Whirlyball: Perhaps the Finest Sport Yet Created

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?