My thoughts tonight are with the Toyne family. We found out today that long-time scion of the DC-area racquetball family has passed. Anyone who played tournaments on the east coast, or who knew the old “Team Ed” group, and a good chunk of the global racquetball community knew Wayne Toyne and knew what a special person he was.
For me personally, I probably first met Wayne upon moving to Arlington in 1998. We worked together for years helping run tournaments in the DC area; the older picture in this post is circa 2001, from one of the long nights we used to put in at Ed Willis’ house to organize draws ahead of big tournament weekends. Wayne’s primary role on these late nights was mostly moral support and helping to eat the chinese food we ordered (hence the picture of him eating a piece of crab rangoon). In reality he was a long time organizer, promoter, and volunteer for the sport far and wide.
The more recent picture was from the International Racquetball Tour stop in Laurel, MD in September. Wayne looked the same to me in 2019 that he did in 2001; I never gave any thought that I’d experience the day when he left us.
It was a pleasure knowing you Wayne, and I’ll miss you.
Hall of Famer Bledsoe was 68. Photo via USRA Hall of Fame
The Racquetball world got sad news over the holiday weekend; former Men’s pro champ and Hall of Famer Davey Bledsoe has passed away.
Bledsoe was born in 1951 in Kingsport, TN. He was one of the earliest racquetball pros in the sport, playing half the events in the first pro season on record (1974-5), then was a full time touring pro until the 1980-1 season.
Bledsoe’s best pro season was the 1976-77 season, where he made the semis or better in 6 of the season’s 12 sanctioned events and finished the season ranked #2 on tour. More importantly, he won the 1977 DP/Leach National Championships over #1 Marty Hogan, giving Hogan his sole loss on the season in a 21-20, 21-19 match. Pundits from the era called the match either the greatest match in history, the biggest upset in history … or both. See https://www.proracquetballstats.com/irt/greatest_upsets.html for a fun list of some of the biggest upsets in pro tour history. This win gave Bledsoe the year-end Pro title and he is in a rather exclusive club; only 15 men have ever won a pro title in the sport’s history and he’s one of them.
As you can see from the video, Bledsoe was tall and lanky, lots of court coverage and lots of emotion in his play. He survived a furious comeback in game two to take the National title over Hogan, who went on to win the next four National titles.
In his prime, Bledsoe also competed in the Outdoor Championships in California, taking the singles title in 1978 (also over Hogan in the final) and making the semis or finals in several other years in the 70s and early 80s.
Bledsoe was part of an interesting group in racquetball lore: the “Memphis Mafia,” a group of top players in the Memphis area who played with Elvis Presley at his Graceland home. In case you didn’t know … Presley was an avid racquetball enthusiast and had two courts constructed on the grounds of his home, where he played along with some of the top players in the game at the time. Bo Keeley wrote about the group well here: http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=8674 . Its a fun side-note in American history.
Bledsoe retired from the pro tour after the 1980-81 season. He continued to play Amateur tournaments for years and claims 13 National amateur titles. He was inducted into the USAR Hall of Fame in 2010.
After his playing career ended, he began a career in Network Operations, working for major Telecom firms and for some Defense contractors in the DC area before retiring in Atlanta.
Mannino up for the Hall. Photo via Geoff Thompsen/Double Donut Studios
Hey racquetball fans. Long-time touring pro and former IRT commissioner Jason Mannino is up for the USAR Hall of Fame this year. Like we published with fellow HoF candidate Gregg Peck earlier this fall, here’s a career retrospective of Jason with some stats and lists of accomplishments:
Mannino overcame a near-fatal car accident at the age of 18 to become one of the most accomplished players in the sport’s history. Read on for a career summary. ————
Junior Career
Mannino hails from Staten Island, NY, the same area as Hall of Famer Sudsy Monchik, and being just 3 months apart in age frequently competed throughout their junior and professional careers. Often times these two dominant players would meet in the finals of state, regional and national competitions and would trade off as title holders.
Mannino and Monchik also frequently teamed up as doubles partners and won multiple junior national titles throughout their junior career.
