Pickleball is a paddle sport played on a small court with a plastic ball. Two people (singles) or four (doubles) hit the ball back and forth over a low net using solid paddles. Games go to 11, win by 2. Only the serving side scores. It borrows the court from badminton, the scoring feel from ping-pong, and the strokes from tennis — and it is much easier to pick up than any of them.
Invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington by three neighbours — Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum — trying to keep their families entertained one summer. They used a badminton court, ping-pong paddles, and a perforated plastic ball, then wrote down rules that made the game playable for kids and adults at once.
The name is disputed even within the founding families: one version credits the Pritchards\' dog "Pickles"; the other cites the "pickle boat" in rowing, made up of leftover crew members. Nobody minds.
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A paddle sport played on a badminton-sized court with a plastic ball. Here is the plain-English version of what pickleball is, where it came from, and why it is everywhere now.