The 250 Square Foot View

“These bangers are ruining pickleball!”

You might hear that sentiment in certain pickleball circles.

While pickleball is largely a finesse game – which is why it’s great for players of nearly any age, strength, or mobility – a new segment of players has emerged: Bangers.

These are ex-tennis players who’ve brought their hard-hitting style of play onto the much smaller pickleball court.

And not everyone welcomes this new style of play.

(Ironically, many tennis players scoff at pickleball, especially when they can’t find a local court because the pickleballers have already claimed them all.)

The recalcitrance toward bangers is understandable but ultimately unproductive. There is no “right” way to play any game (as long as no rules are being broken), so it’s up to traditionalists (non-bangers) to either figure out how to beat the bangers – or bang back.

In Major League Baseball, we’ve seen the predominance of The Shift, where the defense shifts over to one side of the field because the batter almost always hits it that way. The batters hate it because there’s less space to hit, but it’s not illegal.

MLB has decided after five years or so of this – during which batting averages have plummeted – players apparently aren’t capable of “hitting it where they ain’t,” so they’re outlawing The Shift next year for the good of the game.

But since you can’t outlaw how hard someone can hit a pickleball, the traditionalists will have to find another way.

If you think about The Shift another way, the defense may have thought it “unfair” that batters could hit it to the same part of the field every time and the field was simply too big to cover. So they made an adjustment.

Can pickleballers do the same?