DeeDeeCues
Well-known member
Funny stuff. All other athletes adjust for many things, and many of them do it without having 30seconds to think about it.
POOL MOST DIFFICULT SPORT
- Thread starter CESSNA10
- Start date
Funny stuff. All other athletes adjust for many things, and many of them do it without having 30seconds to think about it.
RT Ford
Well-known member
Neptune - Joe Frady, 70, formerly of Neptune passed away on April 10, 2019 at the Lyons VA Medical Center, Bernards Twp. He was the beloved son of the late Anthony and Rose (nee Vaccaro) Frady. Joe is survived by his devoted brother Peter and wife Janet.
Joseph served with the US Army, First Infantry Division in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971. He was the recipient of the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Vietnam Campaign Medal with 60 Device and the Vietnam Service Medal with 2 Bronze Service Stars. Joe loved to play pool, golf and enjoyed fishing. He will be missed by his family and friends.
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
There is more of a case for pool being the easiest sport than the most difficult. It's so easy by sports standards, that it ain't even considered a sport by most people and actually doesn't meet the definition of 'sport' as there is no physical exertion component to it. It's a great game, no doubt. But a pool stroke is one of the most mechanically simple and easy to learn things in all of 'sports'. What makes pool hard is that even with a wonderful stroke...you can suck at the game.
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
physical exertion = physical effort.
what am I missing? You find there is a lot of physical effort in pool? Are you engaging various energy systems in the body other than what you usually use at rest?
edit: I guess your gripe may be that the Cambridge definition has that 'or' in there. Most definitions don't include that as if one or the other is enough. Physical exertion is a core component of sport. This Oxford definition pops up by default in google....
an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.
I'm with Oxford over Cambridge on this one.
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
ye that fatty couldn't run much, but could hit a ball 400feet and throw a ball over 90mph. Guy had the type of power regular folks can only dream of, even the ones with 6packs.
Kinda reminds me of David Wells telling the story of how he threw his perfect game while completely drunk off his ass. Some ppl are just built different. Just cuz one boozy fatass can dominate a major league roster for an afternoon doesn't mean much tho. That's a 1 in a million if not much longer odds occurrence.
Well, you could consider golf much easier to learn because if you learn it well you will be winning a million dollars per tournament. That's a lot of built-in motivation.
Hitting it is hard. Avoiding it is even harder!
And a day later at a press conference, when Pillar said he almost felt worse for the pitcher, than he did for himself. Very gracious guy.
If anyone wants to see why hitting is becoming so dangerous these days, watch a documentary called "Fastball". It explores the brain's limitation for comprehending the movement of an object traveling at those speeds. 396 milliseconds for the (100mph) fastball to reach home plate.
As for pool.....easy to learn, difficult to master.
This topic comes up every so often, all semantics. Many people think for something to be "sport" you need to run around in shorts and get sweaty in, I don't. I think anything can be a sport if done at a high level and competitively. Pool played by bar bangers is a game, basketball played by 40yr old overweight lawyers or doctors at their local YMCA is a game, softball played buy a bunch of local neighborhoods folks with a side of beer is a game. Scrabble done by people that study dictionaries, travel to competitions and are known by others as good players would be playing a sport. Solid competition + study + dedication to getting better = Sport. Wasting time + hanging out + nothing better to do on Sunday afternoon = game. Much easier to sort those than trying to categories it based on how big and strong you need to be to do something.
Are people working as loggers doing a sport every time they punch the clock? It's hard work, sweaty, takes strength and co-ordination. No, they are working. Are people competing in those logging competitions on ESPN doing a sport? Yes, they are training for that competition specifically to compete against others and using some specialized equipment over what you would use at your farm while clearing a few trees or working for a paper mill. There is a good example of dividing sport vs other activities. Or how about a guy that goes to the gym to impress the ladies, walks around lifting things, drinks protein shakes, are they involved in the "sport" of weightlifting or just exercising and having a hobby or trying to get laid? Are the Olympic level weightlifters that train more, work with doctors and coaches exercising or participating in a sport? Of course it's a sport for them, but the basic idea of going and using your muscles to lift things is the same.
