RSS
Update: Commenter Reactionary Utopian explains:
Please, Steve, it’s spelled “racquetball.” I’m pretty sure “racketball” is where zillionaire pro sports franchise owners hold up cities for tax-funded luxury stadiums, every dozen years or so.
It’s amusing to watch pastimes cycle back into fashion. For example, as a Southern Californian, I’ve always liked the Tiki style.
But of course even if you enjoy quasi-Polynesian decor, you get sick of it eventually. For example, a friend lived for quite a few years in the cheapest apartment building in otherwise fashionable Brentwood. It had some name like “Bora Bora Arms” that was crudely carved in big wooden letters in the Tiki typeface. But even though I enjoy what I call Los Angeles Dopiness (e.g., a donut shop with a giant donut on the roof), I had to admit that a Tiki apartment building was a pretty bad look after a few decades.
But I was walking down Lankershim Blvd. on Easter this year and came upon an old tiki bar, but it was now jammed with attractive young people spending money like crazy. So I guess Tiki is back for about the 3rd or 4th time in my life.
Will racketball ever come back?
Commenter prosa123 writes:
Racquetball’s rapid rise and equally rapid fall makes it an unusual case.
I’m reminded of it because the gym where I go occupies a former racquetball center, still visible in the interior layout.
I have to imagine there are still a lot of racketball courts that more or less exist physically that have been repurposed, but could be turned back into racketball courts pretty easily if there were ever a racketball revival.
Racquetball came basically out of nowhere to become extremely popular in the 1980′s, but within ten years almost entirely vanished. It’s not as if any other racquet sports replaced it, as tennis underwent a similar though less severe decline and squash was and is an uncommon niche sport.
When I was at Rice U. in the late 1970s, the students played racketball but the professors played squash, which always seemed to lead them into mentioning that they’d gotten into squash at Harvard.
Squash is a good game if you are good at it, but it’s a pretty bad game if you are a beginner. And girls barely can play squash at all, since the non-bouncy ball has to be smashed extremely hard to make anything happen.
In contrast, girls could generally manage to keep a rally going in racketball because the ball is so bouncy that no matter what direction you happen to hit it, it will probably eventually reach the front wall on the fly. So that added a lot to the popularity of racketball in the 1970s in that you could invite girls to play and it was new and fashionable.
I would say that former racquetball players gravitated to golf, which went through a big rise at the time, but the two sports are so different that seems a stretch. A round of golf takes far longer to play than a racquetball match.
I played a lot of racketball from about 1976 to 1988 or so, but eventually decided that I didn’t like being in a racketball court, especially compared to how much I liked being on a golf course.
A racketball court is kind of a sensory-deprivation tank with weird sci-fi sounds. It’s kind of like playing 3-d Pong.
Maybe the rise of Pong, the first video game, made racketball seem cool in the 1970s?
Update: Commenter gsJackson suggests:
I think Steve nailed a big part of racquetball’s appeal — getting next to some babes. Racquetball was big when heterosexuality and efforts to avail oneself of same were still a thing in the U.S. The sport is about the easiest to appear semi-competent in — a big racket face that makes it almost impossible to miss the ball, which makes a loud noise when struck and usually finds its way to the front wall. Most any female can do it.
So they built all these brand, spanking new clubs in the ’70s and ’80s, much to the delight of us handball players who were liberated from dingy old Y’s and found ourselves in plush new environments with often spectacular scenery. Those clubs really were a big part of the singles scene back in those days. Painful to remember how sweet it was.
Okay, so racquetball was a “heterosocial” innovation based on the nearly all male macho game of handball in which you smacked a ball with your bare hand, which hurt, plus you had to swing your arm very hard because you didn’t have the extra leverage provided by a racquet.
In contrast to handball, girls could play racquetball easily. Plus the 3-d court with its weird angles of bounces was a novel experience in itself, which made it a fashionable experience to women for a number of years.
Do they play racquetball in Anchorman movies? They should.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
Racketball went away?
Oh, no that isn’t an Americanism of Rackets – the best and toughest sport in that genre.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rackets_(sport)
Steve
Many racquetball players have migrated over to pickleball which is touted as the fastest growing sport in America. Its kind of a hybrid of ping pong and tennis
The mick and the WOG from Deep Space Nine played a version of racketball with a lot of video-gamey, Tron-like effects and visuals added. Or maybe that stuff’s already in racketball? Wouldn’t know. I seem to remember they played it in the holosuite, though.
In my gated community in the south, pickleball is becoming a “thing.” It’s sort of tennis on a small court, which is good for older people who can’t run that much anymore. It’s easy to pick up and played outside.
I have a bad ankle, otherwise I’d give it a try.
I’m too lazy to look it up: What is the difference between racketball and squash?
More to the point, don’t both deserve to die as archtypical White male sports?
Bizarrely, I was addressing this subject on the drive back to New York on Memorial Day, in the context of the strange and undignified ascendency of pickleball. (My wife and I were in the process of agreeing that we didn’t even want to be around anyone saying the word “pickleball” ever again, after the subject had come up at a meeting of our country club’s Board of Governors, on which she sits.)
Squash is way, way better than racketball, and fun to play–and even fun to practice, alone. And once the ball heats up, it isn’t nearly as inert as it is when cold. And the racket head has gotten a lot bigger since your time at Rice. Plus, it’s less lethal than rackets, and the walls aren’t made of slate, which makes the courts cheaper.
You know who played a lot of squash in his day? Tom Wolfe, at The Racquet and Tennis Club in Manhattan. No racketball courts there, unsurprisingly, but you do get the Big Two of utterly unknown racket sports: rackets, and court tennis (or as its adherents call it, “real tennis”–“real” as in “royal” rather than “actual” as they like to remind you a lot). Court tennis basically turns the players into flippers in a slow, three-dimensional pinball machine. Old guys with bad knees love it.
Finally, if you don’t think girls can play squash, tell it to my old and famously unpleasant acquaintance Chris Stefanoni’s daughter: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/sports/marina-stefanoni-squash.html
I've seen good racketball players (I wasn't one them), not knocking their skills, but squash strikes me as more refined and I felt like I got a better workout.
We had a couple of gals in our squash rotation and they were not slouches and could hit the ball almost as hard as the guys, a lot to be said for girls with good technique.
It appears to be similar to paddleball (played outdoors in the winter), which made an arrival around the same time as racketball.
I used to play racquetball, but never at anything like a competitive level . It is a fun game, but after not too long, I got frustrated: its too easy to hit the other guy (and lose the point or replay it? I’ve forgotten), so one tactic is to stand in the way once you’ve hit the ball so its harder for the other guy to get a good hit.
I don’t mean an overt be a pain in the ass stand in the way. I simply mean hit the ball, then get into a good position. Simply good play (good play from an amateur neophyte) led to being in a blocking position-which had an effect on the game.
That aspect always aggravated me.
Incidentally: when I used to play, it was pretty religiously enforced that you had to wear goggles. I have on occasion seen players at gyms in several different states recently, and literally none of them wear goggles.
I’ve also been to kid’s birthday parties that are held in repurposed racquetball courts, and have seen them used as yoga or stretching/calisthenics studios.
joe
Please, Steve, it’s spelled “racquetball.” I’m pretty sure “racketball” is where zillionaire pro sports franchise owners hold up cities for tax-funded luxury stadiums, every dozen years or so.
I always spelled it as racquetball?? Is that a regional spelling?
It is strange the sport disappears so fast. One of the first thing I learned about legendary Redskin coach Joe Gibbs was that he was ranked as a top racquetball player in the country. Pretty cool. He grew up in Santa Fe Springs, CA fwiw.
I played paddle tennis for NYU in the seventies. The courts were on the roof of Bobst Library on Washington Square where coincidentally the game was first played over 100 years ago. There was an established league that included many of the Ivy League schools. Does anyone even plan paddle tennis anymore?
No comeback for a sport in which you have to wear goggles, have a gym membership, realistically play in only pairs and sign up for court time. As a kid the neighborhood boys loved the racquetballs. Play “over-the-line” or home run derby and jack those balls for miles. Racquetballs were also great for playing “butts up.” Any readers here ever play butts up?
never played on indoor courts, and just a few times on outdoor 3-wall courts… mostly, they were good for practicing tennis… as i recall from watching them play, the ‘better’ players were simply brutes who slammed a hard ball pretty close to the ground, the rallies weren’t that long…
.
the handball players ? now there was a tough bunch… not sure i could have hung with that game, and always wondered if there were long term deleterious effects onthe hands… CTE for hands ? man, that had to hurt…
.
to a previous poster regarding the NBA basketball-like circus versus chicka softball: i have not watched a complete NBA game in decades, the most i do is check in on ‘big’ games (or games that have former gators playing) for a couple minutes… i have watched hundreds of complete chicka softball games in the last decade or so… go to a few every season, catch probably 25-35 on the teevee during their season…
up until after midnight last night watching the gator chickas lose a heartbreaker to ucla… watch them play more games today… something like three of their last four games have been decided by: a walk-off walk, a walk-off homer, and a walk-off hit-by-pitch… exciting sports action, dude…
.
are the chickas the supreme, apex athletes NBA players are ? no, but are they supreme athletes at their level ? HELL YES… are they approximately 10-100 times better looking than your best looking NBA (or WNBA) player ? c’mon, get real…
.
in general, just prefer college sports over pros for a lot of reasons… even though there is a lot to not like (*cough*pettifoggingNCAA*cough*) about the semi-pro nature of college sports, you actually see them playing sports with joyful abandon, abundant laughter, and sheer physical energy… in short, having FUN playing a GAME…
Racketball may have declined but it’s definitely not dead. One of the gyms in my Denver suburb has racketball courts and about once per month there are tournaments held here. People fly in from all over the country, and even some from other countries, to play here. The crowd is mostly men between ages 40 and 60.
Hum, never could see the appeal of racketball. Objectively speaking, I am a big fan of anything that gets people off their asses and out moving around, so I hope it makes a comeback. Golf too, as I understand it is losing players among the younger generation at a rapid rate. I always thought golf taught useful life skills, as you had to practice very hard just to get mediocre, and that kind of self discipline doesn’t come easy.
Interesting time frame on racketball – it was at the same time as every twelve year old boy in America wanted to be Kwai Chang Caine. Fortunately, martial arts have endured, and I think film has something to do with that. Maybe racketball will make a comeback if some popular TV show or movie shows it in a good light?
I wonder if racketball’s high impact nature became too much of a potential injury concern for a recreational activity?
“Handball” is something I’ve heard about but never seen or played. I’m thinking that it must lack some playing satisfaction: using a racket adds more interest to the game.
Did racquetball’s rise coincide with the rise of junk bond finance firms? Beveley Hills CA and NYC had large cocentrations of financial workers in confined spaces so the needed rat wheels like raquetball to placate them. Automation has made the large workforces obsolete. The huge wall St workforces have been replaced by restaurant and healthcare workers. Women are as good at racquetball as other sports. Real estate may have been cheaper relatively back then, today stationary bicycle ‘spin’ seems what is going on.
I agree, I played a lot of racquetball for a few years and after a while you simply get tired of being in a loud humid room hitting a ball off a wall. It didn’t help that I kept rolling my ankles and constantly worried about tearing my ACL. I felt it was inevitable that I tear something in my knee eventually. I gravitated towards biking, hiking, and golf.
Search on Pickle Ball for what elderly reaquetballers are doing.
I love posts like this.
I’m Australian and in Australia we play squash but its popularity has also taken a dive in recent decades.
I used to play squash games with my mates in dilapidated squash courts well past their glory days in the 80s and 90s. I read an article in Slate about Golf taking over from Tennis as the upper class country club game of choice. The article was saying it was a bad development for fitness. A good walk spoiled is no substitute for cardio.
Squash has a bad reputation for causing injuries. I’ve heard knees and heart attacks mentioned but I don’t know if it’s justified.
An hour playing squash will involve many more rallies and burn more calories than playing tennis, I much prefer it. At a lower skill level you can play satisfying games.
It does feel a bit sci fi – I often think that this is the type of game that we’d play during an inter planetary mission, or in a floating city.
As far as women not being able to play squash – I beat most of my mates most of the time – and my mother would usually beat me. But she’s a pretty good athlete.
Must say I played a lot of squash at that time but haven't played since -and haven't thought about it . Been a long time since anyone I know suggested playing -or talked of -squash .
