Pleasanton Preps: Major League Table Tennis is latest sports barnstormer to stop by fairgrounds

There have been numerous sports that have come through the Pleasanton area, with the Alameda County Fairgrounds being the host spot.

I can personably attest to events such as roller derby; professional basketball with the Tri-Valley Warriors and star Willie Wise lighting it up in the Exhibit Hall; professional wrestling with former stars like Moondog Mayne, Rocky Johnson (father of The Rock), Pat Patterson and Peter Mavia taking turns wrestling in Pleasanton; and finally, the World Horseshoe Championships.

I covered the horseshoe event about 100 years ago, and it was amazing to watch people from all over the world compete, hitting ringers at 99%. The most exciting part of each match was when someone missed and cries of “ohhhhh” filled the air over the mass of playing fields. The best in the world at that point was professional bowler Walter Ray Williams of Stockton.

This weekend, for the second straight season, we have Major League Table Tennis taking over at the fairgrounds in Pleasanton.

Major League Table Tennis is America’s first-ever professional ping pong league. Founded by tech entrepreneur Flint Lane in 2023, the league quickly earned rave reviews for its unique team-based format and exciting finale event: The Golden Game, where two teams exhaust all players in a race to 21 points that often decides winners and losers.

MLTT consists of eight member teams, including the Bay Area Blasters. Those teams feature professional players from over 25 countries around the world who have made over 40 cumulative Olympic appearances.

There are 12 players who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, including the Bay Area’s own Lily Zhang, a four-time Olympian and six-time U.S. champion making her MLTT Season Two debut in Pleasanton.

Four competing teams play three times per event; each event has four singles matches and one doubles match before the Golden Game.

Team matches begin at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. start times on Sundays.

Fans can stream MLTT action live on YouTube. The league has made recent appearances on ESPN, Prime Video and FuboTV.

I mean how cool is that? It’s a sport that all of us have played at some time in our lives. I watched it during the last Olympics and plan on making it down for at least one of the days this weekend.

Along with the Bay Area Blasters, the Texas Smash, Carolina Golf Rush and Princeton Revolution are the other three teams coming to Pleasanton this weekend.

Friday’s schedule has Texas facing Carolina facing off at 4 p.m. and Bay Area and Princeton taking to the table at 7 p.m. On Saturday, Texas and Princeton face off at 4 p.m., with Bay Area and Carolina at 7 p.m.

Sunday’s final day sees Carolina and Princeton starting up at 11 a.m. with Bay Area and Texas ending the weekend at a 2 p.m. start.

For more information or to buy tickets, go to www.mltt.com.

Randy Isaacs Court dedication

I wrote last year about the passing of former Foothill basketball coach Randy Isaacs.

I also talked about how the popular former coach and teacher was going to be honored with the school naming the basketball court at Foothill “Randy Isaacs Court”.

The official dedication of the court will be this Friday (Jan. 10) before the Granada at Foothill, opening night for East Bay Athletic League action. The dedication will take place right after the JV game and will take place sometime between 7-7:30 p.m.

I will be joined on the court by former Foothill football coach Matt Sweeney and volleyball coach Dusty Collins. The three of us spent years at the scorer’s table, interacting with Isaacs as we were either announcing or working the clock.

We will each share a memory from those often-entertaining moments.

Hope to see many of you to pay tribute to a wonderful person, great coach and one incredible friend.

Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. To contact him about his Pleasanton Preps column, email acesmag@aol.com.