We play pool as a sport, the kids shooting at red clothed tables in their parent's basements once they get the folded clothing from the dryer off are playing a game.
Are people working as loggers doing a sport every time they punch the clock? It's hard work, sweaty, takes strength and co-ordination. No, they are working. Are people competing in those logging competitions on ESPN doing a sport? Yes, they are training for that competition specifically to compete against others and using some specialized equipment over what you would use at your farm while clearing a few trees or working for a paper mill. There is a good example of dividing sport vs other activities. Or how about a guy that goes to the gym to impress the ladies, walks around lifting things, drinks protein shakes, are they involved in the "sport" of weightlifting or just exercising and having a hobby or trying to get laid? Are the Olympic level weightlifters that train more, work with doctors and coaches exercising or participating in a sport? Of course it's a sport for them, but the basic idea of going and using your muscles to lift things is the same.
We play pool as a sport, the kids shooting at red clothed tables in their parent's basements once they get the folded clothing from the dryer off are playing a game.
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WobblyStroke
Well-known member
Tell that to the duffers still rarely breaking 90 after decades of play and many lessons from top professionals. Golf is hard. You could even be most of the way to a beautiful stroke and if you are even the slightest bit off your shot will be garbage. The difference between a clubface that sends the ball to the middle of the fairway and out of bounds is generally about 7 degrees.... for perspective that is being aligned to 1min past 12 instead of 12 o'clock. So not only are all body parts involved in producing the swing. It has to come into the ball with incredible precision to a) even strike the ball cleanly, and b) to send it in the desired direction.
You see similar duffers at the pool hall -- they practice regularly but will never be an APA 6. Those who believe in talent would say that both sets of duffers lack it.
I knew a few guys that played more pool than anybody (year after year), had a library of training material, took the game really seriously...but couldn't get into the second rack of 14.1 if you gave them all day to try.
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
I doubt very much that anyone committed to improvement AND getting lessons from world class teachers would struggle getting a Fargo above 500 with literally decades of play. That said, the example I gave is below the average handicap of 15 which is what? An SL4? Obv we are talking about seriously untalented individuals here.
As someone who teaches both golf and pool and has seen his fair share of talented and untalented movers, I'd say that it is far easier to get someone with low talent for movement to stay still and move anywhere from one to max 3 joints in their body at under 10mph rather than coordinate a full body move that requires even more precision at speeds approaching 100mph. The demands are just far far greater in golf.
On a sidenote, how can anyone not believe in talent? lol If we can have super tasters and super smellers (and their counterparts on the other end of the spectrum), why would people unusually gifted or ungifted in proprioception and motor control not also exist. They do.
I've been lucky to be one of the talented ones and have world class athletes that competed on the world stage in my family but I didn't really realize how limited others were in comparison until I was in physio for a shoulder injury and the doc asked me to move my scapula (shoulder blade) down and in. I did and she just laughed. I asked what was so funny and she informed me that over her 20+ year career, I was the first patient she had that was able to do that on the first try without any coaching or guidance. Some people just have a greater sense of where their bodies are in space and how to move. They pick sports up quickly. Others, from a very early age, struggled with motor function and since they were toddlers lagged behind their peers. That's talent. It exists. Sorry to burst that bubble for any nonbelievers that think anyone can do anything with the right attitude and effort. Life's not a disney movie. People have limitations where others don't. That's life.
Not even close to the hand/eye coordination needed to reach the highest levels of most other sports. Even the mechanics of a golf swing is way more difficult than the pool stroke, no contest, sorry.
I think pool s the most dangerous of all sports...but that's just my opinion.
BlueRaider
Registered
I think that people tend to get stuck in pool precisely because of how "easy" the game is.
