I’ve mentioned pickleball a few times in this column. I kind of assumed that most people these days know what pickleball is. After all, pickleball is, according to some, “the fastest-growing sport in the nation.”
I’m not sure how quantitative that is, but more and more people do seem to be playing it. I now see it popping up on commercials, and that’s a big step. Plus, for what it’s worth, a couple of years ago at a pro tennis tournament in Toronto, Jack Sock noticed my pickleball T-shirt and said, “Hey, pickleball, I’m the best pickleball player in the world.” To which I replied, “I have no doubt Jack Sock; of course, being even an average pro tennis player pays much better.”
I only told that story to show I talked to Jack Sock. That said, I thought I should explain pickleball a bit to the uninitiated.
First off, it’s a very poorly named game. It really should have been whiffle tennis or paddle tennis or whiffle paddle tennis. After all, it’s a game played on the court the size of a badminton court, with whiffle balls and paddles. It even has old badminton/volleyball scoring where only the serving team can score. Yet we get the name pickleball because, according to legend, the creators of the game had a dog named “pickle” that would always steal the ball when they played. I guess they thought the name “pickle stole and slimed on the ball” made for too long of a name, despite the fact it would be more accurate and just as descriptive of the game.
To make a game a bit more complicated: When you play doubles, each player on each team serves each time you have the ball, except for the first time. The team that serves first only gets to serve until the first server doesn’t win a point.
Also, scoring has three numbers: Your score, their score and the server’s number, either one or two.
To make it even more different, there a zone 6-foot area around each side of the net called the kitchen, or no-volley zone — which means you can’t volley the ball when standing in that zone.
There is also the two-bounce rule, where the serve must bounce and the return of serve also must bounce. Hence, you’ll often hear, “Let it bounce.”.
To keep the games friendly-ish, you need to serve underhanded (note: underhanded does not mean sneaky unless you want it to be).
Games play a lot like a ping-pong crossed with paddle tennis and badminton. The average game point can go: serve, return, dink, dink, dink, “Oops, I left the ball up to high,” spike.
Here’s the catch. The game is incredibly fun, despite the weird name and rules that seem complicated until they are not and a score system that some people (you know who you are) never get. Making the court a third the size of tennis court and using whiffle balls creates a game more playable and less challenging than other racket sports.
PB is very accessible to a wide variety of people, old and young. Plus, since you are hitting a whiffle ball on a tiny court playing a game called pickleball, it’s hard to get really serious — although some do. Still, when you say, “Dude, it’s a game where we are hitting whiffle balls,” most people smile and calm down.
The smaller court and the slower ball make it a very social experience. You get exercise, have fun and to socialize with other humans! It’s win-win-win.
John Zakour lives in Geneva. He is a freelance humor writer with a BA in Computer Science from SUNY Potsdam, a master’s in human behavior and a Chief Happiness Practitioner. He has sold thousands of gags to strips and magazines and had over 50 books published.
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