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Pickleball crisis in JP: Pickleballers have eliminated tennis on South Street and now are gunning for the basketball courts
By adamg on Thu, 07/04/2024 - 10:52am
Jamaica Plain News reports that pickleballers, who have already managed to squeeze out tennis on the courts off South Street, are now trying to muscle out basketball players, too, to the point where elders of the pickleball community are asking the young'uns to show some courtesy and not do that, at least not before 9:30 a.m.
Some relief could come later this year when the city re-allocates one of the four tennis courts at English High for pickleballing.
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Comments
Is it going to be a war
Is it going to be a war between dog owners and picker ballers over the abuse of basketball courts, or are they the same people?
A better use for all public tennis, pickle ball and ….
… basket ball courts would be free public parking lots.
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Just kidding, folks!
Magoo sez
What does one call a deer in a pickle factory? Something Magoo and Mrs. Magoo get super feisty with on special occasions. Magoo.
I regret ….
… reading this.
Oh Magoo...
You've done it again...
n/t
Entitled jerks
If you want more places to play pickle ball, lobby your mayor, city councilors, selectpeople or whoever. Don't bully people out of using the spaces set up for their sports of preference.
You repeat what Adam wrote:
You repeat what Adam wrote: "in JP"
A certain age group
... has always expected their needs to take precedence over the needs of other age groups.
From the write-up
It's the younger of the age groups in this case. (Or whatever counts as younger in Pickleball.)
There is no age group which doesn't have it's share of entitled brats.
“ There is no age group which
“ There is no age group which doesn't have it's share of entitled brats.”
Yes, indeed.
boomers or teenagers?
I feel like boomers are worse because they should know better and because they have the power to abuse their selfishness.
I feel like boomers are worse
I feel like boomers are worse because they have purposely ruined the environment and made home ownership and college unaffordable.
My sympathies….
…. to the boomers who gave birth to you and raised you.
Obviously you know nothing about the history of environmental activism.
Ageist much?
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Get ‘em!
Yeah, how dare tax paying community members want to use public spaces for popular things!
When was the last time you saw the South Street courts packed like that photo for anything else?
Photo is not representative
The photo implies that there are lots of people waiting for the next opening on the courts. I pass by frequently. That is not typical.
White Subaru cyclists
Flexing their white privilege. Move over kids, Willow and Hunter have worked too hard in life to be denied their pickle.
I get tennis
Listen hardly anyone plays tennis anymore. That sport died off after Agassi and Sampras so convert 80 or so percent of those over to Pickleball. It is exploding. Recently visited a city in the south and hundreds of ppl play on this specific set of courts each day. But basketball- nah dog. That’s an outlet for people all ages to get out and get active. Low overhead as only one of however many people need to have a ball. Look for other land pickles.
Tennis, anyone?
Tennis, anyone?
Why does it matter what kind
Why does it matter what kind of paddle or racket people are using? Increased usage of a free public resource will make it harder to find availability, and neither group is more to blame than the other.
It's like if hipsters started riding purple bikes, causing bike racks to fill up from the increased usage, and people riding traditionally-colored bikes complaining that the purple bikers were taking "their" resource.
Misusing a basketball court would seem like a more valid complaint. Except that these courts have official tennis nets, so there's nothing wrong with using them for a paddle sport. https://maps.app.goo.gl/A4WvL4rpW4Uuv1u37
This is an easy to solve problem
Let people reserve the courts with priority given to the sport they were designed for.
I think you have the 9:30 part backwards
My read of the article is that the courts are to be reserved for basketball only before 9:30 am, after which they become a pickleballer paradise. Good luck convincing teenagers to get up that early.
Many pickle ballers choose to put burden on basketball players
Before the pickle ball players grew from a half dozen to the many today the basketball courts were regularly used by basket ball players. Often teenager. Since the pickle ball players expanded their domain from 4 pickle ball courts to six via the basketball courts there are less teens playing basketball.
The pickle ball players are able to convert the tennis courts into 4 pickle ball courts. It is selfish and greedy to assume taking over the basketball courts.
I am sure that there are pickleball players who assume that any kids who want to play basketball will just ask them if the would remove the nets. But that assumption is false and arrogant. That is putting on teens the responsibility that belongs to adults. Most teens have not developed the psychological ability to understand how to walk up to adults, "ask," but with an expectation that the adult will be respectful and will agree without debate, to remove nets from the basketball courts.
There is a mob mentality going on with the pickle ball players at South Street. The attitude seems to be that since everybody else is taking over space that maybe is more than fair, that to spend the energy in wondering whether maybe there should be some self-regulated limits of taking over space is too onerous. Just take over the space and put responsibility onto other people's shoulders to ask them for permission to use the basketball court.
As though pickle ball players have some automatic ownership of the courts.
White boomers love ruining
White boomers love ruining the fun of younger generations. They’ve been doing it for decades.