Pickleball Prejudice

Yesterday on my lunch break I once again played pickleball with some friends/co-workers.  We were just warming up smacking my red pickleballs around.  The balls come in several colors but the “official” color you see in tournaments and organized play is sort of a neon green shade.

The first pack of balls I bought were this color.  I tried to identify them by putting my name on the balls in permanent sharpie but found it wore off very quickly during play.  So when I bought my next pack of balls I decided to try one of the non-mainstream colors, amber red or something like that. I figured it would make differentiating my balls significantly easier since most used the neon green.

So anyway, as we are warming up some old guy comes up to the fence.  He tells us we shouldn’t play with the red balls since nobody ever uses them.  He was so adamant in his belief that neon green was the only option he tossed us a neon green ball.  I was a bit dumbstruck that the color of our pickleballs was enough of an irritant for this guy that he felt the need to address it.  We were laughing at the oddity of this situation as we accepted the free ball and started smacking it around.

I never knew that pickleball prejudice was a thing, until yesterday.  Condo cop mentality is alive and well, even on the court.