To my knowledge racquetball has never existed in Australia
My old grad advisor wasn’t from Harvard, but he knew real professors played squash. Indians from IIT play squash, too.. It was impossible to get time with him if you didn’t play squash. If only I’d known 20 yes ago that I could have sued for discrimination over it.
I thought racquetball went away because indoor physical activities went away. So too went the roller rink and the community sock hop.
After making that comment yesterday I did some research and came up with one partial explanation. Basically, racquetball courts take up a lot of space. They have to be indoors, two stories in height, and aren’t really useful for anything else. In contrast, tennis courts also take up a fair amount of space, but they’re usually outdoors and if indoors can be put cheaply enough in a single-story warehouse space. Indoor basketball courts are large, but they usually get much more intensive use than a racquetball court.
Fitness centers that had racquetball courts soon realized that the courts took up a considerable amount of square footage on two floors and even if busy were capable of accommodating only a few people at a time. They often removed the courts and converted them to ordinary exercise space, which could fit far more people.
Apropos of nothing I decided to start playing racketball again a few months ago. The only courts I could find were at tennis clubs and at the state U miles away. I had to grit my teeth and join a tennis club to use their one racketball court. The other one had been changed into gym space.
The plus was that I almost never had trouble reserving the court, even on a weekend afternoon.
One thing that’s interesting about racketball is that the playing area is generally closed to spectators on 3 out of 4 sides. To the extent that people play sports out of a subconscious desire to show off, that’s a handicap. It’s also a handicap to the extent that sports need to have adulated champions in order to be popular.
Perhaps it’s better to think of racketball more as an exercise craze (like spin or step aerobics) than as a sport.
Heavenly Donuts!
I remember having a fairly massive advantage playing racquetball against people coming from tennis because they would often return the ball straight into the ceiling, whereupon it would just die. I’d never played enough tennis to get into the habit of assuming an infinitely high ceiling.
Muscle memory can be a hindrance.
What does it all mean? Is the choice of a sport an insight into personality, or is it itself personality?
Somethings are fated. I’m tall so I like basketball and high net sports like volleyball. Otherwise its hard to spot patterns. Big guys like football and rugby but soccer, tennis, and racquetball don’t have strong correlations with only certain body formations.
So why did I never play racquetball? It wasn’t for lack of opportunity. In those days I went to an expensive health club thee days a week, A lot of the facility was devoted to racquetball courts but I never went in. I went straight to the weight room. I swam occasionally but no racquetball.
Does any of this mean anything? I also don’t understand Golf. All my life I’ve hiked in the woods – up and down mountains in far off lands and in my neighborhood. I feel refreshed in the woods. But the eight holes of golf that I played once just bored me silly. I watch Golf on TV sometimes but I’ve never been tempted to actually play myself. It seems so pointless.
I don’t understand boredom either. I was college bridge champ so a couple of years ago I decided to take up poker and make some money. I read books and played poker on the computer. I also liked to watch poker on TV, but I found that in real life poker bored me to tears. Poker and Golf, others find them fascinating. Is it just me?
I did enjoy playing a few holes at gorgeous Crystal Downs in northern Michigan where he was also a member, but that's also where I got in the habit of playing for about an hour. Walking four or five holes turns out to be the way I like to play golf; fortunately I belong to a club where you can do that easily.This is precisely my experience too. It's a fascinating game, but only if I'm not actually playing it.
I've only played Hold 'Em once for money as a grownup, and I couldn't stand the tedium: if you're playing right, you're folding all the time. Then you wait forever, then you get dealt another hand--and then you fold that one too.
Then there's the weird dynamic of trying to take money from people with whom you're ostensibly on friendly terms.
Also, I don't enjoy gambling at all: at least there's one vice I seem to be immune to.
Tiki is such a fun piece of Americana. Didn’t the Reagans used to take Margaret Thatcher to Trader Vic’s whenever she was in the US?
The only way I’m even aware of what racketball is is courtesy of my favorite Kids in the Hall sketch. I’m weirdly disappointed to hear it fell out of favor. No more Eradicators roaming the corporate offices?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpWa2uJZb1g
Fitness centers that had racquetball courts soon realized that the courts took up a considerable amount of square footage on two floors and even if busy were capable of accommodating only a few people at a time. They often removed the courts and converted them to ordinary exercise space, which could fit far more people.Replies: @bjdubbs
This might be the reason: it’s too much exercise. Tennis is mostly standing around while your opponent double faults. By the way this movie probably marked the racquetball/squash peak.
Same at Boulder, except professors played tennis. One, who became my friend for many years, was a competitive amateur. Every year he travelled to New York to watch the US Open and stayed with a former student who owned a co-op on Central Park South. I would stop by.
(His former student was a Jewish woman who ran a sex therapy clinic next to the Empire State Building. She also bought Truman Capote’s home on Long Island. Counseling beta males and employing surrogates to have sex with them was a lucrative business. I kid you not, this is all true.)
The weight room at college, which I used, was at the end of a long row of racketball courts. They were down low, and you could stop and lean over the wall to look down into the courts and watch games when you were bored.
Cheers, Buck
I would not be too dismissive of pickleball. If you play it you will likely become hooked and it will surpass tennis in number of players in 5 years. It does have a terrible name though, I will give you that.
The Trader Vic’s in my neighborhood finally closed down in 2011. A great place with an eclectic mix of interior design and food on the menu. The house that I live in came with two bottles of Trader Vic’s Navy Grog mix some 20 years ago. I don’t know what the stuff really is, and have often contemplated just throwing it away. Perhaps it’s valuable and I should put it out on e-bay?
Paddleball, now that’s a sport; it’s played in the same court. Women don’t play it very much because the paddle is too heavy and the ball is too dead. I played a couple of times a week. I saw the game’s inventor, Earl Riskey, play when I was a student. He was a beefy guy, as are many paddleball players; he was in his early seventies with a limited range of motion. He stood commandingly in the center of the court and played 20 year old varsity football players. Directing the ball unerringly, he crushed one after another.
I learned racquetball solely as a means of picking up girls, because girls (or at least the ones you want to pick up) aren’t beefy enough for paddleball. My favorite shot involved striking the ceiling, then the front wall, then the court floor right in front of the girl. I would then move into position on one side of the court to watch. The candidate girl would try to hit the ball in a kind of tennis serve stretch, jumping up in the air slightly as she did so. Various anatomical parts would move fetchingly, bouncing slightly as they did so.
Ah, youth!
Where is he going with this? Seems far out outre, man.
All “Forum” type writings of that era involving illicit and graphic romance on the racketball courts were written by Florence King. Miss King was very good at it, God bless her departed person and eternal soul.
OT and yet demonstrating journalistic incompetence as well as other features..
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article212324564.html
Written apparently by a twelve year old. $.04 jury award for “wrongful death”. One can only hope there is much more to this story than reported. As an American from pre-revolution stock, answering your garage door with a gun in your hand doesn’t seem at all wrong to me.
The last time I played racquetball I neglected to wear headwear and, on getting too close to my opponent’s backswing, suffered a big gash over my eyebrow, blood spewing everywhere. It happened in 1980 at the Central YMCA in S.F., during my first week of law school. So I went down to the showers to stand under some cold water. While I had my eyes closed, the guy I’d been playing with, a kid from Beverly Hills High, whispered, “Psst, Alonzo, look!” I said “what?” and he goes, “that guy’s been soaping his d*** for like 8 minutes!” When we got back to school, we were a bit late for a meeting of our study group, which included four women. When one of them asked where we’d been, BHH answered ingenuously, “we were at the Y watching some guy soap his d***.”
Steve, there are different grades of squash ball, more bouncy ones for beginners, more ‘dead’ ones for experts. Coloured dot on the ball is the key – blue, red, orange, green, white, yellow and double-yellow for top players only. Blue is fairly bouncy IIRC.
https://thesquashcompany.com/squash-balls-what-are-the-coloured-dots/
Agreed! I played some racketball as an undergrad, then graduated to squash during grad school years. No hitting the ball off the ceiling, for one thing. Also requires a little more tech prowess and skill with the racket (smaller ball). The front wall ‘tin’ ensures that the ball isn’t bouncing directly down onto the floor and straight up into the air, etc.
I’ve seen good racketball players (I wasn’t one them), not knocking their skills, but squash strikes me as more refined and I felt like I got a better workout.
We had a couple of gals in our squash rotation and they were not slouches and could hit the ball almost as hard as the guys, a lot to be said for girls with good technique.
(His former student was a Jewish woman who ran a sex therapy clinic next to the Empire State Building. She also bought Truman Capote's home on Long Island. Counseling beta males and employing surrogates to have sex with them was a lucrative business. I kid you not, this is all true.)
The weight room at college, which I used, was at the end of a long row of racketball courts. They were down low, and you could stop and lean over the wall to look down into the courts and watch games when you were bored.Replies: @Buck Turgidson, @prosa123
Buzz, I had many a rousing tennis match on the courts @ CU Boulder back in my salad days, and had a regular game with a professor who was on my thesis committee (from economics, won’t get more personal than that). Early 90s
Cheers, Buck
Somethings are fated. I'm tall so I like basketball and high net sports like volleyball. Otherwise its hard to spot patterns. Big guys like football and rugby but soccer, tennis, and racquetball don't have strong correlations with only certain body formations.
So why did I never play racquetball? It wasn't for lack of opportunity. In those days I went to an expensive health club thee days a week, A lot of the facility was devoted to racquetball courts but I never went in. I went straight to the weight room. I swam occasionally but no racquetball.
Does any of this mean anything? I also don't understand Golf. All my life I've hiked in the woods - up and down mountains in far off lands and in my neighborhood. I feel refreshed in the woods. But the eight holes of golf that I played once just bored me silly. I watch Golf on TV sometimes but I've never been tempted to actually play myself. It seems so pointless.
I don't understand boredom either. I was college bridge champ so a couple of years ago I decided to take up poker and make some money. I read books and played poker on the computer. I also liked to watch poker on TV, but I found that in real life poker bored me to tears. Poker and Golf, others find them fascinating. Is it just me?Replies: @slumber_j, @Anonym
I can’t get fascinated by golf, which I consider a stroke of good luck–in contrast to my maternal grandfather, who was club champ at Chicago Golf etc.
I did enjoy playing a few holes at gorgeous Crystal Downs in northern Michigan where he was also a member, but that’s also where I got in the habit of playing for about an hour. Walking four or five holes turns out to be the way I like to play golf; fortunately I belong to a club where you can do that easily.
This is precisely my experience too. It’s a fascinating game, but only if I’m not actually playing it.
I’ve only played Hold ‘Em once for money as a grownup, and I couldn’t stand the tedium: if you’re playing right, you’re folding all the time. Then you wait forever, then you get dealt another hand–and then you fold that one too.
Then there’s the weird dynamic of trying to take money from people with whom you’re ostensibly on friendly terms.
Also, I don’t enjoy gambling at all: at least there’s one vice I seem to be immune to.
(His former student was a Jewish woman who ran a sex therapy clinic next to the Empire State Building. She also bought Truman Capote's home on Long Island. Counseling beta males and employing surrogates to have sex with them was a lucrative business. I kid you not, this is all true.)
The weight room at college, which I used, was at the end of a long row of racketball courts. They were down low, and you could stop and lean over the wall to look down into the courts and watch games when you were bored.Replies: @Buck Turgidson, @prosa123
One issue with tennis is that a match is rather pointless unless both players are of roughly equal skill levels.
Never died. I played Thursday night as a cardio workout. To me cardio is time on the Cross, so changing it up is necessary.
My gym has a large contingent of 60+ guys who use the courts to play handball, which is even older and rarer than racquetball.
My gym has a large contingent of 60+ guys who use the courts to play handball, which is even older and rarer than racquetball.Replies: @MC, @CJ
Yeah, I don’t perceive that racquetball has gone anywhere. Maybe they aren’t building new courts, but any place I’ve been that has existing courts, they’re still in use.
I took up squash in the early 1980’s because my university’s athletic center had 4 racquetball courts which were always in use and 4 squash courts that were never in use. I got fairly good at it until I was put in my place by my Brahmin Indian friend. He hooked me up with some excellent female squash players who I was competitive with. As I have gotten older I found I have found that sports that require jerky movements hurt me so now I bicycle.