Junior Career Accomplishments: – 3-time USA Junior National champ o 14U National Champ in 1990 o 16U National Champ in 1991 (as a 15-yr old) o 18U National Champ in 1992 (as a 16-yr old
-5-time USA Junior Doubles national champ with Monchik o 18U in 1993 o 16U in 1990 o 10U, 12U and 14U titles previous to that for a full sweep with Sudsy
– 18U World Junior Singles champion in 1994
———————— Professional Career
Mannino turned pro soon after the end of his junior career, when he was offered a contract with Spalding upon winning the 1994 Junior 18U world title. His first pro main event qualification was at the Jan 1995 Atlanta tourney. In his first full season on tour as a 20-yr old, he finished in the top ten on tour. He improved even more in the 1996-7 season, finishing 4th and kicking off more than a decade of being ranked in the top 5 on tour.
He competed across two distinct “eras” in the sport, and faced off against legends like Cliff Swain and Sudsy Monchik in the first part of his career, then Rocky Carson / Jack Huczek / Kane Waselenchuk in the second part of his career. Despite frequently competing in the back ends of tournaments against multiple year-end tour winners, he won 22 titles in his career and made the finals of another 18.
Mannino competed at the top of the tour for an astounding 16 seasons, competing at a high level well into his 30s and becoming one of the most long-serving pros in the history of the game. His playing career only ended at 35 so that he could take the opportunity of running the pro tour; he finished his final touring season ranked 4th.
Professional Career Accomplishments: – IRT Pro tour champion: 2002-3 season – 16 years on tour; 15 top-10 finishes, 14 top-5 finishes – 22 career titles, 7th all time – 40 career finals made, 9th of all time. – 195 career appearances, 5th of all time – 70.0% career W/L percentage (402-172), 11th all time – 2-time US Open champion, 1999 and 2006 – Las Vegas Pro Nationals Champion 2001 – 1996: IRT Rookie of the Year – 1998: IRT Most Improved player of the year
————————– Innovative Playing Style
Mannino’s playing style was revolutionary in our sport for two primary reasons: his tactical serving approach and his amazing retrieval capabilities.
Coming into play at an age in our sport dominated by power servers (Swain, Monchik, John Ellis, Doyle, Drew Kachtik, Andy Roberts, etc.), Mannino developed a unique serving style that was not really seen prior; the “Junk serve.” Not a lob serve, but not a drive serve, he pioneered a serving style that involved deception, placement and guile to de-emphasize the power of his opponents and often times force loose service returns for easy points.
In the meantime, Mannino’s “getting” ability on the court was perhaps the best ever seen on tour. Mannino could retrieve balls that no other player in his time could get, diving all over the court to extend points and rallies. Mannino could anticipate where kill shots were going and would literally begin diving before a shot was executed, and could return kill shots from mid-air. He set the athletic standard for generations of diving players to come.
——————— Professional Tour Leadership
Mannino retired in April 2010 to take over the professional tour as owner and commissioner. He succeeded Dave Negrete and became the 8th pro tour commissioner in men’s pro tour history. Mannino took over the tour at a critical time; economic downturns in the 2010 time-frame forced major sponsors out of the game and cancelled marquee events. Mannino was able to resurrect the Ektelon Nationals in California for a time, and stabilized the number of tier 1 events for the better part of the 2010s.
However, Mannino’s lasting impact on the tour may be the rule changes he implemented immediately upon taking over as commissioner. The IRT returned to two serves for the first time since Aug 1990 in an attempt to improve the excitement of the serve. Additionally, in response to complaints from fans and sponsors, Mannino implemented anti-arguing rules and pace-of-play statutes in an attempt to improve the quality of the product as the sport moved more fully into a streaming/broadcast focused mode.
Mannino sold the IRT tour in June 2017, ending more than 20 years of direct involvement (as a player or in management) of the men’s professional racquetball tour.
——————— Coaching and Mentoring Career
Mannino has partnered with Fran Davis for more than two decades to teach Racquetball Camps all across the country and internationally. Davis and Mannino are the primary instructors of the most popular annual Racquetball camp series in the nation and have taught hundreds of players over the years.
Mannino is a co-author with Davis of Championship Racquetball, published in 2011.
——————— Personal
He hails from Staten Island, NY and studied at St. John’s University before turning pro. He currently resides in San Diego, CA. He transitioned to a career in Real Estate upon leaving IRT management. He continues to work with Fran Davis Racquetball as a coach and mentor. He is married with two sons who have continued his athletic pedigree by excelling in youth baseball.
