The Origin of the "Balltrain"

I've been asked several times over the years how the nickname "balltrain" came about. You may or may not care but I anticipate for some it might be a somewhat entertaining story.

 

In the late 90's there was a dance club on the west side of what is now the Gateway called Club Axis. We didn't hit this place up often (my memories were more at The Bay on 4th south at least until we all actually turned 18 at which point the dance clubs didn't seem as cool anymore). I want to say this was Sophomore year for me but it might have been Junior year. A group of us where at Club Axis dancing. The club was obviously dark with lots of strobe lights everywhere. There was a stage as well as some pedestals at each corner of the stage. I found myself on a pedestal dancing with a group of girls. Truly I was king of the moment! That moment lasted but a mere instant as I somehow lost my balance and started shuffling backwards, sending the girls behind me off the pedestal and down onto the floor below. As I stumbled backwards, about to fall off myself, I of course flailed my arms out and grabbed the girl(s) in front of me in an effort to balance myself. Turns out a 200+ lb dude is more of an anchor for a couple teenage girls and I dragged them down with me, creating a train of sorts of people falling off the pedestal onto the ground. Luckily nobody was seriously injured (my memory of course is the pedestal being way high off the ground. . . reality is that it was likely 1/2 a step above the stage and only marginally higher above the ground).  My pride of course was seriously injured and I'm pretty sure I didn't dance with anybody the rest of the night. Not only were the girls no longer interested in my sweet dance moves, my friends were VERY interested in mocking me relentlessly for creating a falling train of sorts at the dance club. Thus the "balltrain" was born.

 

The story above is true and undeniably had an impact on this nickname gaining legs and now becoming my lifelong nickname such that all my social media handles are based off balltrain and even my wife has had to adopt the rachetrain moniker. Also I'm a big guy which I'm sure helps a nickname like "train" stick around. We probably aren't comparing the small skinny kid to a train. Nevertheless, I feel a long overdue confession is in order of the true origin of the name.

 

Most readers of this post will be familiar with Saved by the Bell and it's overwhelming popularity in the 90's. I was a huge fan and continued to be a fan of "T-NBC" Saturday morning programs long after the original Saved by the Bell closed out its series. In fact, the original Saved by the Bell ended in 1992 and it was really Saved by the Bell: The New Class that carried from 1993-2000 which were my prime teen years. (143 episodes of The New Class vs only 86 of the original). I loved watching T-NBC as well as some cartoons and finished off Saturday mornings with NBA Inside Stuff. Great times indeed. There was a second show on right after Saved by the Bell: The New Class called City Guys. This show was basically Saved by the Bell but set in New York City. I watched both of these shows basically all the way through and I must have blended them together in my mind for quite some time. There is a character on City Guys called "El-Train" (I always thought it was just L-Train but IMDB corrected me). I certainly didn't realize it at the time because I had never been to New York but I'm imagine the L-Train character name had something to do with the subway system. I liked the character and in particular I liked the nickname (the characters "real name" was Lionel Johnson in the show).

 

Somewhere along the line of our growing up years we do stupid stuff or make up stupid lies and we end up being embarrassed about them. I don't remember exactly when but I do know that somewhere along the line in high school (and definitively before the above mentioned Club Axis incident) I started referring to myself at school as "ball-train". Yep, there it is. I gave myself the nickname and somehow (surely with the help of the Club Axis incident) the name stuck and became in some ways an identity of its own. My very first email I setup for myself was balltrain@hotmail.com. . . my personal email that I still use to this day and people always joke to me "you still use hotmail?"

 

I had a long period where I doubted myself as I got deeper into my adult years. I could've sworn the character was from Saved by the Bell: The New Class. When IMDB first came around I kept searching through that series and cast and characters over and over and couldn't find the "L-Train" character anywhere. I was so frustrated as I just KNEW I had grabbed that name from Saved by the Bell. I don't know how many times I tried to look it up but it was a LOT as I for whatever reason wanted that confirmation that my memory was correct. Memories are funny things.

 

Quick sidebar- I just KNEW the time I went to Britney Spears with my buddies on the front row in 2000 was on August 18th. I knew it because it was my mom's birthday so easy to remember, right? Imagine my surprised a year or so ago when I pulled up the setlist to see it was August 14th, 2000 not August 18th. Trippy but clearly our memory fails us.

 

So anyway somehow within the last few years I was determined once again to find this mysterious L-Train character and this time instead of Saved by the Bell on imdb I realized I needed to search for TNBC or 90's Saturday Morning NBC lineups. And there it was: City Guys. I knew immediately "This is the ONE!". Took it straight to IMDB and there was the character name I knew I had latched onto.

 

So why haven't I shared this before? Easy answer. I was more embarrassed about making up my own nickname than I was about a public embarrassment incident that I couldn't hide anyway. Nobody ever needed to know about the City Guys and their great character nickname development. Even the great Rachetrain herself was only made privvy to this story earlier this year when I finally broke down and shared it for the first time.

 

I turned 41 years old today. It was a great birthday and I'm grateful to be alive. I hope I can continue to share fun memories (and continue to gain new ones) as I move forward in life with wonderful friends and family around me. Hope I was able to give back a bit to everyone that gives to me with this story so call it my birthday present to everyone!