As much as it pains me to say this, prosa123 got the spelling correct and you didn’t.
Also, Al Franken talks about how he played squash with his brother at Harvard when he was trying to get his brother to fail his draft physical.
Sailer might have played racketball with some Norman aristocrats in England.
Sailer might have played racketball with Queen Elizabeth II.
Did Sailer beat that Windsor broad, or what?
Hence tennis clubs with matches and ladders for players with various ratings; and doubles can still be a good pickup game even if you have 4 players of somewhat differing ability.
My gym has a large contingent of 60+ guys who use the courts to play handball, which is even older and rarer than racquetball.Replies: @MC, @CJ
Racketball/racquetball began in handball courts.
Will handball ever come back?
As I mentioned in another thread, handball used to be recommended as an offseason conditioner for many sports, and it was introduced to students in all colleges with any sort of a phys ed department. That's no longer the case.
So I'm not optimistic, but the game does have a similar appeal to, say, theMarine Corps -- difficult and be part of an elite. Problem is, the demographic skews so old these days that young guys introduced to the sport looking for that sort of a challenge won't find a large number of their peers so engaged, except for the occasional little enclave here and there.
Another problem, mentioned above in the context of racquetball, is that most courts can accommodate at most only a few dozen viewers. That keeps money out of the sport, and is de-motivating for the talented young players. Dublin has a viewing court/arena with glass sidewalls that can seat a couple thousand, but it's the only one in the world, and I assume is financed by the Gaelic Athletic Association.
I joke with him in the locker room about how old I have to be to join their group.
No
Also, Al Franken talks about how he played squash with his brother at Harvard when he was trying to get his brother to fail his draft physical.Replies: @Charles Pewitt
Racketball seems more the English spelling.
Sailer might have played racketball with some Norman aristocrats in England.
Sailer might have played racketball with Queen Elizabeth II.
Did Sailer beat that Windsor broad, or what?
At my last job, the two racquetball courts at the company gym stayed covered up. You had to take lunch at 10:30 to be able to play a game or two of racquetball.
That’s squash. In racquetball just wait around and the ball will come to you. Much bouncier. But yes, late ’80s probably was when racquetball crested.
This is an interesting question. I went to high school in a small town in rural Illinois, with a population of maybe 1,200 at its peak and closer to 1,000 now. In the mid-90s, it had a recreational center with a racketball court as its primary attraction. Pretty small town for a racketball court, I thought.
The town where I grew up was even smaller (600 at its peak, closer to 500 now). Back when the town had its own school district, we built two baseball diamonds and a tennis court. In the last 30 years, I have no idea how often that tennis court has been used.
It will take a youth culture more prone to deferred gratification. The best athlete in the world will feel like a fool the first few times, unless he’s ambidextrous. And the ball hurts — gives you bone bruises — until you learn where to make contact and how to roll it off your hand a little bit.
As I mentioned in another thread, handball used to be recommended as an offseason conditioner for many sports, and it was introduced to students in all colleges with any sort of a phys ed department. That’s no longer the case.
So I’m not optimistic, but the game does have a similar appeal to, say, theMarine Corps — difficult and be part of an elite. Problem is, the demographic skews so old these days that young guys introduced to the sport looking for that sort of a challenge won’t find a large number of their peers so engaged, except for the occasional little enclave here and there.
Another problem, mentioned above in the context of racquetball, is that most courts can accommodate at most only a few dozen viewers. That keeps money out of the sport, and is de-motivating for the talented young players. Dublin has a viewing court/arena with glass sidewalls that can seat a couple thousand, but it’s the only one in the world, and I assume is financed by the Gaelic Athletic Association.
Racquetball was primarily a gay man’s sport until gay became cool and they could start attending the spin and aerobics classes they truly craved.
Tennis is another sport that had great popularity for a while and then declined. I think I even have a memory of a tennis scene making it into a Woody Allen movie. It hasn’t vanished, but certainly isn’t anything like it was in the 1970’s. I suspect having Americans who were near the top of the game, McEnroe and Connors, had a lot to do with its popularity.
My Dad played a lot with other UMC guys between about 1990 and 98. I tried back then but found it too fast paced and I lacked the skill to not hit the ball too hard or too soft. It was still fun to hit the ball around by myself in the next court over.
As I remember, there were 50+ active players at his gym and the ladder ranking system promoted fun and even matches.
I love this topic since I’ve been playing racquetball here in the Chicago area for years. When the all racquetball club closed down (as Steve says, demand just wasn’t there) the group of guys and women I played with all went to the nearby YMCA which has three decent courts.
The closest YMCA to my house on the northwest side of Chicago is kind of famous for the colorful bit of kitsch they keep out front:
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:vm414m21t
Last year I tore my rotator cuff from all those years of play and I’m rehabbing it now (trying to see if physical therapy without surgery will work.) I love the speed and fast pace of the game — after playing all these years other types of exercise seem boring to me.
Racketball is very much like a video game. The play space is self contained, the sounds are weird and repetitive and it’s all about angles.
There was a hilarious scene in a 1980s movie where a blue collar guy is trying to impress his rich fiance’s family. The movie had the rich family of devotees of some ancient game called ‘crosscourt’ or ‘crosscut’ which IIRC was a combination of aztec ball sport using racquets, played in armor. I thought the main character was Tom Hanks, who pretends he knows all about the sport. Can’t find anything on it though.
There’s a small hipster contingent that gets interested in various niche sports, then falls out. Darts, archery, etc.
In the 80s, I remember Hill Street Blues used to feature Captain Furillo playing racket ball with Chief Daniels. In the 70s, the Rockford Files used to show Sgt Becker playing handball.
I think Steve nailed a big part of racquetball’s appeal — getting next to some babes. Racquetball was big when heterosexuality and efforts to avail oneself of same were still a thing in the U.S. The sport is about the easiest to appear semi-competent in — a big racket face that makes it almost impossible to miss the ball, which makes a loud noise when struck and usually finds its way to the front wall. Most any female can do it.
So they built all these brand, spanking new clubs in the ’70s and ’80s, much to the delight of us handball players who were liberated from dingy old Y’s and found ourselves in plush new environments with often spectacular scenery. Those clubs really were a big part of the singles scene back in those days. Painful to remember how sweet it was.
But most of the clubs have closed or been re-purposed now, and cranking up the sport to previous levels of popularity would require an infrastructure investment that seems less likely in these less economically optimistic (and, to be honest, less white) times. Moreover, heterosexuality, to the extent it still takes place in the U.S. now, apparently is mediated entirely through phone apps.
WTF is this, a pro-Hamas tearjerker on the front page of the NY Times.
“A woman dedicated to saving lives loses hers.”
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/02/world/middleeast/gaza-paramedic-killed.html
What percentage of American war deaths in Iraq or Vietnam got a glowing “breaking boundries” NYT obit like this?
Compare this to how the NYT covered the Hamas kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/world/middleeast/Israel-missing-teenagers.html
Also, if you try to put top spin on the ball, as tennis players do, you will hit a racquetball right into the floor.
Pickleball is new to me, too, this past year or so. My 67-year old brother (6’6″) plays it now that his hoops days are behind him. My mother’s middle-aged lady neighbor has painted the court outline in the cul-de-sac of their street. The neighbor invites her girlfriends over to play on a regular basis.
It appears to be similar to paddleball (played outdoors in the winter), which made an arrival around the same time as racketball.
Tiki style is getting a boost from the poke restaurant fad. I am a fan, it is like sushi but cheaper and with more healthy raw fish.
VR is also a fad that happened in the 90s and is coming back. 90s VR was awful, but the new VR games are pretty fun, and also often good exercise.
I most recently played a sword fight VR game and was out of breath after 10 mins and quit after 20. I was ducking shuffling and swinging my arms around the whole time. Unlike a jog of equal intensity, a VR game will also have your brain working rather than zoning out to scenery or music.
Will Steve Sailer ever approve the completely inoffensive, thoughtful comment I spent 20 minutes researching and writing this morning which he ignored even while approving a couple other comments I wrote afterwards? It’s frustrating to spend time writing thoughtful, inoffensive comments that don’t get published for a day, if ever, while there’s no shortage of inane and offensive comments that Sailer approves.
Any questions about Komment Kontrol policies are usually answered by considering the frame, is it good for the donations.Replies: @Anonym, @Buffalo Joe
You should be pleased that Every Word you write is read by Steve, every post. Who else can say that but we few, we happy few?
It's not about the money. Steve don't sell indulgences.
prosa, Interesting comment. I see that Serena Williams is making her way through the lower seeds at the French Open, which I find remarkable. Not that she doesn’t always churn through the chaff, but that she is making a return after giving birth to her first child, a daughter. There is an HBO series titled “Being Serena” which basically follows her everyday life. She was massive during pregnancy, easily pushing 200 pounds. And now, back on the court winning. Is she that good or is the competition not up to par.
There was a hilarious scene in a 1980s movie where a blue collar guy is trying to impress his rich fiance's family. The movie had the rich family of devotees of some ancient game called 'crosscourt' or 'crosscut' which IIRC was a combination of aztec ball sport using racquets, played in armor. I thought the main character was Tom Hanks, who pretends he knows all about the sport. Can't find anything on it though.
There's a small hipster contingent that gets interested in various niche sports, then falls out. Darts, archery, etc.Replies: @Joe Joe, @Brutusale
that sounds like Bachelor Party from 1984
Basically, racquetball courts take up a lot of space. They have to be indoors, two stories in height, and aren’t really useful for anything else.
I heard this explanation from someone who was working in the fitness industry in the 90s when racquetball had started to fade. The only places that seem to have racquetball courts now are YMCAs, which are nonprofit organizations, so they can be little less attentive to revenue generation.
Which is kind of a shame. It’s one of the few sports that’s 1) fun to play 2) a good workout and 3) you don’t have to be any good at it to enjoy it.
Watching that, a racquetball or squash court might not be the worst place to discuss insider trading or anything illegal. Kind of like a golf course is not the worst place to discuss insider trading or anything illegal.
Too noisy.
Too physically jarring/violent–especially for people older than 45–thus too easy to get injured.
Puddles of sweat on the floor/extreme slip hazard.
It was a game for Type A cokeheads in my experience. Sore losers too.
I never much cottoned to doing anything in a box and find plenty of fitness-related activity outdoors. Stuff where I actually build something. Or get somewhere.
I have the impression, and yes it’s just an impression, that there isn’t a great deal of parity in women’s sports, when compared to men’s sports. In other words, in a particular women’s sport there’s likely to be a handful of athletes/teams that are far better than the competition. Why, I don’t know, possibly because of a thinner talent pool.
The system matches players pretty well.
One time I went with my professor-friend to watch him play in a tournament. He was matched with an opponent who was a lawyer. The biggest thing that happened was when the lawyer accused my friend of a foot fault, having his foot slightly over the line when he served. (I didn’t see it and I don’t think it happened. If it did, it was a matter of millimeters.)
Seriously, that was the thing I remembered, because the asshat lawyer made such a stink about it.
The closest YMCA to my house on the northwest side of Chicago is kind of famous for the colorful bit of kitsch they keep out front:
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:vm414m21t
Last year I tore my rotator cuff from all those years of play and I'm rehabbing it now (trying to see if physical therapy without surgery will work.) I love the speed and fast pace of the game -- after playing all these years other types of exercise seem boring to me.Replies: @Steve Sailer
The closest YMCA to my house on the northwest side of Chicago is kind of famous for the colorful bit of kitsch they keep out front:
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:vm414m21t
Yeah, I liked the Leaning Tower of Deep Dish Pizza or whatever it’s called in Niles, IL. Los Angeles ought to have one.
Squash figured prominently in the short-lived sitcom based on the Geico Caveman.
See minute 14:00
Parody of the late 70’s-80’s white culture was a thread in this underappreciated series. In another episode, caveman can’t give his friend a ride in his Porsche because he’s got a bag of oranges in the passenger seat.
Money quote "Dude, I'm in the Boxter and the passenger seat is full of oranges..."
I have a bad ankle, otherwise I'd give it a try.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Is Pickleball basically badminton played with a Nerf ball?