——————— Conclusion
Mannino’s pro record speaks for itself; he’s one of the most accomplished pro players to ever play the game. He continued to have an impact on the sport after his playing career ended, and continues to this day. He more than belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Well, everyone loved the IRT bar chart we did earlier this week, so here’s the same thing for the women.
Some interesting observations in this chart: – 97 women have appeared in a top 10 since 1975. This is a bit more than the men; we see a lot of players who reached the top 10 for short periods of time, then dropped off quickly. – The depth of the tour early on was very thin; the early parts of the graphic may look odd as it shows the early legends of the sport like Peggy Stedding and Jean Saucer lingering at the bottom of the bar chart before the tour begins to fill out. – I think its amazing how many players debuted at #2 or #1 on tour; Heather McKay finished #1 in her first pro season, won four titles in five years, then basically disappeared. Lynn Adams debuted at #2 her first full season touring, as did Michelle Gould. Marci Drexler, who may be the most underrated player in the tour’s history, debuted at #3 in 1986 … then retired at #3 13 years later. – Also interesting how so many players retired at or near the top. Gould ran off seven straight #1 titles … then never played again. Shannon Wright played seven events in 1983-84 season, made the semis in all of them … then quit and never played another pro event. In this graphic you’ll see these players’ bar charts just plummet off the screen, showing their ranking diving from a top 4 level to non-existent.
Fun stuff; Visual depiction of Men’s top 10 rankings historically
Have any of you seen those cool “Racing Bar Charts” that show stuff like population growth over time per country?
Well, thanks to a great suggestion from Jessica Swartz Amezcua, I found a site that lets you create these visualizations for free and created some one-off data spreadsheets and came up with this cool graphic:
Take a look, it shows the ebb and flow of all players ranked in the top 10 over time. It starts in the 1974-5 season, the first official “pro” tour season, and leverages results at the DP/Leach Nationals for the first few seasons to determine the top 10. In 1981-82, we had a points race for the top 10 for the first time, and have had it ever since.
Here’s a fun fact: in the entire history of the pro tour, now covering more than 45 years … there’s only been a grand total of 79 distinct players who have finished in the top 10 in a given season on tour.
Anyway, take a look at the visualization; its pretty cool. I’ll do something similar for the Ladies next.
On this holiday, I thought i’d print out what i’m thankful for in our Racquetball community, and recognize those who help me do what I do for the Pro Racquetball Stats site.
– International Racquetball Tour commish Mike Grisz for moving the tour forward and already having an impactful change. – LPRT commish Tj Baumbaugh for keeping tour moving forward and ever expanding the schedule and reach.
– Both tours for all the efforts you make with streaming matches so that we nerds can watch from home. Jerry J Josey Jr.osey Jr. and Pablo Fajre n particular.
– Speaking of broadcasts, special thanks to the lead broadcasters on the pro tours Timothy Baghurst and Dean DeAngelo Baer. Also thanks to those who help out on broadcasts JP Edwards, Favio Saravia and many others who help out and make the streaming entertaining for those of us at home.
– thanks to Ryan and Tish Rodgers for R2 Sports App; where would we be without that system and its prevalent use to provide real-time tracking of tournaments. IRF: take note! can we please move to r2sports and move away from PDFs stored in dropbox?
– Thanks to Kramer X for everything you do with The Racquetball Blog, the only person out there really writing about the sport in a blog-format.
– Thanks to all the skilled photographers out there associated with the various organizations; keep up your great work. I’m talking Ken Fife, Kevin Savory, Mike Augustin, Freddy Ramirez, Roby Partovich, Geoff Thomsen, Mike Boatman, and others who I may have forgotten.
– thanks for the 20 years now of the UnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball Championships and Doug Ganim’s stewardship. I hope we can find someone to continue this great tradition; the one event per year that draws basically everyone in the sport.
– Thanks to all the tournament directors who put up their own time, money and effort to put on tournaments, both professional and amateur. With out you, we have no sport.
– And thanks to anyone who I may have forgotten.
Happy Thanksgiving! Eat some turkey, then hit the courts!
Here’s some additional fun facts and a data discussion related to Paola Longoria‘s 100th pro win.
– She wins her 100th title in her 125th Tier 1/Grand Slam appearance.
