Pickleball is a recent sport - created in 1965 by Joe Pritchard a U.S. Congressman. It possibly was named after his dog Pickles. Or maybe the dog was named after Pickleball. Or the game was named after the pickle boat where the crew is made of leftover people from other crews, and pickleball was created from leftover stuff from other sports. But who ever heard of that expression?
Supposedly a reporter doing a story on it told the Pritchards that people would remember the game better if it was named after the dog.
So I guess the history of the game came a bit later than the game and covering it in the news. That's because someone did some fact checking and confirmed that the dog Pickles was born after the game had been named. The Pritchards have gone on record saying that the dog was in fact named after the game.
But never mind fact, many people seemed to have weighed in over the naming of the game and vote for the dog.
There are more "facts" that have been accumulated to strengthen the dog story:
"According to the McCallum family (as well as the Browns (neighbours) – who were also some of the first pickleball players), the new sport was definitely named after the dog. They say they remember the exact night they named it after “Pickles” the dog while sitting in the living room of the Prichard cabin, they even remember cheering with excitement at the revelation of this funny name for their new game."
There are even more possibilities. The authors of the book on the History of Pickleball went sleuthing and found a third claimant to the name: "Bill Bell claimed that he had named the game because he enjoyed hitting the ball in a way that would put his opponent in a pickle."
Poor Pickleball - the game seems to be about how it got its name. This is a sign of our times - where opinion is more fun than facts - don't worry about the facts: "If nothing else, the contradicting stories make for interesting conversation regarding the early history of the sport."
Everyone seems to love pickleball - an Olympic sport? Sports Illustrated concluded the game wouldn't likely get to the Olympics before 2032.
What about this idea as our conclusion on the story today.