I used to play that in the back yard in the 1970s over a chainlink fence. It seemed more interesting than badminton because you could put a lot of spin on the ball to make it veer in flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4qTH-VYGM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdRKqguEbas
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/2018/01/23/pickleballers-bergen-county-want-your-respect-and-your-tennis-courts/1040979001/
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/2018/05/16/pickleballers-bergen-county-if-you-build-we-wont-come/609586002/
https://www.northjersey.com/videos/news/2018/01/16/video-bill-ervolino-gets-lesson-pickleball/104232518/
That was good. I lolled.
Tennis as a spectator sport was hampered for years because the most prestigious tournaments (e.g., Wimbledon) were amateur only, but the best players were pros who only had barnstorming and non-prestigious tournaments to play in.
In 1968, amateurism at the Grand Slam was junked and suddenly all the best players were competing head to head in the most famous tournaments. By the early 1970s spectator tennis was booming on TV (e.g., Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King), which helped make it popular to play.
But then tennis receded in popularity as a sport to play after, say, the mid-70s. One obvious problem was that it’s a harder game to get decent at than racketball. Another is that tennis works best when competitors are equal in ability, whereas racketball and golf can be handicapped easily to make it more broadly competitive: “I’ll give you 6 points/strokes.”
But tennis remains a very big sport, unlike its seeming successor racketball.
One time I was watching a late-night match woman's match, not in the main court but the second main court.
Even though the place was almost empty, the usher on one side was diligently chasing people away from the VIP seats, in case some VIP suddenly decided to come in the middle of the match. None did.
That made me want to sit in the VIP section even more.
So I went to the VIP section on the OTHER side. Many of the seats even had the name of the wealthy seat owner on a metal nameplate. I looked for the most famous VIP I could find, to sit in his seat.
I found the seat assigned to a wealthy NY real estate developer, Donald Trump. My date and I sat in the seats normally used by Trump.
I wonder whatever happened to that guy Trump?Replies: @ScarletNumber, @ScarletNumber
Lots of of pickeball to be seen out here in retiree heaven Santa Barbara.
Fwiw, I used to play some squash and some tennis. Gave up squash early on — that hard, non-bouncy ball often stays pretty low, so the game is hard on knees and backs. Gave up tennis in my mid-40s when I realized everyone in my cohort was getting surgery and/or showing up for the weeky tennis date with Ace bandages wrapped around every visible joint. My old doubles partner has had shoulder surgery and recently had a knee replaced, yet — a true tennis-lover — he continues to play on. Upside: as more and more guys our age drop out, his ranking floats higher and higher.
See minute 14:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZyCPZsk_5M
Parody of the late 70's-80's white culture was a thread in this underappreciated series. In another episode, caveman can't give his friend a ride in his Porsche because he's got a bag of oranges in the passenger seat.Replies: @PennTothal, @SonOfStrom
Correction: Actually it was the same episode at 15:29
Money quote “Dude, I’m in the Boxter and the passenger seat is full of oranges…”
Somethings are fated. I'm tall so I like basketball and high net sports like volleyball. Otherwise its hard to spot patterns. Big guys like football and rugby but soccer, tennis, and racquetball don't have strong correlations with only certain body formations.
So why did I never play racquetball? It wasn't for lack of opportunity. In those days I went to an expensive health club thee days a week, A lot of the facility was devoted to racquetball courts but I never went in. I went straight to the weight room. I swam occasionally but no racquetball.
Does any of this mean anything? I also don't understand Golf. All my life I've hiked in the woods - up and down mountains in far off lands and in my neighborhood. I feel refreshed in the woods. But the eight holes of golf that I played once just bored me silly. I watch Golf on TV sometimes but I've never been tempted to actually play myself. It seems so pointless.
I don't understand boredom either. I was college bridge champ so a couple of years ago I decided to take up poker and make some money. I read books and played poker on the computer. I also liked to watch poker on TV, but I found that in real life poker bored me to tears. Poker and Golf, others find them fascinating. Is it just me?Replies: @slumber_j, @Anonym
I think for the most part, sports people gravitate to sports that they are relatively good at (compared to what they aren’t good at). Tennis is something where you need to have good reaction times, reflexes, acceleration, and hand-eye coordination. It also helps to be able to think, and think quickly. There is an advantage to height in serving but you have to be coordinated enough to take advantage of it.
In personality, you have to enjoy competition, especially 1vs1, but doubles is a teamwork thing. It is the same sort of mindset as with combat sports (at least singles is). You have to enjoy the fast flow of the game, and if you like that, table tennis has even more of that.
Golf appeals to accurate people who like to take their time. It’s like eight ball or billiards in that respect. I never got into it enough to have much of an appreciation for it, but in hindsight I guess you really need to map the holes out and have a plan for each one, that suits your strengths and ability. I like planning things, but I find golf to be too slow paced for me. It is also a game against oneself, you can’t analyze an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and devise a plan that allows you with your own set of strengths and weaknesses, to defeat him. I can see it could be useful if you wanted to discuss business. But business discussion can also be combined with eating, drinking alcohol, or both.
I like darts, and was pretty good at darts. But there is a lot less waiting around for darts compared to golf.
I took tennis in college. I had to get some PE credits to graduate. The first thing I took was tennis. The gym teacher conceived of the class as an on going tournament. Everybody played everybody else all semester, and the one with the most wins got an A, and the one with the least got a D.
So I played everyone else and I beat most of them. I got very good at the gamesmanship side of the sport. I could beat anyone if they didn't actually have strokes. My bag of ploys and tricks didn't work if they could actually play. But this was a beginning class. Most of the students had no real skills. Among these rotten players I was invincible. But if they could actually do something like serving or volleying, I was lost.
I got a C in the class and complained bitterly. I protested I had beaten most of the guys who got the A's or B's. The teacher said; "Yes, that's what I said. But you can't really can't play tennis at all".
So it was a learning experience. I learned that gym teachers can be treacherous.Replies: @Johann Ricke
As I remember, there were 50+ active players at his gym and the ladder ranking system promoted fun and even matches.Replies: @Anonymous
Is UMC a sports club with courts?
Racquetball is fun, but what’s annoying about it is that you have to spend a lot of energy and attention getting out of your opponent’s way after each time you hit the ball and you have to dodge getting hit by his racket.
OT:
https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/06/02/us/ohio-us-customs-cash-taken/index.html
US gov invites Albanians to US, gives them citizenship within five years despite poor English proficiency, then steals their life savings. ‘Merica!
Anyone enjoy playing foosball? I loved that too and was good at it.
I think then video games came along and that sucked up all the young men who have good reaction times and enjoy fast paced competition. I played them too in my youth, hours per day. But also enjoyed games such as darts, table tennis and foosball.
These days to be competitive in FPS you need to minimize input lag. It is a battle of $ in part, getting equipment with low lag. When I played competitively we used CRTs, which had nearly no lag. I am not sure how much of my decline in performance is due to lag considerations (having not coughed up the $$$ for a competitive rig) or age related decline in reaction time. I’ve also noticed that the more tired I am, the worse I play, which didn’t have that much correlation in my youth.
A central purpose of this blog is that it is a farm of commenters from which donations are regularly harvested.
Any questions about Komment Kontrol policies are usually answered by considering the frame, is it good for the donations.
I learned to play squash at Dartmouth in the 1980s—and then continued playing at least three times per week in grad school at Harvard. At those schools the ratio of squash to racquetball courts was in the neighborhood of six to one.
I loved the sport and thought I’d be playing my whole life. Because of skill growth from experience, 60-something professors can still play very competitively with 20-somethings. Unfortunately, once I left academia and the Northeast, I found that squash courts are very hard to find.
.
the handball players ? now there was a tough bunch... not sure i could have hung with that game, and always wondered if there were long term deleterious effects onthe hands... CTE for hands ? man, that had to hurt...
.
to a previous poster regarding the NBA basketball-like circus versus chicka softball: i have not watched a complete NBA game in decades, the most i do is check in on 'big' games (or games that have former gators playing) for a couple minutes... i have watched hundreds of complete chicka softball games in the last decade or so... go to a few every season, catch probably 25-35 on the teevee during their season...
up until after midnight last night watching the gator chickas lose a heartbreaker to ucla... watch them play more games today... something like three of their last four games have been decided by: a walk-off walk, a walk-off homer, and a walk-off hit-by-pitch... exciting sports action, dude...
.
are the chickas the supreme, apex athletes NBA players are ? no, but are they supreme athletes at their level ? HELL YES... are they approximately 10-100 times better looking than your best looking NBA (or WNBA) player ? c'mon, get real...
.
in general, just prefer college sports over pros for a lot of reasons... even though there is a lot to not like (*cough*pettifoggingNCAA*cough*) about the semi-pro nature of college sports, you actually see them playing sports with joyful abandon, abundant laughter, and sheer physical energy... in short, having FUN playing a GAME...Replies: @ScarletNumber
They are lesbians, so who cares if they are better looking? That pretty pitcher is dating the butch thirdbaseman.
Mainly, it hurts like hell until you build up scar tissue which you’ll pay for later. I tried it briefly and was wondering about this very issue. I researched it and learned that padded gloves were eschewed by good players for greater control, and the gloves were to keep sweat from wetting the rock-hard ball. So that’s when I retired from handball.
I heard this explanation from someone who was working in the fitness industry in the 90s when racquetball had started to fade. The only places that seem to have racquetball courts now are YMCAs, which are nonprofit organizations, so they can be little less attentive to revenue generation.
Which is kind of a shame. It's one of the few sports that's 1) fun to play 2) a good workout and 3) you don't have to be any good at it to enjoy it.Replies: @ScarletNumber
These are the positive attributes of sex as well.
Women’s college basketball is pretty much a few dynasties battling it out year after year.
Times change. The popular sports change as well.
I remember driving in Oahu in the late 70s, bothered because some idiots were doing the second Ironman Triathalon. Only a few people in Hawaii did that at the time, and pretty much nowhere else in the world.
Around that time the biggest sports had been baseball, boxing and horse racing for decades. The most famous athletes were people like Pete Rose, Mohammad Ali and Secretariat. The NFL was getting established, and the NBA was just breaking into the big time with rookies Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
These days I guess most Americans can’t tell you the names of the winners of the Kentucky Derby, the World Series and name the top heavyweight boxers.
100 years ago college rowing was a huge sport. These days only a handful of people even care. Interesting, the college rowing championships are this weekend, and the colleges in the Grand Finals are the same colleges that were the top rowing schools 75 years ago. In fact, the first intercollegiate sports event was Yale vs. Harvard in rowing around 1850.
The difference is, instead of 100,000 people watching live, there will be a few hundred at best.
http://ira.qra.org/
Grand Final
7:30 AM Sunday
PENDING
Lane Entry
2 WASHINGTON
3 YALE
4 BROWN
5 HARVARD
6 CALIFORNIA
7 PRINCETON
Any questions about Komment Kontrol policies are usually answered by considering the frame, is it good for the donations.Replies: @Anonym, @Buffalo Joe
Any questions about Komment Kontrol policies are usually answered by considering the frame, is it good for the donations.
Steve is so money driven he left a life as an MBAed marketing research exec to dominate the highly paid world of pro blogging. It would be kind of like Jordan’s baseball sojourn if, instead of being an also-ran in the minors, Jordan had went into badminton and become the best in the world at it, and stayed there, despite the lack of money.
In college I played with a girl who was #2 on her high school tennis team, and for the first 10 minutes she was 6″ away from the ball on every swing because of the shorter racket.
Muscle memory can be a hindrance.
National League MVP outfielder Andrew McCutchen is about the 150th or 250th best bowler in the country in his spare time.
I think you've got to have a lot of balls to burn your ships on the shore, so to speak, and go all-in on something like professional blogging. Jordan was independently wealthy already when he did the baseball thing. In theory you could go back to marketing research I suppose, but still, respect.
I am probably more responsible than anyone here for suggesting to those people who have a problem with the whim system and the occasional time delay, that maybe they should donate. But jeez, I think it's pretty chintzy to complain considering all the comments you do wade through and that you do let a lot of contentious content through... eventually. Certainly I imagine if you see some TINF commentary come through, you probably approve that before having a nap or writing something or making yourself a coffee. That's your prerogative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burkett
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/6/1/17419160/john-smoltz-us-senior-open-golf-qualifying-braves-mlb-hall-of-fame
I heard a radio interview with Tiger Woods a few years back, and they asked him if there were any athletes he'd played golf with who could make a go at pro golfing after retiring from their own sport. He said Smoltz without hesitation.Replies: @Steve Sailer
I don’t know if it’ll survive, but the old guys playing at my gym are competitive and fanatical. There’s an 82-year old guy who’s there playing every Sunday, and he’s as spry as anyone his age could possibly be.
