I’d only recently become aware of the insanely cool tennis scene going down on Poinsettia’s eight public courts; this after my previous five or six years playing primarily at the Vermont Canyon courts in the hills of Los Feliz, also a public tennis facility.
LA tennis in the mid-80’s was still surfing the incredible wave of popularity generated by the sport in the previous decade. And the HTB’s had been riding high in that scene since long before Mother, Jugs & Speed.
Bill Cosby, himself a serious player, had given the sport a huge kickstart with his groundbreaking first TV series, I Spy, in 1965.
In which the Coz co-starred with the incomparable Robert Culp as a pair of international operatives who go undercover as globe-trotting tennis bums.
There’s more to come about my own Poinsettia connection with Cosby -- but first, back to my man Arnold.
I did not witness his arrival that first day, pulling up across the street as always in his battered bronze 70’s era 240 Z, with the personalized plates reading:
A Bad Un
Front and back plates, that Z car was A Bad Un coming and going; but, tragically, a decade too early for a cameo appearance in Pulp Fiction (1994).
I did not see Arnold exit his vehicle, all five-foot six of him, looking exactly as pictured above; only now sporting the funkiest, tightest tennis shirt & shorts combo I would ever see at Poinsettia -- which was, keep in mind, a free public tennis facility in Boys Town USA, before it was re-branded as WeHo. Where shorts high and tight were quite a common sight.
Now most serious park players at that time, myself included, were also still sporting the traditional tennis short; but in more of a mid-thigh cut. Also, the pair I was wearing would have featured ample front pockets -- to stash your second serve ball in comfort when you step up to the line.
This was in no way an option for Arnold. Witnessing his shrink-wrapped service motion would soon underscore for me the importance of this principle:
Always leave yourself a little room to roam. Your game will thank you.
I did not see Arnold subsequently strutting up the walkway between the rows of courts, toward my position. Along the way he might well have passed and exchanged pleasantries with Blaxsploitation legend Ron O’Neal, star of Super Fly (1972).
Unrecognizable by me by that time, O’Neal was apparently a regular among the raucous rotating foursome of HTB’s “slammin’ da bones” at the domino table -- a standard folding card table and chairs that seemed to appear most days just around the corner from my position outside Court 4.
Ron was still a couple of years shy of fifty, but obviously out of shape and looking much older. Yet still a strikingly handsome dude, with plenty of gray in his signature Supe ‘stache, but now with much shorter, thinning hair.
I would, many months later, find myself across the net from Ron a time or two in doubles. In all probability I was partnered with Arnold; who loved playing dubs with me because I would pocket his second serve ball, and then feed it to him like a Wimbledon ball boy if he missed his first serve.
A sweaty, jittery, irascible opponent, Super Fly was not amused. Not with our little routine, and especially not with the obvious up-tick in Arnold’s serving game.
“White boy’s your ball boy now, Arnold?”
“Oh yeah!” Arnold would laugh. “He’s one of the good ones!”
A Bad Un knew a good one when he saw one.
That first afternoon outside Court 4, I was scanning the action through the chainlink, looking to snake a pick-up game, when Arnold stepped to me at the fence.
The most gregarious of HTB’s, he nevertheless joined me at the chainlink without a word.
I had a well worn Head racket bag over my shoulder, but he could only speculate about the game I might be packing.
Although I would have been tempted to assign myself a USTA rating of 4.0 -- a strong intermediate player -- I was probably still closer to a 3.5.
All serious recreational players think we’re better than we are. It’s axiomatic.
That said, at six-one and one hundred and sixty pounds, with good extension and timing, I did have a nice flat first serve; a legit “heater” when I got it in, which was a decent percentage of the time. I could also dial the power back to about seventy-five percent for a reliable second serve.
My serve placement, however, was still a work in progress; so my first serve would most often be straight down the pipe and into the body. Aim for the receiver’s right hip.
To this day I can summon a couple of vivid memories of unprepared opponents attempting to bail out on returning that serve, ducking away and throwing up their hands to protect their faces.
One was a lifelong (recreational) baseball player -- hardball not soft, he made a point of telling me. He added that he often still played on weekends. He was the type of celebrity jock who signed up for Baseball Fantasy Camp with the Dodgers. A shortstop no less.
I hit that serve at full extension with my Head fiberglass composite racket, the Arthur Ashe model. The racket was long and whippy like Ashe himself. It had a small racket head, with a tiny sweet spot, but when you found it on your first serve you could feel your easy power, your torque on the ball, all the way down to your toes.
Mr. Baseball got my shortstop special, a fastball down the pipe with a wicked hop. He did manage to get his hands up, waving his racket like an umbrella that wouldn’t open, but that first serve still caught him high on one cheek, like a wake-up jab in round one.
But what is tennis, if not this little dancing duel at a distance? Stick and move. It’s the Sport of Kings, baby. Stick and move.
My money groundstroke was a hard low forehand drive deep, with just enough topspin to help dip it in. I hit it with a Full Eastern grip. My “natural crosscourt” forehand should have been stronger; but my off-angle forehand, and my down the line forehand, were both legit forcing shots -- to attack the weaker backhand wing of most right-handed park players.
Pummeling your opponent’s backhand is a proven tactic at every level of tennis. You better do it to me before I do it to you. Before I break down your backhand, disrupt your rhythm, throw off the rest of your game, and painfully remind you once again: you’re only as good as your worst stroke. And btw, we’re all playing in a fishbowl out here. No pressure.
The main courts were laid out in a single north south rectangular block, two courts across. There was only a partial fence between each pair of courts, and only chest high windscreens around the perimeter fence. Often there would be faces at the chainlink -- like Arnold and I that afternoon -- checking out your game. On many levels.
This truth would soon be revealed unto me: when the Tennis Gods created a heaven for park players, they called it Poinsettia...
-- Steve Brodeur, "The Tennis Playing Mantis", for The Tennis Gods dot com