In fact, it's so easy to pick up and play for some people that they don't see any appeal or draw to practicing and improving. I played a ton of pool in college with friends who were into the game and friends who only played casually. It was amazing to see how many people could play a serviceable game of pool despite having likely fewer than 20 hours of total lifetime play under their belts.
To them, pool was just a fun distraction. Something to do while chatting and drinking beer. The idea of trying to practice and improve was ludicrous, because what's there to practice? You hit a ball into another ball and make it go into a pocket. You hit high on the cue ball to make it go forward, low to make it go backwards, and in the middle to make it stop. Easy. They had relatively good breaks, good strokes. Pretty intuitive knowledge of where the cue ball was going.
Obviously, not everyone picks up the game that easily, but many people do, and it fails to grab them because they don't really see much of a challenge in it (not saying they are actually "good" players, just that they don't even see how or where they could improve because the basics are easy to them). I guess it's like casual bowlers who have good hand-eye coordination and can bowl 2-3 strikes every time they hit the lanes. Or casual darts players who have really good aim. They're already good enough to have fun and likely beat their friends, so there's no incentive to practice.
But sports like golf, tennis, or even snooker? They are monstrously difficult right out of the gate. Almost no one just picks up a club/racket/cue and is serviceable at those without a lot of practice and often instruction. So they naturally weed out the extremely casual players, which tends to mostly leave players who both recognize the difficulty of the games and want to improve on some level.
In fact, it's so easy to pick up and play for some people that they don't see any appeal or draw to practicing and improving. I played a ton of pool in college with friends who were into the game and friends who only played casually. It was amazing to see how many people could play a serviceable game of pool despite having likely fewer than 20 hours of total lifetime play under their belts.
To them, pool was just a fun distraction. Something to do while chatting and drinking beer. The idea of trying to practice and improve was ludicrous, because what's there to practice? You hit a ball into another ball and make it go into a pocket. You hit high on the cue ball to make it go forward, low to make it go backwards, and in the middle to make it stop. Easy. They had relatively good breaks, good strokes. Pretty intuitive knowledge of where the cue ball was going.
Obviously, not everyone picks up the game that easily, but many people do, and it fails to grab them because they don't really see much of a challenge in it (not saying they are actually "good" players, just that they don't even see how or where they could improve because the basics are easy to them). I guess it's like casual bowlers who have good hand-eye coordination and can bowl 2-3 strikes every time they hit the lanes. Or casual darts players who have really good aim. They're already good enough to have fun and likely beat their friends, so there's no incentive to practice.
But sports like golf, tennis, or even snooker? They are monstrously difficult right out of the gate. Almost no one just picks up a club/racket/cue and is serviceable at those without a lot of practice and often instruction. So they naturally weed out the extremely casual players, which tends to mostly leave players who both recognize the difficulty of the games and want to improve on some level.
momentary hi jack
carry on after reading
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from the washington post by rick reilly
Pickleball is the worst
Contributing columnist
May 8, 2023 at 6:15 a.m. EDT
I’m 65 now, which means that, according to federal law, I have to start playing pickleball.
But I don’t want to play pickleball. I hate pickleball.
I’m fine with AARPers all over America loving pickleball. Great. Play until your arch supports melt. But why do you have to constantly tell me about it? Why do you insist I start playing with you? I get it. You moved less than 18 inches in each direction for two hours, hit a greenish ball a lot and beat Ed and Nancy Finkler in three games. SportsCenter will be right over.
Look, I tried it. I didn’t like it. Not as fun as ping-pong. Not as elegant as tennis. Not as pretty as golf. It was a lot of people who hadn’t played a sport in 30 years suddenly thinking they’re athletes. “Man, three hours of pickleball today,” my buddy will say. “It was epic.”
Reality check: There is no “epic” in napping, crochet or pickleball. It’s a game in which two mostly very old people (like me) whack a plastic whiffle kind of ball at two other mostly old people (like me), who defend an area the size of a rug (like the one in my bathroom).