I joke with him in the locker room about how old I have to be to join their group.
Haha, I don’t know in which Ring of Purgatory you find yourself, but I’m pretty sure I’m at the Wrath Terrace. I can’t remember if I thoughtfully used the C word or the N word or some other Sailer Red Line word. It has been good practice learning to mannerly express inane and offensive ideas .
You should be pleased that Every Word you write is read by Steve, every post. Who else can say that but we few, we happy few?
It’s not about the money. Steve don’t sell indulgences.
There was a hilarious scene in a 1980s movie where a blue collar guy is trying to impress his rich fiance's family. The movie had the rich family of devotees of some ancient game called 'crosscourt' or 'crosscut' which IIRC was a combination of aztec ball sport using racquets, played in armor. I thought the main character was Tom Hanks, who pretends he knows all about the sport. Can't find anything on it though.
There's a small hipster contingent that gets interested in various niche sports, then falls out. Darts, archery, etc.Replies: @Joe Joe, @Brutusale
Jordan went into baseball as a punishment.
In the real world, that pretty pitcher is married to a former MLB player…and they have 3 kids. Jenny Finch, Casey Daigle and family:
Bowling. There’s another accuracy game, with a bit less action than darts but a lot more action than golf. The tightwad in me dislikes the constant money spend involved. You have to be rich to install your own bowling alley in your house, but anyone can have a dart board or pool table and play on it infinitely many times, in theory.
I think you’ve got to have a lot of balls to burn your ships on the shore, so to speak, and go all-in on something like professional blogging. Jordan was independently wealthy already when he did the baseball thing. In theory you could go back to marketing research I suppose, but still, respect.
I am probably more responsible than anyone here for suggesting to those people who have a problem with the whim system and the occasional time delay, that maybe they should donate. But jeez, I think it’s pretty chintzy to complain considering all the comments you do wade through and that you do let a lot of contentious content through… eventually. Certainly I imagine if you see some TINF commentary come through, you probably approve that before having a nap or writing something or making yourself a coffee. That’s your prerogative.
Cycling is in fashion now. Was cycling ever in fashion before? I don’t mean casual bike riding, but the kind of cycling popular now, with the fast road bicycles on the road and with tights and everything.
When I first rode in NYC (Central Park), there were only a handful of serious cyclists. There was a group that met every weeknight a 8 pm near Tavern on the Green to ride a couple loops. Now it's near impossible to ride on the weekends, the Park is packed with tourists and other locals on rental bikes.
Will Indian Ball ever come back?
Meh. Ugly face. That you consider her to be pretty proves my point.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.Replies: @ScarletNumber
Ten speed bicycles were a big deal in the 1970s.
The Dennis Quaid movie about Euro-stye road racing in Indiana, Breaking Away, is from the 1970s.
It gets its share of criticism, especially claims that it’s too cult-like, but CrossFit is definitely one of the best recent sports and fitness trends. There’s no question that it does work wonders for participants’ fitness levels, and in particular it’s famous for producing awesome strength gains in women. As I understand it, CrossFit is competitive, but in a good way – participants compete against themselves, to set new personal records, and the other participants cheer them on without being rivals. In a way CrossFit’s high cost, generally $150 to $175 per month, helps keep people motivated.
Also worth mentioning is that participating in CrossFit is often the only practicable way to learn the Olympic lifts.
I’ve listened to every Giants broadcast this year and never heard anyone mention it once. Some kind of broadcaster superstition?
Also worth mentioning is that participating in CrossFit is often the only practicable way to learn the Olympic lifts.Replies: @ScarletNumber
How can you tell if someone is doing CrossFit?
You don’t. They’ll be more than happy to tell you without asking.
The modern version, Lacrosse, is gaining in popularity.
I remember driving in Oahu in the late 70s, bothered because some idiots were doing the second Ironman Triathalon. Only a few people in Hawaii did that at the time, and pretty much nowhere else in the world.
Around that time the biggest sports had been baseball, boxing and horse racing for decades. The most famous athletes were people like Pete Rose, Mohammad Ali and Secretariat. The NFL was getting established, and the NBA was just breaking into the big time with rookies Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
These days I guess most Americans can't tell you the names of the winners of the Kentucky Derby, the World Series and name the top heavyweight boxers.
100 years ago college rowing was a huge sport. These days only a handful of people even care. Interesting, the college rowing championships are this weekend, and the colleges in the Grand Finals are the same colleges that were the top rowing schools 75 years ago. In fact, the first intercollegiate sports event was Yale vs. Harvard in rowing around 1850.
The difference is, instead of 100,000 people watching live, there will be a few hundred at best.
http://ira.qra.org/
Grand Final
7:30 AM Sunday
PENDING
Lane Entry
2 WASHINGTON
3 YALE
4 BROWN
5 HARVARD
6 CALIFORNIA
7 PRINCETONReplies: @Foreign Expert, @Anonymous Human Intelligence Operative, @Forbes
The Head of the Charles Regatta, by some measures, draws more than the Indy 500.
SOME of the regattas can be very nice to watch. You don't need to have any rooting interest. It is nice to sit on the shore of a pleasant river or lake and watch the boats go by.
One of my favorite rowing head races to watch is the Milwaukee River Challenge. The Milwaukee River is so small that the boats go right by the spectators. There is a part of the race where they start out on the Menominee River and make a sharp turn onto the Milwaukee River. It is pleasant to sit outside in a nearby park, or sit in a restaurant with a river view, at the turn and watch the boats try not to crash into each other. That race got some coverage in Madison because the son of a Madison news anchor rowed in the race a few times.Replies: @Ivy
Many racquetball players have migrated over to pickleball which is touted as the fastest growing sport in America. Its kind of a hybrid of ping pong and tennisReplies: @Anon
There’s a local racquet sport in Japan called panpon (or pangpong). It was invented by employees of Hitachi factories as something to do during lunch break, and it later spread to the surrounding community. The paddle and “net” are made from cast-off pieces of lumber (although now you can buy commercially produced equipment), and the court is small to allow several to fit on the factory building’s roof.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Pong
But I guess "cute" is kind of their thing in Japan.
During the mid-1980’s I used to attend tennis tournaments, including the US Open.
One time I was watching a late-night match woman’s match, not in the main court but the second main court.
Even though the place was almost empty, the usher on one side was diligently chasing people away from the VIP seats, in case some VIP suddenly decided to come in the middle of the match. None did.
That made me want to sit in the VIP section even more.
So I went to the VIP section on the OTHER side. Many of the seats even had the name of the wealthy seat owner on a metal nameplate. I looked for the most famous VIP I could find, to sit in his seat.
I found the seat assigned to a wealthy NY real estate developer, Donald Trump. My date and I sat in the seats normally used by Trump.
I wonder whatever happened to that guy Trump?
One time I was watching a late-night match woman's match, not in the main court but the second main court.
Even though the place was almost empty, the usher on one side was diligently chasing people away from the VIP seats, in case some VIP suddenly decided to come in the middle of the match. None did.
That made me want to sit in the VIP section even more.
So I went to the VIP section on the OTHER side. Many of the seats even had the name of the wealthy seat owner on a metal nameplate. I looked for the most famous VIP I could find, to sit in his seat.
I found the seat assigned to a wealthy NY real estate developer, Donald Trump. My date and I sat in the seats normally used by Trump.
I wonder whatever happened to that guy Trump?Replies: @ScarletNumber, @ScarletNumber
Failed pro-football owner
“Ten speeds”?! They were called deraileurs in the 1970s. No kid would be caught dead calling them ten speeds.
I now have a road bike with 27 speeds, which we call "a road bike." Of course there are subcategories, Randonneur for example.Replies: @Brutusale
Roque! Roque! Roque!
Ron, don’t know what “butts up” is but we played a pile on game called “Buck ,Buck, who’s up?” Anyone remember that. And we played a most dangerous stickball game, called “Nip”, where we used a broom handle as a bat and the “ball” was a six inch piece of broom handle whittled to a point on each end. Set the “nip” on the ground, either end aimed forward. Hit down on the end of the “nip” causing it to fly straight up and then swing and try to drive it into the field of play. Rest of the rules mirrored baseball, except for the pointed, wooden missle that you tried to catch or field. Yeah, knock your eye out stupid. Learned the game from my dad and his brothers and we played it in the street.
See minute 14:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZyCPZsk_5M
Parody of the late 70's-80's white culture was a thread in this underappreciated series. In another episode, caveman can't give his friend a ride in his Porsche because he's got a bag of oranges in the passenger seat.Replies: @PennTothal, @SonOfStrom
Racquetball also played a fairly important part in the recently concluded FX show The Americans, where it’s presented as a quintessential 80s male bonding activity.
Bo, in the movie “Sicario”, as the motorcade moves through Juarez, there is a group of men playing hand ball on an outdoor handball court. We used these handball walls to play “strike out.”
I learned racquetball solely as a means of picking up girls, because girls (or at least the ones you want to pick up) aren’t beefy enough for paddleball. My favorite shot involved striking the ceiling, then the front wall, then the court floor right in front of the girl. I would then move into position on one side of the court to watch. The candidate girl would try to hit the ball in a kind of tennis serve stretch, jumping up in the air slightly as she did so. Various anatomical parts would move fetchingly, bouncing slightly as they did so.
Ah, youth!Replies: @Buffalo Joe
Anon, did your woodie ever get in the way of your swing.
One time I was watching a late-night match woman's match, not in the main court but the second main court.
Even though the place was almost empty, the usher on one side was diligently chasing people away from the VIP seats, in case some VIP suddenly decided to come in the middle of the match. None did.
That made me want to sit in the VIP section even more.
So I went to the VIP section on the OTHER side. Many of the seats even had the name of the wealthy seat owner on a metal nameplate. I looked for the most famous VIP I could find, to sit in his seat.
I found the seat assigned to a wealthy NY real estate developer, Donald Trump. My date and I sat in the seats normally used by Trump.
I wonder whatever happened to that guy Trump?Replies: @ScarletNumber, @ScarletNumber
In case you aren’t aware, at the time the main court (Louis Armstrong Stadium) and the second-main court (the Grandstand) were one building which was formerly known as the Singer Bowl, which was built for the World’s Fair.
Any questions about Komment Kontrol policies are usually answered by considering the frame, is it good for the donations.Replies: @Anonym, @Buffalo Joe
AHIO, comments rotting in the field because Steve won’t hire illegal harvestors.
OT Get in here, a Norwegian calls upon all who would trash talk Portland, Oregon.
http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/173849356
Well, any city is, actually, but especially Portland. The progressive stench is intolerable. If Hillary were a city....
Never heard of buck up or nip, though buck up might be your name for “smear the queer”. Butts up was handball and if any player could not successfully return a shot to the wall that were required to put their forehead on the wall with their butt up and facing the other players. Players took turns from 20 feet away sending their best fastball pitches at the “butt up.” Using racquetballs left great welts. Our games were far more entertaining than Fortnite, et al!
I remember driving in Oahu in the late 70s, bothered because some idiots were doing the second Ironman Triathalon. Only a few people in Hawaii did that at the time, and pretty much nowhere else in the world.
Around that time the biggest sports had been baseball, boxing and horse racing for decades. The most famous athletes were people like Pete Rose, Mohammad Ali and Secretariat. The NFL was getting established, and the NBA was just breaking into the big time with rookies Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
These days I guess most Americans can't tell you the names of the winners of the Kentucky Derby, the World Series and name the top heavyweight boxers.
100 years ago college rowing was a huge sport. These days only a handful of people even care. Interesting, the college rowing championships are this weekend, and the colleges in the Grand Finals are the same colleges that were the top rowing schools 75 years ago. In fact, the first intercollegiate sports event was Yale vs. Harvard in rowing around 1850.
The difference is, instead of 100,000 people watching live, there will be a few hundred at best.
http://ira.qra.org/
Grand Final
7:30 AM Sunday
PENDING
Lane Entry
2 WASHINGTON
3 YALE
4 BROWN
5 HARVARD
6 CALIFORNIA
7 PRINCETONReplies: @Foreign Expert, @Anonymous Human Intelligence Operative, @Forbes
Those events were held on the Big Island, IIRC. Somebody’s memory is faulty here.