– She improves her career W/L to 451-31, a .936 career winning percentage.
– She becomes just the second pro in the history of our game to win 100 titles.
– Kane Waselenchuk also won his 100th tourney at the US Open … he accomplished the feat when he won the 2016 title.
– Kane was 35yrs, 11mos when he won his 100th.. Paola won 100th tournament in 2019 at age of 30yrs, 3 mos.
Consider this fact. Kane’s the GOAT on the Men’s side … but Paola seems like she’s in a position to shatter any records that Kane sets. She’s got more than 5 years head start at a time where she’s just as dominant in her tour as Kane is in his. You can’t predict the future of course; not with injuries, life events, etc. But another 8-10 seasons of Longoria dominance could really put some big numbers into the history books.
————- Now for a Data discussion; Why does Pro Racquetball Stats database only have 93 career titles for Paola, if she’s just won her 100th?
The racquetball world and the Mexican media celebrated her 100th career professional win this past week, which happened to happen on our sport’s biggest Stage, the US Open., but the database of record only has her with 93 tournament wins. (see http://rball.pro/FD0529 ) . Why the discrepancy? We get asked this question often, and now’s as good of a time as any to discuss.
Here’s the answer.
Pro Racquetball Stats only tracks Tier 1 (or higher) events in its database. Over the years covering Longoria’s career, there have been a slew of non-Tier 1 Ladies Professional events that have occurred that she’s won, and these satellite or lower tier LPRT events are counted in her professional career win total. They were sanctioned pro events by the LPRT or its predecessors WPRO and LPRA and are counted as pro wins by the Longoria camp.
We have not had too many non-Tier 1 events in recent memory; the last known one was in Bolivia in June 2016. Before that, the LPRT gave Tier 5 status to the 3-Wall event in Vegas and to an event in Arizona in 2015. But ten years ago, they were much more common. In fact, in the 2009-10 season there were nearly as many Satellite events as there were full-money tour events. Longoria won a few, Rhonda Rajsich won a slew of them herself in this time-frame.
PRS has gone back and attempted to find the 7 “missing titles,” after much discussions with Longoria’s media relations team (which does not have a full list of her 100 tournaments). We’ve found most of them: – Nov 2009: Chihuahua Open in Chihuahua, MEX – Mar 2011: Terrapin Shootout in Laurel, MD – Jan 2012: Wilson Tour for Hope, Cincinnati, OH – May 2012: 2012 US National Singles Pro draw, Fullerton, CA – June 2013: Suncoast Open, Sarasota, FL.
We’re assuming the remaining two titles were Satellite events that may not have gotten onto the official LPRT calendar in the 2007-2010 range. Hopefully in time we’ll find them for a complete record of Paola’s accomplishments.
Hey rball fans! Before we do previews of the big event, I wanted to do a quick run-through of the US Open-specific reports that are available at the website.
Here’s a quick run through the reports. All the links below are available on both IRT and LPRT sites but the URLs will default to the IRT. And i’ve thrown in some fun trivia along the way.
—————–
– US Open Participation Summary: Historical summary of all Participants in the US Open. http://rball.pro/C1040F
Rocky Carson will be participating in his 23rd US Open this weekend; per our records he’s only missed one (and he very well may have played in it; we only have the main draw in the database for the 1997 US Open; if Rocky played but didn’t qualify he’s made every one). On the ladies side, Cheryl Gudinas will be making her 21st appearance this year, moving into a tie for 1st all time among women with Susy Acosta.
This year’s Men’s pro draw of 94 is the biggest draw we’ve seen in a decade and dwarfs last year’s 69 entries. On the ladies side, the pro draw of 41 players is right in line with the last few seasons of participation. The peak of participation for both the Men and the Women was in 2003 (110 men, 50 women).
– US Open Tourney Qtrs/Semis/Finals historically: Historical summary of Q/S/F Participants in the US Open (1996-present). http://rball.pro/70639E
– US Open Results Summary: Summary of US Open-only finishes, all players. http://rball.pro/5945F3
Only 11 men in the history of the event have even made the final of a US Open; Kane Waselenchuk of course has 14 titles. On the ladies side just 10 players have even made a US Open final, with Paola Longoria owning 9 titles.
