It Was Just Two Points! A Pickleball Story.

I can’t exactly explain why I’m a certain way when it comes to sports. Off the field, off the court, I’m generally a nice person. I’d even go so far as to say I’m more passive than I am aggressive. Then I step onto the pickleball court or put my softball glove on and take the field. I turn into someone else and I kinda like that version of me… most of the time. I guess I can chalk it up to competing with my siblings as we grew up. As the youngest of 4, I was pretty much always getting the L which fed two things: My temper and my drive to not get the L next time. When my temper flares, sometimes I get a little loose with my words too, which can get me in trouble.

There are two scenarios that get me upset: 1. Me. When I do something wrong or make a bad play or whatever. And 2. When the opponents are poor sports. Poor sportsmanship can look like trash talk, cheating, or bragging way too much. The inspiration of this post falls into a secret 4th category: gaslighting. I can’t actually remember any time in my sports experience where the other side wanted me to believe something was true more than what happened earlier this week. Plus, the term “gaslighting” has only become a common phrase in the last few years so maybe it’s happened all of my life it just wasn’t labeled so specifically.

It happened on the pickleball court and without getting into too many details, the doubles team we were up against finagled their way into two extra points. My partner and I, had the score been kept properly won the game 21-19 but somewhere about midway through when we were winning 14-11, the other team questioned the score so instead of fighting about it, our team backed off just to keep the game going. That was one point subtracted from our score so now we’re winning 13-11 instead of 14-11. Then at the end, the other team obtained a phantom point and when we protested, they didn’t back off… which made the score 21-20 in their favor. The game finished at 22-20 because of two points that magically gave them the win. 🥴

Given my sense of playing fairly and absolutely detesting anyone who is even possibly maybe cheating, I was livid. And guess what one of the other players came up to me and said? Seeing I was upset, she smiled and said, “But Ben, we didn’t take that point when it was 14-11.” Umm, what?!!?!?!?!?!? They absolutely DID take that point and now I know first hand (again!) that these two players have a bad reputation for cheating.

But at the end of the day, we’re hitting a plastic ball over a net so I guess I shouldn’t get so upset about a silly game. But cheating and bad sportsmanship (and now, gaslighting) will tick me off every time, no matter how old I am or what sport I’m playing. Here’s a picture of me with Taylor Swift.

-Out of the Wilderness