Besides, it’s not a sport. Any game that you can take up after breakfast and be pretty good at by lunch is not a sport. And it’s not great exercise. A Canadian study last fall found that an hour of pickleball gets you only half as many steps as just walking the hour.
“No, it’s like tennis!” PicklePushers will argue. No, it’s nothing like tennis. Riding an electric bike doesn’t make you Lance Armstrong, and playing pickleball doesn’t make you Roger Federer. I’ve watched Federer run the equivalent of three New York City blocks on a single point. You could play pickleball for a month and not run that far.
And yet, somehow picklers manage to get hurt. When I call my buddies to do stuff now, half the time they’re injured. So far, they’ve had a torn Achilles’, a ripped rotator cuff, a blown-out knee, a pickleball elbow and one black eye.
Remember, kids: Every time you see a new pickleball court open, an orthopedist gets a new boat.
Those new courts, by the way, are swallowing up actual tennis and basketball courts. Closing down a hoops court for pickleball is like closing down a boxing gym for Zumba.
This is what comes of something dreamed up by a rich Seattle Republican politician (Joel Pritchard), who invented it decades ago with a couple of friends for their bored families on stuffy Bainbridge Island when — I’m not kidding here — they couldn’t find a shuttlecock for badminton. The catamaran must have been in the shop.
“But wait,” the PicklePushers wail. “It’s America’s fastest-growing sport!”
So what? The Diphyllobothrium is a fast-growing tapeworm. Doesn’t mean I want it. Worse news: More and more young people have been infested. The Flabbiest Generation seems to be putting down TikTok and actually (gasp) going outside.
They’ll learn quickly that pickleball doesn’t just hurt the eyes, it also hurts the ears.
The wooden paddle whacking the hard plastic ball makes an eardrum-piercing pwock! And since the combatants stand about a yardstick apart, that’s a lot of pwock!s. Pwock! Pwock! Pwock! All day and, sometimes, even past the 4:30 dinner hour.
A guy in Falmouth, Mass., sold his house to get away from pickleball courts. A woman in Newport Beach, Calif., sued the city, saying that the ceaseless pwock!ing from nearby courts caused “severe mental suffering, frustration and anxiety.” A neighborhood group in Arlington, Va., this year organized to stop more pickleball courts being built near them because of “excessive continuous noise,” “public urination,” plus “tennis and basketball” had been “hijacked.” A noise study in Phoenix said 12-foot walls — at a cost of $140,000 — would need to go up around the courts and even that might not do it.
Which is so dumb. The pwock!s can be easily fixed. All people have to do is switch from the hard paddles to the quieter “Green Zone” paddles. But so far, not nearly enough have done it.
“We tell people they need to switch, but they don’t seem to hear us,” says Anita Hobbie, president of Pickleball Enthusiasts of the World (PEW). “I think it’s more of a hearing aid problem.”(Okay, there’s no such thing as PEW, or Ms. Hobbie, but I really think there should be.)
So, to sum up, go ahead and play all the pickleball you want, but can you please just shut up about it? That would be epic.
carry on after reading
.....................................................
....................................................
from the washington post by rick reilly
Pickleball is the worst
Contributing columnist
May 8, 2023 at 6:15 a.m. EDT
I’m 65 now, which means that, according to federal law, I have to start playing pickleball.
But I don’t want to play pickleball. I hate pickleball.
I’m fine with AARPers all over America loving pickleball. Great. Play until your arch supports melt. But why do you have to constantly tell me about it? Why do you insist I start playing with you? I get it. You moved less than 18 inches in each direction for two hours, hit a greenish ball a lot and beat Ed and Nancy Finkler in three games. SportsCenter will be right over.
Look, I tried it. I didn’t like it. Not as fun as ping-pong. Not as elegant as tennis. Not as pretty as golf. It was a lot of people who hadn’t played a sport in 30 years suddenly thinking they’re athletes. “Man, three hours of pickleball today,” my buddy will say. “It was epic.”
