An invitation from a neighbor to play pickleball sounded like a joke at first because it came while we were talking about the baseball fan getting shot in the face with a hot dog.
In a story that first read like a misprint, a woman at a Philadelphia Phillies game was hospitalized with a black eye and facial contusions last week after taking a flying red hot to the mug.
As part of an ingenious between-innings promotion, the Phillies mascot shoots hot dogs into the crowd from a giant hot dog-shaped cannon, after which the fans scarf down the air-mailed treats and everyone is happy. In this instance, the woman misjudged the screaming wiener and came away looking like she lost a bar fight.
The mishap underscored the problem of hot dog-related violence in general, and the need for tighter hot dog control in today’s society.
Also, the Phils’ marketing department may want to clarify why it was thought a great idea to fire on paying customers with frankfurter rounds.
For her part, the woman was an old-school sort not inclined to litigate a black eye. Perhaps enticed by the chance to win another hot dog, she accepted the Phils’ peace offering of free tickets to another game.
Somewhere in this banter was my neighbor’s invitation to play pickleball, which at first appeared to be one of those dialogue glitches, when one person hears something other than what the other person actually said, reacts to that and, after a few non-sequiturs, the conversation stalls, and they’re both kind of just looking at each another.
“It sounded like you said ‘pickleball.’ Sorry, I don’t get it,” I said. “You mean relish?”
Pickleball, he explained, is a game that combines the skills of tennis, ping pong and badminton. It’s massively popular in Florida, where leagues and tournaments are common fare, because it’s the perfect sport for active seniors looking for something more than Extreme Mall Walking or Full-Contact Shuffleboard.
The shuffleboard reference got him on a roll of old-guy jokes — time is a great healer, but a lousy beautician; happy hour for a guy his age is a nap, etc. — so I threw in the one about how he no longer has to respect his elders because there aren’t any more.
Then he got serious and said that at this point in his life — he’s in his mid-70s — his primary, daily motivation is to avoid dying. So he does the things that help support that plan. He had prostate cancer about seven or eight years ago, which put his appreciation of life’s nuances in sharp focus.
Trite as it may have sounded, he said that exercise and diet are still the same keys to longevity and good health as they were when he was growing up, and that for him, pickleball is a big part of that equation.
The pickleball itself is made of plastic, harder than a Whiffle ball but with holes all around to ensure it goes straight when it’s hit with the paddle, which is made of wood or composite and about the size of the ones used in racquetball. The court is smaller than a tennis court, there is no overhand serving allowed and there is a 7-foot no-go zone on both sides of the net — called “the kitchen” — inside which players may not volley.
It takes a game or two, with someone who knows the rules to explain them as you go, before you get the hang of it. Should you decide to check it out, you will find yourself hitting shots identical to those you’ve hit in badminton, table tennis and tennis.
Glowing with good circulation and dripping with sweat, my neighbor summarized our morning on the pickleball court with this humble chestnut: “It’s better than a kick in the pants.”
I hadn’t heard “better than a kick in the pants” in about 40 years, from my grandmother. He needs to update the vernacular. A more modern idiom would be “better than getting shot in the face with a hot dog.”