Pickleball!

I'm not sure I've mentioned it in past posts, but I, for a forgotten reason, found the sport of pickleball.

The big problem I thought, was finding a court.  But after that hurdle was solved, I found that finding someone to play with was the real problem.  I approached Dave, with whom I used to work and we got out yesterday afternoon to bat it around.  That was after 5 months of looking for a player!

PB uses a wiffle ball and is played on a court about 1/4 the size of a tennis court.  Basically it is tennis for people who don't like to run anymore.  Frequently there are doubles, which makes the running even less of an issue.  The ball doesn't bounce much, so there was the tendency to be too far away from it due to expecting a tennis like bounce. 

Also as the ball has little mass, you have to really bang it to get back over the net.  But the lightness of the ball allows you hit some interesting back hand slap shots that wouldn't work with a tennis ball.  The ball will curve and spin seems to useful to modify the bounce of the ball.  Drop shots might be a big part of the game.

So Dave and I slapped it around and even had a few rallies.  After an hour we were tuckered out and wheezing for breath.  There is some running involved!

I've been told that pickleball is world's fastest growing sport.  An interesting thing to say, but how would they know?  World's hottest April!  Oh, really?  Well maybe since 1850 and even then you might wonder about methods of measurement and error bars.  I'll be kind and call that marketing.   But it seems like a nice sport and worth the modest investment in bats and balls.  Dave and I have plans to get out again.