Whirlyball: Perhaps the Finest Sport Yet Created
Published by Joel October 17th, 2006 in Fitness, Sports. Share This
Although I used to be pretty fair at sports, these days most of my competitive ire is exercised against computers, punctuated by post-match trash talking to the lone upturned ear of my napping dog. There is, however, one game that will rouse me from my webbed mesh to exert actual physical effort: Whirlyball.
The game is simple: Strap yourself into a bumper car-like contrivance to wave about a lacrosse thingy to lob a whiffle ball into a small hole on a backboard, like a mechanized version of some pre-sacrificial Incan ritual. (Or Battlestar Galactica’s Pyramid, if the players rode Cylons around the court.)
Whirlyball is about the only fun thing to do when I’m back home in Kansas City and it just so happens that the court at the Family Fun Center in Kansas also has a small but capable bar. Whirlyball, combining vehicular collision with mammalian roaring, is best played when at least moderately sauced.
I’d never actually known whence Whirlyball came; I figured it sprang fully-formed, hardwood court and all, from the devious mind of a DeVry-trained Entertainment Technician. Turns out it’s from Chicago, which explains why the official venues of play are all in the Illinois and Ohio area.
Oh, for a Brooklyn Whirlyball court! I’ll pony up the first $100. Who’s with me?
11 Responses to “Whirlyball: Perhaps the Finest Sport Yet Created”
- 1 Trackback on Apr 1st, 2007 at 2:19 am
Yeah, this is what we did for my brother-in-law’s bachelor party. Cheaper than a strip club, and almost as fun.
I’ve played this a few times - and wow, is it fun. More interesting is that the venue I’ve done it at actually ENCOURAGES you to bring along beer and drinks. Heh. If you ever have a chance, I highly, highly recommend trying it out. Spectacularly fun.
Hell yeah! In St. Louis, this is called Demolition Ball. There’s a place in the (cough, white flight, cough) bedroom suburb of St. Charles that offers this, along with an arcade and a fully stocked bar. We started my bachelor party there as well, and it was an excellent opener for the rest of the night.
Highly recommended.
We have a Whirlyball center in Dallas. I’ve been twice, both times as part of a recruiting event for my wife’s old law firm. I told the Recruiting Coordinator of all the recruiting events I’d been to over the years, Whirlyball was definitely the best. Alas, my wife left the firm to go in-house, and I haven’t seen the Whirlyball court in years…
Bring on the Brooklyn Whirlyball! I’ll pitch in $100. I grew up in Miami and everyone who was anyone had their pre-teen birthday parties there (also a mecca for camp field trips). I couldn’t appreciate the bars at that age, but now…
If you put it near a bar, or a bar near the court, I’m in for a B Franklin or two. Best sport ever.
The gay-est activity ever, after actual gay sex.
joel, you can come to chicago and take ours.
What greatly amuses me is the rule prohibiting drunken whirlyballing. Whirleyball courts are arranged around a bar, and a good drunkening elevates the activity from fun to hilarious. I can’t imagine how drunken whirlyballing could ever happen. No… not at all…
What is nice about whirlyballing is that, generally, everyone sucks. Unlike, say, pool where a bunch of the players are hustlers and the rest are incompetent, you can pretty much guarantee an even skill level across the board. It’s nicely egalitarian, and gets everyone involved.
We’ve got it here in Atlanta as well. Was a frequent company party spot until the open bar started to overshadow the game. Or maybe it was the blatant bribing of the “officials”….
I like the hockey angle - you pick one guy to be the enforcer and have him just slam people.