Front Porch
PJ
Detroit, Michigan
Signature move: The apology win — takes your books, then feels bad about it
“My bad — wait, do I say my bad if I won?”
PJ came up through Coach Reggie’s Friday games at the Detroit rec center, where he was the kid who asked the most questions and wrote some of the answers on his arm. This is his first year at the real tables — the grown ones, where the chairs don’t fold — and he still can’t quite believe he’s allowed.
The apologizing is chronic. PJ says sorry when he sets you, sorry when he trumps your ace, sorry — memorably — after winning his first Boston, at which point Big Walt laughed so hard the recount had to be postponed. Reggie keeps telling him: “You earned the book, keep the book, lose the sorry.”
But watch him between the apologies. The questions from the rec center didn’t stop; they just went inside. PJ tracks every correction anyone gives him and never needs the same one twice. The sorry is a habit. The learning is the game.