away — 9.0 — Tres Palapas Baja Pickleball Resort, Los Barriles, Upper East Cape, Municipal La Paz, BCS, MX.

“Old man take a look at me now, I’m a lot like you….”

Perhaps my love affair with pickleball is over. I’ve been musing lately about once again becoming a sports journalist, riddling my writing with endless cliches, exaggerating the significance of obscure statistics, attendance records, best of seven predictions, trade deadlines. In truth the sports world of pickleball is currently wide-open journalist-wise. I could start a new career (beginning by changing the name of the sport to: Wiffle Tennis). I could stake out new territory, maybe become the Ring Lardner of the over 65 knee-replacement set. Slang the dink. Uplink the drop-shot. Fein the fade of the faceless mis-direction. Slink the Erne into an around-the-net (ATN). Smash.

I’ve got to tell you though, once you start thinking of writing about a sport you can count on the fact that you will no longer enjoy playing it. Journalism tends to do that to everything. Too much information once you become an “expert.” You become a critic instead of a fan. War correspondents tend to hate war (like any addiction). I mean what fun is there in that?

I was starting to get pretty good at wiffle tennis. Then a few weeks ago my favorite pro (Jose Luis) hit the Dura Fast-40 (that’s a kind of ball) at me with velocidad extrema (they mostly speak Spanish here). I got part of my racket on it (that’s the Engage Poach Extreme) which only deflected it upwards where it instantly took out the vision in my left eye. Blink blink blink, shake it off, keep playing. I can still see pretty good, but if I turn my head quickly I see a flash of light. And at night I get these “floaters” (eye bugs) which tend to project themselves on the wall of my room in the shape of a scurrying cockroach. Sure we can talk sometime about my inordinate fear of the brown-banded German cockroach (I hate any insect that is smarter than me), but the point here is that the entire experience not only cooled-off my pickle-ball game but also made my third-world traveling a lot more expensive. (I no longer stay in the cheapest hotels as I cannot tell if the bugs on the wall are real or just an imaginary figment of my vitreous humor). Call it wiffle tennis if you like but still it is not a game for sissies.

So it might seem counter-intuitive that the first stop on my current circumnavigation tour of the far southern Baja Peninsula is my all-time favorite pickleball/wiffle tennis resort. The resort (Tres Palapas) is located in the upper East Cape town of Los Barriles (or as I like to call it: Lost Barrels) It is unclear who first lost the Lost Barrels, perhaps it was a Spanish Galleon on its way east from the Philippine Islands with a load of porcelain China. They stopped along here for fresh water. I guess they stored it in barrels. Maybe they’ll come back for them someday.

Today the town is mostly filled with Lost Gringos spending their retirement pensions on sport-fishing, kite-surfing, mountain biking and Pacifico beer. Wiffle tennis is mostly a retirement sport played by older folks with failing knees (though that is rapidly changing). It was a smart idea to locate an exclusive resort here. It is a grand facility with great courts, good players, friendly owners and, of course, cold beer.

I take a good two long days to enjoy the resort. I play enough wiffle tennis to remind me of why I need to stop playing it so much. Just another one of my addictive behaviors, slightly healthier than gin and tonics stirred with your finger. At night I drive up the beach and park in a secluded arroyo and sleep in the back of my open truck. I have nothing but the starry sky above me. No walls anywhere to act as movie screens for the projected cockroaches in my left eye. A good way to save money.

Which I can later spend on the eye doctor.