By Billie Allee
In New York City and across the world there is a rising pickleball craze. So what is pickleball? A sport of eating as many pickles as possible? No, not at all.
According to Wikipedia pickleball is “an indoor or outdoor racket/paddle sport where two players (singles), or four players (doubles), hit a perforated hollow polymer ball over a 36-inch-high (0.91 m) net using solid faced paddles. The two sides hit the ball back and forth over the net until one side commits a rule infraction.”
Pickleball’s popularity is growing rapidly today making its name as “America’s fastest growing sport” according to an article from the New York Times in September. In addition, pickleball grew nearly 40 percent between 2019 and 2021, and accumulated “4.8 million pickleball players, or “picklers,” in the United States, according to a 2022 report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.”
Pickleball mania is even going on in your backyard. Well, not exactly, but a large community of picklers (or pickleball players) have emerged on Houston Ball Field on the corner of W. Houston and 6th avenue.
LREI is right around the corner from Houston Ball Field. Lower and middle school students spend time at this park during recess and after school. Phil Kassen, director of LREI, commented on what he thought of the recent negative impacts that pickleballers have on the school community, “We are competing for a limited and shared resource. For the most part we have managed to share the ballfield during the day. After school, when it is nice out, the days of LREI and other neighborhood kids playing kickball on a sunny Friday afternoon seem to be over for now.” He went on to say, “Sometimes the pickleballers set up on the basketball court.” Whether the pickleballers are meaning to push kids out of their parks and playgrounds, pickleball does really have an effect on the wider city community.
All over the city, people are playing Pickleball. A Village Sun article about the addiction to pickleball says that in Manhattan, you can find people playing pickleball in places like “Passannante Playground, at W. Houston Street and Sixth Avenue; Seravalli Park, at Horatio and Hudson Streets,” and more. Courts are available all over Brooklyn, in McCarren Park, PS9 Prospect Heights, Leif Ericson Tennis Courts, and many more. Queens parks like Astoria Park and Rockaway Beach. Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and Fairview Park in Staten Island.
Not only is it everywhere in NYC, but everyone can play it. A New York Times writer, Juno DeMelo, says that “The sport has trended older in the past — half of all serious pickleball players (those who play eight or more times a year) in 2021 were 55 and older, according to the USA Pickleball Association. But the vast majority of casual players are under 55, and the fastest-growing segment of all pickleball players are under 24.”