Multiple times a year, and regarding a plethora of sports, someone will reach out and ask me to join their fantasy league. It's always the same spiel: “so-and-so just had a kid, so he can’t play this year. The group is super chill, twenty bucks to buy in and, I mean, you can just have the app auto-pick your players, I did that last year and came in second! We don’t take it really seriously.” Boo.
Did you know there is a real game being played all over the United States that gets your blood pumping, involves strategy and a bit of skill, but nothing too serious, and you don’t need an app? Too good to be true, you say?
When I think of sports someone my age can play, I quickly reach the same conclusion of, “nah, not for me.”
Golf: too expensive, too hard, too slow
Tennis: too expensive, too hard, too fast
Swimming: too wet, winter, sharks?
Baseball: too dangerous, don’t have enough friends
Basketball: too short, too much running, can’t jump
Poker: too much sitting, don’t have a green fuzzy table
CrossFit: too cult-like, don’t want to climb a rope, spandex
Billiards: room too small at home, not good enough to play in public
Squash: racquet too long, ball too small, claustrophobic
Skydiving: too much gravity, scared of heights, death
Bungee jumping: see skydiving
Fantasy Sports: too much screen time, confusing, burns no calories
If you’re like me, these aren’t going to work. I had to find something else, and for me, it was an easy choice—pickleball.
Pickleball: fun, cheap, dink, dink, dink
At first, I had a hard time finding a place to play. Turns out there is an old tennis court at a city park less than half a mile from my front door. Nobody uses it, so I got these temporary lines, measured out a pickleball court, lowered the net by two inches, and got to playing. (I also count the walk as exercise.)
The game itself seems a little silly from outside the chainlink looking in. My best description of the game is: it’s like table tennis, but huge, and you stand on the table. It also sounds as funny playing as it does saying the name, but here’s the best-selling point—it's real.
The inherent age difference is also a unique feature of the game. Most of the people I have played with are older than I am by a good amount. Sure, you may think that gives a young whippersnapper like me an advantage, but these knees have seen better days and if we are playing on a Saturday morning I am most likely slightly hungover.
My first time playing was with my in-laws. We didn’t know the official rules, but we still had fun and worked up a sweat. Now after taking a beginner class at my local pickleball gym I understand the game and why the rules exist.
Basically, anything in the game that could give an advantage one way or the other has a rule to prevent the advantage. The kitchen line, for example, prevents smashing the ball back on the other side, and the “double bounce” rule requires a bounce on each side of the court before you can hit it out of the air. This prevents the receiving side from scoring off a serve every single time.
If you are looking for something to do that doesn’t involve an app, a couch, or a bag of chips I highly recommend lacing up your tennis shoes, picking up a cheap paddle, and following the notorious sound of pickleball to a court near you.
Is it my serve or yours?