I lived in Honolulu at the time, and only got to the Big Island once. I distinctly remember passing bicyclists on the Kamehameha Highway on the north shore of Oahu.Replies: @Anonymous Human Intelligence Operative
If you ever go to Coney Island, you’ll see guys playing it there.
Once met a guy who played racquetball during undergrad. Then went to the East Coast for grad school (I think Cornell if I remember correctly), where they had only squash courts. So he decided to try his hand at squash. Rents a ball and racquet from the front desk. Returns a few minutes later and says, “The ball you gave me is broken.”
Maybe he’s thinking of Mookie Betts, who is at least that good a bowler.
I always had the impression that squash balls must have dated from before some technological revolution in bounciness.
No, it’s more interesting than racquetball because there are so many more shots involved. You can spin the ball either way, which you can’t do in racquetball. It’s the post-playing satisfaction that handball lacks. Play for a few years and your body will start to feel like it’s been in a train wreck.
I suppose this thread is as good a place as any to mention this. I wonder if pesäpallo could ever catch on in the USA. It looks like a lot of fun to play.
http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/173849356Replies: @Kylie
Portland is my idea of hell on earth.
Well, any city is, actually, but especially Portland. The progressive stench is intolerable. If Hillary were a city….
When I 1st moved to SoCal in 1981 I saw a lot of outdoor handball courts in public parks especially in the South Bay. Now they are all gone mostly replaced by skateboarding parks. Now where am I supposed to go to hit tennis balls when I get bored?
Steve, it’s played on a badminton-sized court with a tennis net and a wiffle ball.
Ball? Pull a slip.
Goal? Pull a slip.
Surface? Surface area? Time limit? Pull a slip or two or three.
When I first saw a bandy competition-- the World Cup came to town-- it struck me as ice hockey with tennis balls using the ground rules of soccer. But the sport is actually older than soccer or hockey.
https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02798/bandy_2798065k.jpgReplies: @Reg Cæsar
I recall from reading some history or other that every English public school (i.e., what we would call prep school) once had its own quite distinct version of handball. Diversity, don’t you know.
I’ve always preferred distinctive non-universal sports. It’s why I like American football and baseball more than soccer and basketball. I wish Midwestern 3×3 basketball prosperity and hope that cricket and curling have long lives.
They are a precise replica of the structure next to which Eton schoolboys of a couple hundred years ago would wait for chapel and play a game of hitting a ball against the wall while they waited. The game has always been known as Fives in England.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @Buffalo Joe
I've always preferred distinctive non-universal sports. It's why I like American football and baseball more than soccer and basketball. I wish Midwestern 3x3 basketball prosperity and hope that cricket and curling have long lives.Replies: @gsjackson
If you go to Eton you will see a dozen of the most bizarre courts you could imagine. I suppose they would fall under the three-wall category, but there are all kinds of little mini-walls and ledges jutting out, making bounces from this part completely unpredictable.
They are a precise replica of the structure next to which Eton schoolboys of a couple hundred years ago would wait for chapel and play a game of hitting a ball against the wall while they waited. The game has always been known as Fives in England.
They are a precise replica of the structure next to which Eton schoolboys of a couple hundred years ago would wait for chapel and play a game of hitting a ball against the wall while they waited. The game has always been known as Fives in England.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @Buffalo Joe
It wasn’t until railroads were well established — first in England — that modern sports emerged because school teams could now travel, and so needed common rules. Before about 1860, games were extremely idiosyncratic from place to place.
I’m waiting for the revival of real tennis – surely the poshest of all sports ( and cheaper than polo )
I used to play squash games with my mates in dilapidated squash courts well past their glory days in the 80s and 90s. I read an article in Slate about Golf taking over from Tennis as the upper class country club game of choice. The article was saying it was a bad development for fitness. A good walk spoiled is no substitute for cardio.
Squash has a bad reputation for causing injuries. I've heard knees and heart attacks mentioned but I don't know if it's justified.
An hour playing squash will involve many more rallies and burn more calories than playing tennis, I much prefer it. At a lower skill level you can play satisfying games.
It does feel a bit sci fi - I often think that this is the type of game that we'd play during an inter planetary mission, or in a floating city.
As far as women not being able to play squash - I beat most of my mates most of the time - and my mother would usually beat me. But she's a pretty good athlete.Replies: @sb
Squash courts used to be everywhere in Australia until about the 70s/80s ( and Australians then dominated international squash ) But they were generally private businesses (unlike tennis courts which were usually public -or perhaps church -facilities ) and often occupied good real estate .
Must say I played a lot of squash at that time but haven’t played since -and haven’t thought about it . Been a long time since anyone I know suggested playing -or talked of -squash .
To my knowledge racquetball has never existed in Australia
I played racquetball about twenty times when it was popular in the early ’80s and enjoyed it. Indoor racquetball courts popped up all over the place. Often, you had to call several days in advance to reserve a court. Racquetball did make for enjoyable co-ed activity. In fact, extra-marital racquetball affairs broke up a couple of marriages in my neighborhood.
In the late ’70s – early ’80s, wiffle ball was the most popular summer activity in my neighborhood for kids. We’d play 4-on-4 in my parents’ yard all day, break for dinner, then play again until dark. We even kept stats.
Great post here. Women absolutely love racquetball when you take them to play. I think there are several reasons.
1. Many of the courts are completely isolated from spectators so women who may be borderline coordinated (all of them, just kidding) feel comfortable letting loose a bit and making a real effort.
2. They find the tiny doors used to enter and exit the court very cute.
3. The obscure nature of the sport deters riff raff so the common areas between courts are always a nice place to chat with folks between games.
4. Until one has played a few times the angles and bounces seem very random. Women love chaos.
5. Very low strength threshold required to get a zippy, high paced game going.
The First Rule of CrossFit is ALWAYS to wear something that says CrossFit.
I am correct.
I lived in Honolulu at the time, and only got to the Big Island once. I distinctly remember passing bicyclists on the Kamehameha Highway on the north shore of Oahu.
I’ve seen a number of both sailing and rowing regattas, sometimes by accident. As in I’m walking my dog by the lake and what are all those boats doing? Comes from living in a town with several lakes, a large university with top rowing and sailing teams, and also well regarded high school clubs.
SOME of the regattas can be very nice to watch. You don’t need to have any rooting interest. It is nice to sit on the shore of a pleasant river or lake and watch the boats go by.
One of my favorite rowing head races to watch is the Milwaukee River Challenge. The Milwaukee River is so small that the boats go right by the spectators. There is a part of the race where they start out on the Menominee River and make a sharp turn onto the Milwaukee River. It is pleasant to sit outside in a nearby park, or sit in a restaurant with a river view, at the turn and watch the boats try not to crash into each other. That race got some coverage in Madison because the son of a Madison news anchor rowed in the race a few times.
Leaning Tower may have been a chain. Jean Shepherd mentions one on Rte 22 in Greenbrook, N.J. in a PBS feature show decades ago.. Jackie Kennedy Onassis used to order pizza from there when she lived in Bernardsville.
Bernardsville was also the home of Millicent Fenwick, who represented NJ in congress from 75-83. It is only a few miles from Bedminster, home of Trump National. Coincidentally, Trump raves about one of the local pizza places there.
Anyway, here is the Jean Shepherd segment on US 22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rke5xFNO0og
If there ever was a silly sport, that would be squash. Two players in a room trying to hit a tiny ball that barely bounces while trying to avoid each other’s rackets. Racketball comes very close second.
And I believe they saw a werewolf there, drinking a Pina colada… and if I remember correctly, his hair was perfect!
Oh, no that isn't an Americanism of Rackets - the best and toughest sport in that genre.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rackets_(sport)Replies: @Anon
If you tell an American you’re interested in the rackets he will get quite a different impression.
I’m a HS lax coach in New England. My sense of things is that the lax boom is over- it will remain a popular niche sport (does that even make sense?) but a lack of a popular pro league will limit its expansion.
One interesting angle on Squash is that it used to be dominated by the famously otherwise unathletic South Asians.
Pakistan dominated squash like no other country in the world, the domination lasting for the best part of 5 decades. It reached its peak in the 1980s and 1990s during the reigns of Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_in_Pakistan
And another iStevey angle on Squash: the recently-ousted VA secretary’s daughter won the Squash gold medal at the “Jewish Olympics”.
Ah yes, darts. I used to have a dart board on my kitchen wall. I played darts with all our guests for years. I never lost. But since I didn’t go to pubs I don’t really know if I was any good against the serious players.
I took tennis in college. I had to get some PE credits to graduate. The first thing I took was tennis. The gym teacher conceived of the class as an on going tournament. Everybody played everybody else all semester, and the one with the most wins got an A, and the one with the least got a D.
So I played everyone else and I beat most of them. I got very good at the gamesmanship side of the sport. I could beat anyone if they didn’t actually have strokes. My bag of ploys and tricks didn’t work if they could actually play. But this was a beginning class. Most of the students had no real skills. Among these rotten players I was invincible. But if they could actually do something like serving or volleying, I was lost.
I got a C in the class and complained bitterly. I protested I had beaten most of the guys who got the A’s or B’s. The teacher said; “Yes, that’s what I said. But you can’t really can’t play tennis at all”.
So it was a learning experience. I learned that gym teachers can be treacherous.
Great definition. The only down-side, as others have mentioned, is the inevitability of getting inadvertently hit in the face by your opponent’s racket on occasion.
Back then, it was no big deal to go into the office with a black eye or tweaked nose — you just chuckle and blame racketball. Nowadays, that’s less plausible, so the excuse I go with is “polar bear attack downtown.”
India and Pakistan also used to do quite well in men’s field hockey, though now European teams do better. The US team is barely competitive, as here field hockey is almost entirely a women’s sport.
You could create new sports simply by putting the names of others on slips of paper in a hat (or helmet.)
Ball? Pull a slip.
Goal? Pull a slip.
Surface? Surface area? Time limit? Pull a slip or two or three.
When I first saw a bandy competition– the World Cup came to town– it struck me as ice hockey with tennis balls using the ground rules of soccer. But the sport is actually older than soccer or hockey.
Ball? Pull a slip.
Goal? Pull a slip.
Surface? Surface area? Time limit? Pull a slip or two or three.
When I first saw a bandy competition-- the World Cup came to town-- it struck me as ice hockey with tennis balls using the ground rules of soccer. But the sport is actually older than soccer or hockey.
https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02798/bandy_2798065k.jpgReplies: @Reg Cæsar
I chose that picture because it was the clearest example among the first dozen or two on Google Images. Only after clicking “Visit” did I learn that the men in blue are ethnic Somalis in exile.
Jamaican bobsledders, Part II!
Everyone I knew called them 10-speeds. We used “derailleur” when referring to the mechanism.
I now have a road bike with 27 speeds, which we call “a road bike.” Of course there are subcategories, Randonneur for example.
Johnny, yes, the handball wall for tennis practice, playing “strike out” or practicing lacrosse shots. Anything but handball.
They are a precise replica of the structure next to which Eton schoolboys of a couple hundred years ago would wait for chapel and play a game of hitting a ball against the wall while they waited. The game has always been known as Fives in England.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @Buffalo Joe
gs, So, maybe Stonehenge is the remains of a paleo ball court.
Ohio State University has a MASSIVE athletic facility called the RPAC that is only a little more than a decade old and it has at least a dozen racquetball courts. When I was an undergrad about ten years ago, they were used so much that you had to make a reservation ahead of time to use a court. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the decadent gym there were squash courts too, but I never found them. I’m sure there was probably three cushion billiards and a curling rink too, the place was so excessive and ostentatious. They also had about a million ping pong tables for all the foreigners who consider table tennis to be exercise.
I think the appeal of racquetball is that it’s a yuppie sport like regatta. It attracts the same people who wear Sperry Top Siders and who fantasize about being rich and WASPy enough to use “Summer” as a verb. A school like OSU, which has been growing rapidly and has been aggressively raising their academic standards for admission every year (I know 40-somethings who marvel at the fact that there are students with a high school GPA above 2.0 that are rejected by OSU) but is still very much a State University, probably would build all those courts in an attempt to be more like the Ivy League schools they wish they were. They can’t be an elite school, but they can have some of the trappings of an elite school. That is, if rich Northeastern Ivy Leaguers do in fact play racquetball, which I doubt.
