Recreation Director Dave Sniffen promised the Recreation Board his report would be “short and sweet.” At 8:15 in the morning, which is the board’s preferred meeting time, “short and sweet” is what everyone is hoping for. While Sniffen’s report was both short and sweet, it was also full of useful information on activities to keep Block Islanders busy throughout the winter months.
Sniffen reported that pickleball is happening twice a week for adults. For the uninformed, pickleball was invented by Congressmen Joel Pritchard, William Bell, and Barney McCallum in 1965 as a way to entertain their children, who were suffering from boredom on Bainbridge Island. Bainbridge Island is located a short ferry ride from Seattle, Washington.To give the kids something to do, these congressmen lowered the badminton net to tennis-net height, grabbed some ping pong paddles and a Wiffle ball, and made up the game of pickleball. To the untrained eye it looks like tennis with a Wiffle ball, but pickleball has its own set of rules and strategies. From these humble beginnings, pickleball has spread across the country, and possibly the globe, being played by millions, according to Pickle-Ball, Inc., the company founded by McCallum in 1972.On
