Instead of burning calories by running and working up a healthy sweat by bashing tennis balls on an outdoor court into the school parking lot, these trusting young children seldom had to move more than a few feet to swat at yellow plastic balls with their graphite paddles. They could have worked up a healthier sweat staying inside and thumbing their cellphones. Or they could have thumbed their cellphones WHILE playing pickleball.
I’ve been warning America for more than a year about the paddleball plague. About what started as a backyard game eventually was adopted by aging boomers not quite ready for shuffleboard or bocce ball. About thousands of tennis courts that have been defaced by lines painted on them to denote the boundaries of a pickleball court; which is essentially the size of a walk-in closet. But I guess I didn’t write loudly enough. Or maybe I didn’t totally realize that anything named pickleball could ever take itself so seriously.
Because now there are pickleball tournaments. Pickleball camps, where pros shamelessly purport to teach the finer points of a game that has few of them. Pickleball streaming on ESPN. Next thing you know they’ll have a 32-team league and matches will be televised every other day, with endless shots of Taylor Swift in the stands.
There’s nothing inherently evil about the game. And people not athletic enough to play tennis but too poor to play golf need something to do, I suppose. Advocates of the sport’s growth say pickleball is an activity that can provide healthy exercise for players of all ages and skill levels.
But insurance companies are reporting increased pickleball-related injury claims involving muscles, joints and tendons, especially in the shoulder, elbow and wrist. So far there have been no reports of players having to go into the concussion protocol, although that’s only a matter of time. Those probably would result from a player whacking a partner over the head a few dozen times with a graphite paddle.
And the benefits are dubious. Calling pickleball a workout is like calling a stroll down the driveway to check the mail a marathon. (For the record, two pickleball players in Connecticut probably did burn a calorie or two a few years ago playing a match in which ONE POINT lasted six hours, eleven minutes and 16,046 shots.)
Then they probably went to the gym to get some healthful exercise.
Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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