I was enjoying a delightfully quiet tennis rally with my son a few summers ago when suddenly I heard him, from the court next to us: Snap. Snap. Snap.
Pickleball books extol the wonders of the fashionable sport
If you haven’t heard that pickleball is the new “it” sport, you haven’t listened. Across the country, wiffle balls pass tennis balls, paddles pass racquets, and everyone’s talking about “dinking,” “the kitchen” (not for cooking), and “dillball” (not even close to that). What do you think).
There are 4.8 million pickleball players in the United States (“Strippers”), according to UNITED STATES Pickleball. This is ridiculous considering the number of people who play tennis (21 million), playing golf on a golf course (25 millions) and bowl every year (67 million). But strippers are a loud bunch. A Californian woman even filed a complaint affirming the sounds of pickleball near her home caused her “serious mental suffering, frustration and anxiety”, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Like a weed, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. 44 by 20 foot courts cut tennis courts to pieces, take over warehouses and thrive where big box stores have died. There are $300 paddles, shoes, bags and t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Dink Responsibly.” There’s even a PickleUpper to help clean up after a game. (What’s the dill with all this pun?) The tennis chain is regularly broadcasting matchesand next month CBS will broadcast a celebrity charity pickleball tournament with Stephen Colbert as host.
They’re not the first celebrities to get into the game. Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, Serena Williams and the Clooneys are all strippers. Even Larry David would be a fan. (Is this part of his crusade despite?) And some even buy: Tom Brady, Kevin Durant, Kim Clijsters and Drew Brees are among several renowned athletes who have invested in Major League Pickleball teams.
What explains this pickleball boom? To find an answer, I looked where I always do: books. And while there is no Roger Angell of pickleball yet, there are a few books that attempt to trace the history of pickleball and celebrate – if not quite explain – its popularity. In August “Pickleball for all(Dey Street) was published, and “Pickleball is life(The harvest) will be released on November 1. This last title is wishful thinking, I hope.
These new titles are both what people politely call gift books. They are not works that you sit down and read like you would a novel, or even the Official Pickleball Rulebook, which is 68 pages long and includes such baffling depths as: “All points played are treated the same, regardless of importance; the first point of the match is as important as a match point.
“Pickleball for All” began, unsurprisingly, as one of those trend-watching articles in the New York Times (see also his discovery of butter boards and “naked bandage”). Its author, Rachel Simon, started playing pickleball during the pandemic. Sport was “a safe, accessible, and endlessly enjoyable way for people of all ages, body types, and fitness levels to come together,” she explains. Simon then delves into the history of the sport, from its beginnings on Bainbridge Island, Washington, in 1965, when three fathers – Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum – struggled to entertain their bored children. Today, they might have stuck the kids in front of an iPad or a PlayStation console; instead, they made a game out of what they had on hand – an old badminton net, ping pong paddles and a pile of hollow balls. Thus was born pickleball.
The game caught on, albeit very slowly. In its early days, there were few famous fanatics beyond Bill Gates, whose father was friends with Pritchard. It may have helped that Pritchard is a state senator, soon to be a Republican congressman, and entertains guests with pickleball at political fundraisers.
Simon traces the sport’s rise, pointing to 2018 as a turning point, when “the best players in the game started calling themselves professional athletes. Then came the sponsors and the lobbyists and the pandemic, when people were bored even more than the kids on vacation in the 60s. “As countless people adapted to their difficulties new reality,” notes Simon, “many of them – like me – viewed sport as a way to stay active and entertained, often from the comfort of their own homes.
Simon fills his book with uplifting profiles of pickleball converts, like 8-year-old Jack Loughridge, who gave up his tennis and football pursuits to become a rising star on the pickleball circuit. Beautifully designed and packed with tips and advice, “Pickleball for All” would make a nice gift for your favorite pickler – or a gag gift for your favorite hater.
‘Pickleball Is Life’ features a martini on its cover – specifically a pickle martini. Sure! The book, by Erin McHugh, a former publishing executive, shows that she was indeed very good at her job. From its eye-catching cover image to its bright illustrations by Jackie Bestemen, the book makes for a tempting impulse buy, when you’re at the checkout waiting for your latte (or pickle martini?). The slim book has recipes – for Dill Pickle Dip and Cream Cheese Pickles and other concoctions so intuitive they don’t seem to require instructions. The book skims through the history and rules and, in its final chapter, offers advice on how to be a pickleball ambassador, a job McHugh appears to have already taken on.
McHugh’s and Simon’s books are great fun – harmless, if a bit opportunistic. But they didn’t change my mind about the sport.
I played pickleball. It was almost inevitable now that my local YMCA’s tennis courts were pretty much taken over by mini courts. I get the call. The game is social and inclusive and requires strategy and coordination. In a recent lesson, I learned to shorten my stroke, to honor the “double bounce”, to understand that when someone said “2-6-2” it was not the start of a phone number but the score. At the end of the session, I felt smarter. I was enjoying myself enough to join a band playing on a nearby field. During my pickup game, some people were playing in jeans, some in dress shoes. We laughed a lot. They invited me to join their group dating text, which has been binging a lot ever since.
I’m sorry to say, however, I don’t think I see myself returning to the pickleball court anytime soon. Gambling is fun, yes, but I just can’t engage in a sport that takes terms like “dingles” and “flapjack” seriously and where Falafel does not refer to a food that I like. Pickleball is like a summer camp game, like tetherball or gaga ball — and if the latter becomes a big deal (dill?), I can promise you I won’t be gaga. What can I say ? I prefer tennis.
Nora Krug is an editor and writer at Book World.
Everything except the kitchen faucet
Dey Street. 196 pages. $17.99
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