I took tennis in college. I had to get some PE credits to graduate. The first thing I took was tennis. The gym teacher conceived of the class as an on going tournament. Everybody played everybody else all semester, and the one with the most wins got an A, and the one with the least got a D.
So I played everyone else and I beat most of them. I got very good at the gamesmanship side of the sport. I could beat anyone if they didn't actually have strokes. My bag of ploys and tricks didn't work if they could actually play. But this was a beginning class. Most of the students had no real skills. Among these rotten players I was invincible. But if they could actually do something like serving or volleying, I was lost.
I got a C in the class and complained bitterly. I protested I had beaten most of the guys who got the A's or B's. The teacher said; "Yes, that's what I said. But you can't really can't play tennis at all".
So it was a learning experience. I learned that gym teachers can be treacherous.Replies: @Johann Ricke
That was obviously in the days before grade inflation. Today, you would have gotten a B. Or maybe even an A.
I lived in Honolulu at the time, and only got to the Big Island once. I distinctly remember passing bicyclists on the Kamehameha Highway on the north shore of Oahu.Replies: @Anonymous Human Intelligence Operative
Indeed you are, thank you for clearing that up for me.
I’ll see your Andrew McCutchen and raise you a John Burkett. He pitched in the majors for 16 years, went 166-136, and led the majors on 1993 with 22 wins for the Giants. In addition, he was, and is, a pro bowler with 32 perfect games to his credit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burkett
The racquetball and squash associations should ask Wes Anderson to have the characters in his next movie play them. If that doesn’t work, nothing will.
Speaking of spin, Spikeball seems to be the up and coming new sport among the young. It incorporates elements of beach volleyball on a circular net:
pro, I think your “impression” mirrors reality.
I remember driving in Oahu in the late 70s, bothered because some idiots were doing the second Ironman Triathalon. Only a few people in Hawaii did that at the time, and pretty much nowhere else in the world.
Around that time the biggest sports had been baseball, boxing and horse racing for decades. The most famous athletes were people like Pete Rose, Mohammad Ali and Secretariat. The NFL was getting established, and the NBA was just breaking into the big time with rookies Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
These days I guess most Americans can't tell you the names of the winners of the Kentucky Derby, the World Series and name the top heavyweight boxers.
100 years ago college rowing was a huge sport. These days only a handful of people even care. Interesting, the college rowing championships are this weekend, and the colleges in the Grand Finals are the same colleges that were the top rowing schools 75 years ago. In fact, the first intercollegiate sports event was Yale vs. Harvard in rowing around 1850.
The difference is, instead of 100,000 people watching live, there will be a few hundred at best.
http://ira.qra.org/
Grand Final
7:30 AM Sunday
PENDING
Lane Entry
2 WASHINGTON
3 YALE
4 BROWN
5 HARVARD
6 CALIFORNIA
7 PRINCETONReplies: @Foreign Expert, @Anonymous Human Intelligence Operative, @Forbes
The IRA regatta was held on Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, NY forever (’52-’92)–until someone noticed it had turned into a huge party with tens of thousands of paid admissions to the lakeside park–and moved it. They had their eyes on TV money which I don’t think ever materialized.
I got into cycling in the ’80s to coexist with running–a couple buddies had knee issues, so they couldn’t run. The three of us were having lunch one weekend afternoon, and someone ventured to ask what sport were we playing at, as they couldn’t figure out the shorts, helmet and funny shoes. I think many people have aged-out of running due to various nagging injuries. I have.
When I first rode in NYC (Central Park), there were only a handful of serious cyclists. There was a group that met every weeknight a 8 pm near Tavern on the Green to ride a couple loops. Now it’s near impossible to ride on the weekends, the Park is packed with tourists and other locals on rental bikes.
Elementary school kids inSoCal play their own version of handball, with the large red bouncy ball (about the size of a basketball) your kids might recall from long ago. It is easy to learn and play with a lineup of kids waiting to try their hand at the then-leader. Any wall can be pressed into service, including a garage door provided that the driveway doesn’t slope too much. Our kids played that a lot before moving on to roller hockey and new types of house damage to patch and paint.
1. Many of the courts are completely isolated from spectators so women who may be borderline coordinated (all of them, just kidding) feel comfortable letting loose a bit and making a real effort.
2. They find the tiny doors used to enter and exit the court very cute.
3. The obscure nature of the sport deters riff raff so the common areas between courts are always a nice place to chat with folks between games.
4. Until one has played a few times the angles and bounces seem very random. Women love chaos.
5. Very low strength threshold required to get a zippy, high paced game going.Replies: @Ivy
Racquetball made for a good sports date. You got some exercise, maybe enjoyed the co-ed sauna or jacuzzi and headed out for dinner. One key difference in the game was that the ladies hit the ball softer, so that you were less likely to end up with those target bullseye welts on your back or legs like you could get in league or ladder play.
SOME of the regattas can be very nice to watch. You don't need to have any rooting interest. It is nice to sit on the shore of a pleasant river or lake and watch the boats go by.
One of my favorite rowing head races to watch is the Milwaukee River Challenge. The Milwaukee River is so small that the boats go right by the spectators. There is a part of the race where they start out on the Menominee River and make a sharp turn onto the Milwaukee River. It is pleasant to sit outside in a nearby park, or sit in a restaurant with a river view, at the turn and watch the boats try not to crash into each other. That race got some coverage in Madison because the son of a Madison news anchor rowed in the race a few times.Replies: @Ivy
Sailing regattas are much more fun for the participants than for spectators, especially in multi-hull races. You get quite a workout especially when in a harness counterbalancing the wind and wave forces as you fly along on one hull. All that wind also drains a lot of body heat so you tend to sleep like a log that night, especially after a post-race beverage or two.
I think the appeal of racquetball is that it's a yuppie sport like regatta. It attracts the same people who wear Sperry Top Siders and who fantasize about being rich and WASPy enough to use "Summer" as a verb. A school like OSU, which has been growing rapidly and has been aggressively raising their academic standards for admission every year (I know 40-somethings who marvel at the fact that there are students with a high school GPA above 2.0 that are rejected by OSU) but is still very much a State University, probably would build all those courts in an attempt to be more like the Ivy League schools they wish they were. They can't be an elite school, but they can have some of the trappings of an elite school. That is, if rich Northeastern Ivy Leaguers do in fact play racquetball, which I doubt.Replies: @prosa123
Columbus has also become one of the country’s biggest centers for powerlifting and bodybuilding and other strength sports. Each year it hosts the massively attended strength sports gala called the Arnold Classic (can’t imagine where it got that name, heh) and is the location of the Mecca of powerlifting, the ultra-hard-core, membership-by-invitation-only Westside Barbell gym. Rogue Fitness, the largest and best-regarded manufacturer of weight training equipment, has its headquarters and manufacturing facility in downtown Columbus (it emblazons the ends of its barbells with the outline of the Buckeye State).
Yeah, I’ve been hearing about lacrosse as the coming thing for maybe 25 years now. But it doesn’t seem to have arrived, yet.
Lack of international competition is another downside. It’s not in the Olympics, so it doesn’t get exposure from that.
Ganderson, Big fan of lacrosse, but it’s an expensive sport and regional. NCAA D-1 only has about 72 teams. You have to search hard to find a college game on TV, except for championship weekend. The college stars come from a handful of prep schools or geographic regions. Good luck with your team.
I am in TX. There is lacrosse at some of the private schools, but generally it is considered gay and played by those who couldn’t make the team of football, soccer (also considered gay), baseball, track, baseball, basketball, swimming, etc. You get the idea. Personally, I think it looks dangerous with guys swinging sticks in the air while running on the field. Is lacrosse considered a macho sport in New England?
In its early days, when most of the players came from Baltimore or Long Island, they were a pretty hard-nosed bunch. I gathered from the general tenor of Duke lacrosse coverage that nowadays they regard themselves as preppy masters-of-the-universe-in-training. But gay? That must be a Texas thing.Replies: @Paleo Liberal
Lacrosse looks like ice hockey if High-Sticking weren’t just legal but the essence of the sport.
There is a famous story of the great Cherokee chief Attakullakulla (I am descended from his sister, Tame Doe, and her daughter the great chief Nancy Ward):
One time there was a big Paleo Lacrosse match. Attakullakulla bet almost 1/3 of his entire net worth on one match, and lost. He got the opposing chief to agree to play again the next day for twice the stakes.
That night, Attakullakulla brought out some liquor he got from white traders. He forbade his players to drink. I'm not saying there is truth to the drunken Indian stereotype, but the other team got quite blotto.
Next day's match was an easy victory for Attakullakulla's team.
There may not be any money in Lacrosse now, but in the old days, there was.Replies: @Ian M.
The new big sport in these parts (Madison, Wisco) is Ultimate Frisbee. I mean, it is REALLY getting big. The college I attended in the late 70s and early 80s had a strong Ultimate club, and they all lived in my dorm one year, so I learned a few things from them. They would be considered pikers these days.
Not so much the kids, although a couple of local HS have very strong Ultimate teams.
The adult leagues for a lot of sports are dying out. OTOH, just in my neighborhood one can sometimes see 6 or 7 Ultimate rec league games going on at the same time.
Another sport that is big — 55+ men’s fastpitch softball. A generation ago, men’s fastpitch leagues were HUGE in the Midwest. I’ve run across any number of middle-age to elderly men who were big names in fastpitch back in the day, and many of them were star pitchers. Some played in national championship tournaments. Men’s fastpitch is quickly declining in the younger age groups, esp. since there are so few pitchers. A few years ago, a friend of mine who had been a fastpitch pitcher for several decades was pulled out of retirement by some young whippersnappers who needed a pitcher. He quickly found out he couldn’t keep up with the youngsters anymore. His father had been a pitcher, too, and I think so was his grandfather. His daughter was a star shortstop, but she pitched for many years, too.
Most races of the IRAs were cancelled this year due to bad weather. I feel sorry for the rowers.
Think about it — college rowing used to be THE most popular college sport. It shows how much it has declined. Can you imagine cancelling the football playoffs? Even if there were a storm big enough to stop the game, they would postpone it. WAY too much money involved.
The fact they could cancel the IRAs after just the really top races shows that there simply is no money in rowing.
Yale won the BIG race.
Interesting to see how geography effects the popular sports, esp. the niche sports.
The Madison, WI, area has disproportionately sent athletes to the Olympics in several sports. Realize this is the the frozen Upper Midwest, and there are a lot of lakes around here:
Curling — one of the gold medal men’s curlers was from Madison, and the top curling club in North America is here.
Ice Hockey — the HS my kids go to had one of the Miracle on Ice athletes as an alumnus
Speed Skating — Local kid Eric Heiden was the greatest speed skater in history. I knew some old-timers who rowed with his father. Right next to the zoo is a plaque with all the names of local skaters who have been to the Olympics.
Rowing — UW Madison alumni have been in every Olympics since the national teams were set up for the 1968 Olympics.
In the VERY old days, the Lacrosse fields were often the entire distance between two villages, and the entire male population of the villages participated. The games were often quite violent.
There is a famous story of the great Cherokee chief Attakullakulla (I am descended from his sister, Tame Doe, and her daughter the great chief Nancy Ward):
One time there was a big Paleo Lacrosse match. Attakullakulla bet almost 1/3 of his entire net worth on one match, and lost. He got the opposing chief to agree to play again the next day for twice the stakes.
That night, Attakullakulla brought out some liquor he got from white traders. He forbade his players to drink. I’m not saying there is truth to the drunken Indian stereotype, but the other team got quite blotto.
Next day’s match was an easy victory for Attakullakulla’s team.
There may not be any money in Lacrosse now, but in the old days, there was.
Cobb won the first round, Ruth the second. But Cobb recognized that Ruth was the superior player.
So Cobb, being the competitive type that he was, began bemoaning how he had absolutely no chance of winning the rubber match the next morning.
Ruth, thinking he had it in the bag, got sloshed that night.
Cobb won the third round handily.
Jim Rome used to call soccer “the game of the future, and always will be”. Might be true of lax. A lot of football players play lax, and I’d say the general level of toughness required is the same as football and hockey.
Here in New England it’s grown beyond the boundaries of the prep school world- it’s not basketball big, but bigger than hockey,(and I am, first and foremost a hockey guy) depending on where in New England one lives. The lacrosse hotbeds are still Upstate NY, Long Island, CT and NJ (I guess the New York metro area) and the mid Atlantic. Columbus OH is kind of a lax hotbed- the Buckeyes are really good, and there are two elite D III schools in greater Columbus- Ohio Wesleyan and Denison.
