Wellesley is one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts. It's a classic well-to-do mature Massachusetts town: lovely homes on leafy streets; average household income a smidge under a quarter of a million; a top-ranked school system; nice, upscale downtown. Home to Wellesley College. (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Class of 1969.) Local town nickname: Swellesley. And predictably voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in 2020.
Noisy. Intrusive. Annoying.
That’s how Wellesley resident John Maccini describes the sound of pickleball being played at Sprague Fields near his home.
“You have no idea how annoying pickleball can be,” Maccini said in a phone interview. “It’s loud, and it’s repetitive. I can’t sit on my porch and read anymore. It’s totally stressful. My quality of life has been ruined.” (Source: Boston Globe)
Having just watched - sound on - a YouTube of a pickleball game, I suspect that if I lived anywhere near Sprague Fields, I'd be joining John Maccini in the chorus of complaint, as have plenty of other Wellesley residents.
Pickleball, if you haven't been paying much attention, has become the rage - especially with the elder set. (And beyond: I saw an article in The New Yorker on professional pickleball.) As far as I can tell, it's somewhere between ping pong and tennis, only played with something that looks like a wiffle ball and (unlike tennis) a paddle, not a stringed racquet. And requiring very little by way of movement.
You play in foursomes, and the ball comes to your little quadrant and you whack it back to the other side.
And it makes a ton of noise: think one of those Fisher-Price Corn Popper on steroids. Or incessant, louder-than-loud Jiffy Pop.
In other words: Noisy. Intrusive. Annoying.
It's not just Wellesley. All over the country, non pickleball locals are taking on the pickle ballers who, as far as I can tell, a) seem to be having fun playing pickle ball; and b) don't give a rat's wiffle ball about the people whose peace is being disturbed by their pickle-balling good time. Oh, and - this may be just a bit judge-y and unfair - c) the pickleball aficionados I've seen interviewed all come across as residents of The Villages who, when they're not having a blast playing pickleball, are taking part in Trump parades in their golf carts.
Anyway, towns and residential communities across the country are having to grapple with the pickleball noise issue.
As the sport has grown, so has the number of places to play. According to USA Pickleball, the sport’s national governing body, the known places to play pickleball totaled 10,724 at the end of 2022, an increase of approximately 130 new locations per month.
Although I'm sure that not all of these places are as aggrieved as the Wellesley crowd. Or as aggrieved as the fellow in Falmouth, Mass., who moved to get away from pickle ball noise. E.g., I'm sure there isn't much complaining going on in The Villages.
Some communities have put up noise-reduction fencing. And/or are requiring players to use noise-reduction balls and/or noise-reduction paddles.
The Wellesley quietude-lovers have met with the the town's Recreation Commission, which is weighing options for dealing with the pickleball noise problem.
I'm used to city noise: ambulances, police cars, fire engines, regular car traffic, drivers leaning on the horn, drunks when the bars close, muffler-less motorcycles, honking geese, garbage trucks, scurrying rates, construction. Lots of construction.
But I put the annoyance that pickleball noise would cause right up there with the worst construction noise - house-rattling excavations on either side of our building - I've had to contend with. Noise that not even pricey Bose headphones could diminish.
Not that I begrudge the pickleballers their fun. (Not completely, anyway. Better they be pickleballing than waving the Trump flag. And, of course, if they're pickleball players from Wellesley, odds are that at least some of them aren't Trumpists.)
Not my jam, but I'm sure it's fun. But no one's fun should come at the expense of someone else's peace and quiet. Even the swells of Swellesley.
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