First they filled the cities with fields, and now they can’t take it anymore. The New York Times recounts the tragicomic social aspect of this mini-tennis that is all the rage in the USA
They say it sounds like popcorn. Pickleball does pop-pop-pop. An incessant, continuous noise. As if American cities are constantly crackling, heated in a microwave oven. The New York Times calls it “an arrhythmic noise.” And this thing – pop…pop…pop… – is driving Americans crazy. They can’t take it anymore. They’ve filled neighborhoods with fields of blessed pickleball, and now they’re in the process of rejection. It has become – always writes the NYT – “a national plague of riots, petitions, police calls and lawsuits, with no resolution in sight“.
Due premise: pickleball is to the USA what padel is to Italy. It is a sport derived from tennis, in a reduced version. It is played on mini-courts mostly made of asphalt, with square rackets without strings and plastic balls. It does not have aquarium-like glass walls like padel. AND if Americans heard the rumble of padel on hot Italian summer nights, those with open windows…
The New York Times has collected testimonies on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Like Mary McKee, from Arlington, Virginia. She says hers was once a mostly quiet existence. Then came the pickleball players. And the “cacophony of ticking has become the unwanted soundtrack to the lives of McKee and her neighbors.”
“It’s like having a shooting range in your backyard”dice John Mancini da Wellesley, Massachusetts. “It is a torture technique”say Clint Ellis, from York, Maine. “Living here is hell”dice Debbie Nagle, da Scottsdale, Arizona.
Sport – recalls the NYT – “can produce all kinds of unpleasant noises: whistles from the referees, boos from the audience, vuvuzelas. But the most strident, disruptive sound in the entire athletic ecosystem right now may be that pop-pop-pop emanating from America’s rapidly multiplying pickleball fields.”
A revolt is underway, amid “petitions and appeals to the police and death-defying lawsuits aimed at local parks, private clubs and homeowners’ associations.”
“The din has given new meaning to the phrase racquet sport, testing the sanity of anyone within earshot of a match”.
The New York Times analyzes the phenomenon: “Modern society is intrinsically disharmonious: think to children screaming, dogs barking, lawn mowers roaring. So what makes the pickleball sound, in particular, so hard to tolerate?“. And they asked the top pickleball wrestling expert. (Exactly, there is someone who practically does this for a living). His name is Bob Unetich, he is 77 years old, he is a retired engineer and an avid pickleball player. He has a consulting firm called Pickleball Sound Mitigation. Unetich explains that pickleball shots from 100 feet away can reach 70 dBA, while everyday background noise outside typically reaches a “rather annoying 55.”
And then there’s the high pitch of the sound made by a hard paddle racket striking a plastic ball, and the erratic, often frantic pace. “It creates vibrations in a range that can be extremely disturbing to humans“, dice Unetich.
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