A lot more kids are playing now than 30 years ago, particularly in the Upper Midwest, CA, CO and TX ( yes Joe Schmoe, TX). Look at where the kids on college rosters are from- a much larger geographic spread than previously. But, as I said before, I think the boom may have peaked.
Thanks Buffalo Joe- we have a big playoff game coming up Tuesday. And, although there are only 72 DI schools playing, D III lax is very high quality- unlike, say college hockey, not all DI teams and players are better than all D III teams.
The Madison, WI, area has disproportionately sent athletes to the Olympics in several sports. Realize this is the the frozen Upper Midwest, and there are a lot of lakes around here:
Curling -- one of the gold medal men's curlers was from Madison, and the top curling club in North America is here.
Ice Hockey -- the HS my kids go to had one of the Miracle on Ice athletes as an alumnus
Speed Skating -- Local kid Eric Heiden was the greatest speed skater in history. I knew some old-timers who rowed with his father. Right next to the zoo is a plaque with all the names of local skaters who have been to the Olympics.
Rowing -- UW Madison alumni have been in every Olympics since the national teams were set up for the 1968 Olympics.Replies: @Ganderson
Eric Heiden’s 1980 Olympics may have been the best individual Olympic performance ever. No one remembers because it was 1980. Damn you, Herbie!
Heiden would train speed skating on the hockey rink until the hockey players came to practice. Then he would run up and down the bleacher stairs all during hockey practice. Then he would go ride his bike (Heiden also participated in the Tour de France, one of the very first Americans to put together a team). Heiden was much more fit than the hockey players.
All that, and Heiden got his MD, following in his father's footsteps. He was the team doctor for the 2002 Olympic team.
Heiden's sister was also an Olympic speed skater. The Heiden family was probably the most athletic family in Wisconsin history, although the Watt family is trying to wrest that crown (JJ and TJ are both in the NFL now).Replies: @Ganderson
I read what one of the Miracle on Ice hockey players said about Eric Heiden’s training program:
Heiden would train speed skating on the hockey rink until the hockey players came to practice. Then he would run up and down the bleacher stairs all during hockey practice. Then he would go ride his bike (Heiden also participated in the Tour de France, one of the very first Americans to put together a team). Heiden was much more fit than the hockey players.
All that, and Heiden got his MD, following in his father’s footsteps. He was the team doctor for the 2002 Olympic team.
Heiden’s sister was also an Olympic speed skater. The Heiden family was probably the most athletic family in Wisconsin history, although the Watt family is trying to wrest that crown (JJ and TJ are both in the NFL now).
I doubt it was a chain.
Bernardsville was also the home of Millicent Fenwick, who represented NJ in congress from 75-83. It is only a few miles from Bedminster, home of Trump National. Coincidentally, Trump raves about one of the local pizza places there.
Anyway, here is the Jean Shepherd segment on US 22
In Dave Pinsen’s neck of the woods, the pickleball players were upset because they didn’t have dedicated courts. So Bergen County made some courts for them, and now they are complaining about the surface. Here are some articles and a video from the local fish-wrap
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/2018/01/23/pickleballers-bergen-county-want-your-respect-and-your-tennis-courts/1040979001/
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/2018/05/16/pickleballers-bergen-county-if-you-build-we-wont-come/609586002/
https://www.northjersey.com/videos/news/2018/01/16/video-bill-ervolino-gets-lesson-pickleball/104232518/
Why is lacrosse so expensive? The gear can’t cost as much as hockey.
Heiden would train speed skating on the hockey rink until the hockey players came to practice. Then he would run up and down the bleacher stairs all during hockey practice. Then he would go ride his bike (Heiden also participated in the Tour de France, one of the very first Americans to put together a team). Heiden was much more fit than the hockey players.
All that, and Heiden got his MD, following in his father's footsteps. He was the team doctor for the 2002 Olympic team.
Heiden's sister was also an Olympic speed skater. The Heiden family was probably the most athletic family in Wisconsin history, although the Watt family is trying to wrest that crown (JJ and TJ are both in the NFL now).Replies: @Ganderson
You’re right about Heiden’s fitness- And those hockey players were in very good shape indeed.
My three boys all played hockey and lacrosse. Skates, ice time and sticks are the real big ticket items in hockey. Lacrosse helmets are really expensive, as are sticks.
I certainly never thought of lacrosse as having a macho-deficit problem. By general acclamation, the greatest player ever to play the sport was Jim Brown. Yes, that Jim Brown — arguably the NFL’s greatest running back, and I believe number 4 in ESPN’s 50 greatest athletes of the 20th century.
In its early days, when most of the players came from Baltimore or Long Island, they were a pretty hard-nosed bunch. I gathered from the general tenor of Duke lacrosse coverage that nowadays they regard themselves as preppy masters-of-the-universe-in-training. But gay? That must be a Texas thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_men%27s_national_lacrosse_team
Consider, these were the same guys who built skyscrapers in NYC. A bunch of truly manly men.
In its early days, when most of the players came from Baltimore or Long Island, they were a pretty hard-nosed bunch. I gathered from the general tenor of Duke lacrosse coverage that nowadays they regard themselves as preppy masters-of-the-universe-in-training. But gay? That must be a Texas thing.Replies: @Paleo Liberal
The group that has really dominated Lax on a per capita basis for many years is the Iroquois Confederation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_men%27s_national_lacrosse_team
Consider, these were the same guys who built skyscrapers in NYC. A bunch of truly manly men.
In the early 80s/late 70s my father would work the midnight shift and head to the racketball court with his buddies in morning afterwards. Then they’d hit the bar, which was of course in the club, and be in bed by 12pm.
The club is still around, though the bar isn’t. And the racketball courts are now a gym, and the tennis courts are now hockey rinks. But technically speaking, the club is still around.
I’m surprised you haven’t blogged about Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz qualifying for the U.S. Senior Open in golf:
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/6/1/17419160/john-smoltz-us-senior-open-golf-qualifying-braves-mlb-hall-of-fame
I heard a radio interview with Tiger Woods a few years back, and they asked him if there were any athletes he’d played golf with who could make a go at pro golfing after retiring from their own sport. He said Smoltz without hesitation.
Very cute.
But I guess “cute” is kind of their thing in Japan.
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/6/1/17419160/john-smoltz-us-senior-open-golf-qualifying-braves-mlb-hall-of-fame
I heard a radio interview with Tiger Woods a few years back, and they asked him if there were any athletes he'd played golf with who could make a go at pro golfing after retiring from their own sport. He said Smoltz without hesitation.Replies: @Steve Sailer
How’s Greg Maddux at golf? I think he played six days a week every winter.
It’s really, really hard to switch sports in midlife and make it back to near the top, even if you are a great athlete, a fanatical competitor, and have tons of money and time. Somebody will eventually make the transition and make it big in senior golf, but it’s striking how little it has happened.
I never thought of Columbus as a bodybuilding Mecca, despite the Arnold Classic being held there. I always thought it was just because Arnold Schwarzenegger was friends with Columbus billionaire Les Wexner that he chose to have it in Columbus. In the late 90’s/early 2000’s the two of them teamed up to develop Easton Shopping Center in Columbus. Putting a Planet Hollywood in there was part of the plan but that failed miserably.
By this comment we know which side of the batter’s box you’re swinging from.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I now have a road bike with 27 speeds, which we call "a road bike." Of course there are subcategories, Randonneur for example.Replies: @Brutusale
In the 70s they were called ten speeds to differentiate your bike from the poseurs riding three speeds.
A gym that will only let you join after you FAIL a PED test!
As a child of the 80’s, Racquetball was the IN thing in college and after. I learned to play and loved it. As an athlete, it was an easy sport to master and become good at without significant play time.
But if you wanted to be really good at it, like any other sport, it required a lot of court time.
During it’s heyday, I played in C league (beginners) to B league, than to A league.
I won both my C and B leagues and got creamed in A league. I worked my way into the middle of the pack of A leagues and was proud I was able to do so. But to do so, I played 5 times a week in multiple leagues.
But it is a sport that relies on strong cardio and today’s kids could not handle the rigors of play.
It will not come back simply because today’s adults are out of shape.
Btw there are still several gyms that have active courts and leagues. Just nothing like the 80’s. Miss those games.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.Replies: @ScarletNumber
Butterfaces don’t do anything for me.
Not so much the kids, although a couple of local HS have very strong Ultimate teams.
The adult leagues for a lot of sports are dying out. OTOH, just in my neighborhood one can sometimes see 6 or 7 Ultimate rec league games going on at the same time.
Another sport that is big -- 55+ men's fastpitch softball. A generation ago, men's fastpitch leagues were HUGE in the Midwest. I've run across any number of middle-age to elderly men who were big names in fastpitch back in the day, and many of them were star pitchers. Some played in national championship tournaments. Men's fastpitch is quickly declining in the younger age groups, esp. since there are so few pitchers. A few years ago, a friend of mine who had been a fastpitch pitcher for several decades was pulled out of retirement by some young whippersnappers who needed a pitcher. He quickly found out he couldn't keep up with the youngsters anymore. His father had been a pitcher, too, and I think so was his grandfather. His daughter was a star shortstop, but she pitched for many years, too.Replies: @Ian M.
Yes, men’s fastpitch softball used to be very popular: my father played for a while in the ’80s and early ’90s. But the pitchers got so good that it suffered a steep decline: it’s not so much fun when every game is 1-0. (It had already declined quite a bit when my father was playing it).
I played in a couple fastpitch leagues in the Boston area not too long ago. In support of your point, the teams were pretty young (twenties and thirties), but the pitchers were always older (often in their fifties, sometimes sixties). They were the only ones who knew how to pitch.
Are you familiar with Eddie Feigner (The King and his Court)? A phenom fastpitch softball pitcher who would challenge All-Star softball teams to play him and three others (his ‘court’), where he would routinely strike them all out (sometimes pitching from second base or behind his back). He could pitch over 90 mph.
Trouble is, there are so many illegal bats. People take legal composite bats and shave and/ or roll them to get the compression levels way above the legal limits. Not very sporting of them. It is ruining the game I hear.
These days a lot of female softball players are wearing masks when they play infield. Had Clay Mathews been wearing a mask his nose would be OK.
One time I saw a game where one of my kids hit a line drive that knocked the mask clean off the face of the third baseman. Safe at first of course. Third baseman just picked up the mask and put it back on. Better than a broken nose or busted orbital socket.
There is a famous story of the great Cherokee chief Attakullakulla (I am descended from his sister, Tame Doe, and her daughter the great chief Nancy Ward):
One time there was a big Paleo Lacrosse match. Attakullakulla bet almost 1/3 of his entire net worth on one match, and lost. He got the opposing chief to agree to play again the next day for twice the stakes.
That night, Attakullakulla brought out some liquor he got from white traders. He forbade his players to drink. I'm not saying there is truth to the drunken Indian stereotype, but the other team got quite blotto.
Next day's match was an easy victory for Attakullakulla's team.
There may not be any money in Lacrosse now, but in the old days, there was.Replies: @Ian M.
That reminds me of a famous best-of-three golf tournament between Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth for charity (after they had both retired).
Cobb won the first round, Ruth the second. But Cobb recognized that Ruth was the superior player.
So Cobb, being the competitive type that he was, began bemoaning how he had absolutely no chance of winning the rubber match the next morning.
Ruth, thinking he had it in the bag, got sloshed that night.
Cobb won the third round handily.
Jim Bob, Helmets are football helmet pricey. Carbon shafts for your stick cost close to a$100 each. Add in shoulder pads, quality gloves and elbow pads and you spend $300-$400 easily to outfit one player.
I also know people who play slow pitch leagues.
Trouble is, there are so many illegal bats. People take legal composite bats and shave and/ or roll them to get the compression levels way above the legal limits. Not very sporting of them. It is ruining the game I hear.
These days a lot of female softball players are wearing masks when they play infield. Had Clay Mathews been wearing a mask his nose would be OK.
One time I saw a game where one of my kids hit a line drive that knocked the mask clean off the face of the third baseman. Safe at first of course. Third baseman just picked up the mask and put it back on. Better than a broken nose or busted orbital socket.