– Ages of all US Open Winners: All US Open Winners with Age of winner. http://rball.pro/D204C8
In one of my more interesting factoids, Kane is simultaneously the youngest and the oldest ever Male US Open winner. On the ladies side, Longoria is youngest winner (at the age of 19 in 2008), while Gudinas is the oldest winner, taking the title in 2004 at the age of 37.
Lastly,
Dean DeAngelo Baer had a great new suggestion to add for this year; US Open-specific W/L records per player. So, you can select “Player W-L in US Open” report per player to get just isolated W/L records at the biggest event on the stage.
Here’s kane’s US Open only W/L: http://rball.pro/39C5FF . As you might imagine for someone who has won the last 14 US Open’s he’s entered … his W/L record is pretty solid. He’s 85-3 lifetime in this event. Here’s Paola’s record: http://rball.pro/514386 . She’s 60-7 in this event.
(Editor note: this was a post I published straight to the “Keep Racquetball Great” Facebook group on 9/25/19, in response to a groundswell of discussion related to his re-nomination to the USAR hall of fame. I’ll back-date it and copy/paste the content from that time).
I’m a bit late to the Gregg Peck for the Hall of Fame conversations from a couple weeks ago, but wanted to put up some stats to help spread awareness. Here’s a quick summary of Gregg’s rball career in support of his nomination:
Junior Career Accomplishments:
Multiple USRA State and Regional Championships
Multiple IRA state and Regional Championships
1980 USRA Junior National champion (17U)
Won title as a 16yr old, defeating Brett Harnett in final
Professional Career Accomplishments:
20th all-time in professional Tournament Wins
18th all-time in career W/L Percentage, all rounds
Held career winning Head-to-Head records against Hall of Fame pro players Ed Andrews, Ruben Gonzalez, Brian Hawkes, Mike Ray and Davey Bledsoe.
Retired with multiple victories over 5-time pro tour champ Yellen and Hogan.
Youngest pro player ever to make a Semi-final (oct 1980 Coors Grand Prix I)
1981 NRC Rookie of the year
1983 International Racquetball Most Improved Player
1985 DP Nationals Champion (defeated Mike Yellen in the final).
1985 Pro Male Athlete Player of the Year
Finalist, 1985 Ektelon Nationals (losing to Cliff Swain in a nationally televised match)
Semifinalist, 1983 DP Leach Nationals
Semifinalist, 1983 Catalina Pro Nationals
Amateur/Age Career Accomplishments:
1981 USRA National Singles Men’s Open finalist (losing to Ed Andrews)
2002 USRA 25+ Men’s Doubles champion (with Mike Guidry)
2003 USRA 35+ Mixed Doubles champion (with ?)
2004 USRA 25+ Men’s Doubles champion (with Mike Guidry)
Coaching and Mentoring Accomplishments:
Peck Racquetball Camp Instructor, 1978-1986
14 Junior National titles won by participants in El Paso Junior program
Coached future pro tour champs Swain, Monchik and Huczek.
Head Coach, US Junior National Team, 1999-2000.
2-time Gold winning Junior national team coach
USA won 24 junior world titles under his guidance
———-
Peck’s contributions to the sport span many facets; he was an accomplished player at the Junior, Professional and Adult/Age level. He was an accomplished coach/mentor who served the USRA national team. He’s well liked and well advocated for in the racquetball community. He is a worthy candidate for the Hall of Fame.
Before we get into the new IRT season (and the draws for Atlanta are already up, preview coming tomorrow), I wanted to wrap-up last season with the notification that we have some annual files that we update at the end of each season. I meant to post this more towards the end of the IRT season in June, but its been such a busy summer that I never got to it. So now with the first 2019-20 event days away, here’s a quick recap of where we are.
———————— We’ve already seen a ton of news items too since the end of last season: – new website www.irttour.com – Hiring of Aimee Roehler Ruiz to do Social Media – Naming of Pablo Fajre to direct both streaming and satellite events – The official return of Andy Kulback to tour management
And the schedule is looking fantastic. Last season there were 9 events. Already the IRT schedule has 11 planned Tier 1 or Grand Slam events with a 12th likely coming soon for sure, and they havn’t event started really working on the spring schedule yet. So things are looking really promising for the new season already.
Can’t wait for the first Tier 1 this coming weekend!