Reality check: There is no “epic” in napping, crochet or pickleball. It’s a game in which two mostly very old people (like me) whack a plastic whiffle kind of ball at two other mostly old people (like me), who defend an area the size of a rug (like the one in my bathroom).
Besides, it’s not a sport. Any game that you can take up after breakfast and be pretty good at by lunch is not a sport. And it’s not great exercise. A Canadian study last fall found that an hour of pickleball gets you only half as many steps as just walking the hour.
“No, it’s like tennis!” PicklePushers will argue. No, it’s nothing like tennis. Riding an electric bike doesn’t make you Lance Armstrong, and playing pickleball doesn’t make you Roger Federer. I’ve watched Federer run the equivalent of three New York City blocks on a single point. You could play pickleball for a month and not run that far.
And yet, somehow picklers manage to get hurt. When I call my buddies to do stuff now, half the time they’re injured. So far, they’ve had a torn Achilles’, a ripped rotator cuff, a blown-out knee, a pickleball elbow and one black eye.
Remember, kids: Every time you see a new pickleball court open, an orthopedist gets a new boat.
Those new courts, by the way, are swallowing up actual tennis and basketball courts. Closing down a hoops court for pickleball is like closing down a boxing gym for Zumba.
This is what comes of something dreamed up by a rich Seattle Republican politician (Joel Pritchard), who invented it decades ago with a couple of friends for their bored families on stuffy Bainbridge Island when — I’m not kidding here — they couldn’t find a shuttlecock for badminton. The catamaran must have been in the shop.
“But wait,” the PicklePushers wail. “It’s America’s fastest-growing sport!”
So what? The Diphyllobothrium is a fast-growing tapeworm. Doesn’t mean I want it. Worse news: More and more young people have been infested. The Flabbiest Generation seems to be putting down TikTok and actually (gasp) going outside.
They’ll learn quickly that pickleball doesn’t just hurt the eyes, it also hurts the ears.
The wooden paddle whacking the hard plastic ball makes an eardrum-piercing pwock! And since the combatants stand about a yardstick apart, that’s a lot of pwock!s. Pwock! Pwock! Pwock! All day and, sometimes, even past the 4:30 dinner hour.
A guy in Falmouth, Mass., sold his house to get away from pickleball courts. A woman in Newport Beach, Calif., sued the city, saying that the ceaseless pwock!ing from nearby courts caused “severe mental suffering, frustration and anxiety.” A neighborhood group in Arlington, Va., this year organized to stop more pickleball courts being built near them because of “excessive continuous noise,” “public urination,” plus “tennis and basketball” had been “hijacked.” A noise study in Phoenix said 12-foot walls — at a cost of $140,000 — would need to go up around the courts and even that might not do it.
Which is so dumb. The pwock!s can be easily fixed. All people have to do is switch from the hard paddles to the quieter “Green Zone” paddles. But so far, not nearly enough have done it.
“We tell people they need to switch, but they don’t seem to hear us,” says Anita Hobbie, president of Pickleball Enthusiasts of the World (PEW). “I think it’s more of a hearing aid problem.”(Okay, there’s no such thing as PEW, or Ms. Hobbie, but I really think there should be.)
So, to sum up, go ahead and play all the pickleball you want, but can you please just shut up about it? That would be epic.
SeniorTom
Well-known member
When I compare my skill set to the likes of svb, and similar professionals, there is a sea of difference between us. I have been playing pool less than a year, and they have been playing pool all their lives, and that's what it takes to be at their level. Personally I feel all sports are somewhat equal in terms of being the best in the world, it takes a lifetime of practice and playing to get to that point. A lot of people might not respect the skill set of Billiards because it's played on a small table opposed to a large field or Arena. Nonetheless, to get to the level of what professional pool players are at it is just as hard as any other sport.