{"id":3889,"date":"2011-03-16T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=3889"},"modified":"2012-03-31T17:09:24","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T21:09:24","slug":"the-jewish-ping-pong-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/16\/the-jewish-ping-pong-league\/","title":{"rendered":"THE JEWISH PING-PONG LEAGUE"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

1. EAST DIVISION<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The ping-pong season started several months ago, when violinist Steve Greenman<\/a> called and said “I want to play ping-pong tonight.” He got tilapia out of it.\u00a0 Not a bad night for a single guy (soon to be married).\u00a0 My wife, Alice, cooked.<\/p>\n

Ping-pong is predominately a winter sport in Cleveland. The Jewish ping-pong dean here is Valeriy Elnatanov. \u00a0He’s a Russian pro who used to teach ping-pong and pilpul<\/em> at Green Road Synagogue, an Orthodox shul<\/em>.\u00a0 [Not sure about pilpul<\/em> (a Talmudic study method) but he did teach Hebrew to Russians.]<\/p>\n

\"jewish-ping-pong\"<\/p>\n

Valeriy moved on to other training facilities.\u00a0 I saw him at the Shaker Heights community building playing top-notch Asians.<\/p>\n

Valeriy said <\/strong>the<\/span><\/span> best way to develop a top-spin forehand is to turn a bicycle upside-down and swat repeatedly at the spinning tire with your paddle.\u00a0 I never did that, but I thought about it.\"practicing-spin\"<\/p>\n

When Valeriy practiced, he used dozens of balls.\u00a0 That’s the way to go.\u00a0 You bend down less.<\/p>\n

My wife, Alice, has a good forehand slam.\u00a0 Steve Greenman has a steady backhand.\u00a0 Neither cheats.\u00a0 Many ping-pong players don’t toss the ball up high enough on the serve.<\/p>\n

2. WEST DIVISION<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

How come documentaries about California musicians — Hal Blaine, the Sherman brothers — have poolside shots, but no outdoor ping-pong shots?<\/p>\n

I played ping-pong on a patio in Los Angeles. You don’t forget that if you’re from the Midwest.<\/p>\n

In the Cal<\/strong><\/span> movies, the musicians are sunbathing poolside.\u00a0 Are they embarrassed to show their ping-pong moves?\u00a0 (The Kids Are All Right<\/em>, set in California, had an outdoor ping-pong table.\u00a0 No musicians playing, though.)<\/p>\n

My father, Toby, had a childhood friend in Los Angeles, Irv Drooyan, who taught school, wrote math textbooks and played outdoor ping-pong.\u00a0 Toby kept in touch with Irv and one other Clevelander in California, Sol of San Diego.\u00a0 In the 1950s, California was just an extension of Cleveland.<\/p>\n

These friends<\/span> <\/strong>of my dad occasionally switched their first names — maybe to dodge anti-Semitism. \u00a0Irv was Red.\u00a0 Sol was Al.\u00a0 Toby was Ted.<\/p>\n

My introduction to outdoor ping-pong was on Red Drooyan’s patio in Woodland Hills, California, in 1962.\u00a0 Unforgettable because a) it was outdoors, and b) I didn’t know my dad had any friends.\u00a0 In Cleveland, my father had hung around exclusively with my mom’s friends and their husbands.<\/p>\n

California was about a)\u00a0stippled paddles — with a woody sound, and b) my dad with friends. <\/p>\n

Good vibrations. Got to get back there. <\/p>\n

To 1962 or California?<\/p>\n

To the ping-pong table. <\/p>\n

Your serve. <\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

[For goys only.\u00a0 In Ralph Solonitz<\/a>‘s <\/em>ping-pong table illustration,\u00a0 “milchidike” refers to dairy and “fleishidike” means meat.\u00a0 The two major divisions in the Kosher League.]<\/p>\n

—-
\n<\/span>
\nPlease see the post below too.\u00a0 It’s raunchy and new.<\/span>
\n—-
\n<\/span>
\nYiddishe Cup celebrates Purim this Sat. (March 19), 7:45- 9 p.m., Park Synagogue, Cleveland Heights.\u00a0 Open to all.\u00a0 Free.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. EAST DIVISION The ping-pong season started several months ago, when violinist Steve Greenman called and said “I want to play ping-pong tonight.” He got tilapia out of it.\u00a0 Not a bad night for a single guy (soon to be married).\u00a0 My wife, Alice, cooked. Ping-pong is predominately a winter sport in Cleveland. The Jewish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-road","category-sports-pages","category-toby-stratton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3889"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8977,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889\/revisions\/8977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}