Pickle ball?

[Burning Petard]

Anybody here knowledgeable about this activity? There has been several stories on local public radio about the sport. I have looked at Wikipedia, the Official Pickleball web page, and other places around the web that leave me with two questions.

The official rules seem to be silent about the racket and the ball. The ball is described as a wiffle ball. The official site offers two different balls, one for indoor and one for outdoor, but no description or specification for either. And nothing about the racket or paddle.
Amazon seems to have many different paddles available, but what are the official requirements?

Seems to me a wiffle ball would perform very differently, depending on both the stiffness of the material and the size, shape, distribution of the holes.

The sport is touted as promoting social conviviality over competitive humiliation.

(((((snailgate)))))

[RayThom]

The ball:

It appears that one must be well into retirement to understand the finer points of the game.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240 ... 2202963804
It seems to pack all the spectacle and excitement as cricket. Regardless, any physical activity is good activity, especially at that age.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I suppose when I get to that age, the balls probably will look pickled

[Big RR]

Last spring, the homeowners' association in Beacon Woods—a 2,700-home community in Bayonet Point, Fla.—approved a request: adding pickleball lines to one of four tennis courts. The change "does not obstruct" tennis players from using the court, says Ann Bunting, president of the association.

But that's not how tennis players see it.

"They took the court without our consent," says Ignacio Rodriguez, 68, a Beacon Woods tennis player. Some two dozen tennis players, Ms. Bunting adds, signed a petition in protest.

It's things like this that scare me about moving into an over 55 community. Retirees apparently have very little to do than to get pissed off because someone else has found a way to use the common tennis courts--courts that I would presume everyone has a right to use, t they say "They took the court without our consent". I guess the card rooms will also complain if people at one table play poker rather than rummy--"they took the table without our consent"?

[Bicycle Bill]

Last spring, the homeowners' association in Beacon Woods—a 2,700-home community in Bayonet Point, Fla.—approved a request: adding pickleball lines to one of four tennis courts. The change "does not obstruct" tennis players from using the court, says Ann Bunting, president of the association.

But that's not how tennis players see it.

"They took the court without our consent," says Ignacio Rodriguez, 68, a Beacon Woods tennis player. Some two dozen tennis players, Ms. Bunting adds, signed a petition in protest.

It's things like this that scare me about moving into an over 55 community. Retirees apparently have very little to do than to get pissed off because someone else has found a way to use the common tennis courts--courts that I would presume everyone has a right to use, they say "They took the court without our consent". I guess the card rooms will also complain if people at one table play poker rather than rummy--"they took the table without our consent"?

Well, looking at it from tennis players' viewpoint, if someone is playing pickleball on it, you can't also use it to play tennis.  And if they turned the very best tennis court (which in the case of most retirees, means either "closest to the parking lot", "closest to the vending machines", or "closest to the bathrooms") into a sometimes-pickleball court, then I can possibly see their reason for pitching a bitch.

However, I also learned how to handle something like this back when I was perhaps three or four.  It's called "sharing".

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

Sharing, what a concept--that's what I was thinking about. It's not like the courts were theirs alone, they were for everyone to use. If someone chose to play pickleball rather than tennis, too bad.

I could understand if one court was dedicated to the pickleball users, but in this case they were bitching because more of the people (who presumably paid for the courts and had a right to use them) were using them.

[oldr_n_wsr]

It's things like this that scare me about moving into an over 55 community.

It's not just at "over 55 communities" that this kind of stuff goes on. My F-I-L lives in a closed comunity (not age restricted) and the crap I hear of is more justification of never living in a closed community.
But to each his own.

[Scooter]

If you paint on lines designed for a different sport, you are ruining the court for the other sport because your brain is having to take time away from your game to concentrate on which line is the one that matters to you. I can remember in high school when the floor of our one matchbox-sized gym was painted with the lines of every sport it needed to be used for, it was less confusing only because they were done in different colours. Not sure if that's the case here, or how easy it would be to distinguish between lines drawn for tennis and those drawn for pickleball, neither of which I play.

[Big RR]

True, but the story didn't mention that happened, and the WSJ photos don't appear to show the courts bearing any different lines. I would imagine if the courts were changed in this manner, the person quoted would have said it rather than just complain that the court was "taken" without their permission.

[Scooter]

The section you quoted says:

Last spring, the homeowners' association in Beacon Woods—a 2,700-home community in Bayonet Point, Fla.—approved a request: adding pickleball lines to one of four tennis courts. The change "does not obstruct" tennis players from using the court, says Ann Bunting, president of the association.

Whether it had happened by the time the pictures were taken, I do not know.

[Big RR]

I read that as allowing pickleball players to be added to the appointment queue (the "line") for use of one of the tennis courts, but you could well be right. Whether the lines are a bother or not to tennis players remains to be seen, but I guess they might be. but I still maintain that it is an overreaction, and that residents who want to play another game on the court should be recognized as well. Sometimes these types of "turf wars" can get pretty ugly, especially for people who have enough time on their hands to fight them.

I have had a few clients who were forced to hire me to fight the condo association over some of these same sort of things.

[MajGenl.Meade]

[Long Run]

This seems doable to me. Gyms often have lines for multiple sports, and you get used to the appropriate ones pretty quickly. Seems like a reasonable way to accommodate and benefit more association members.

[Big RR]

It doesn't seem to be all that much of a problem to me either, using a different color line to differentiate the new lines. Thanks LR.