Is there More to Racquetball than Just Science?
by Les Tanner

This unpublished "extra" is available exclusively online. All ideas expressed via RACQUETBALL Online [www.racqmag.com] are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the USRA.

The blue sphere, 6 centimeters in diameter and weighing 50 grams, hurtles through space at a speed of 53.6 meters per second. In obeyance of Newton's Laws, its motion will continue at the same velocity unless it is acted upon by external forces. Two such forces -- gravity and friction -- have, in fact, been slowing the sphere since its present journey began a fraction of a second ago, but so far their effects have been minimal. 

Suddenly, an object, roughly bi-hemispherical in shape, looms in its path; over its surface a thin layer of fabric is tautly stretched. A collision is clearly unavoidable. 

Upon impact, the sphere rebounds. In the organic tissues beneath the fabric, nerve endings generate electrical impulses which race at the speed of light through a complex system of neural passages. 

A blood-curdling scream pierces the surrounding mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. "Next time, get out of the way, dummy!" mutters one of the other primates in the enclosed laboratory, as he picks up the ball. "Now, whose serve is it?"

As I stand here at my word-processor, with the memory of that moment fresh in my mind (and elsewhere), it occurs to me that there may somewhere be people who, properly or not, perceive racquetball to be more than an example of "scientific principles in action."

I first picked up a racquetball racquet in 1963, soon after we moved to North Dakota. It wasn't long before I put it down again, due primarily to a local dentist (an elderly gentleman of 40 or so) who delighted in beating me 21-0 every time we played. I eventually returned to the game, however, and have been playing regularly ever since. A person is bound to pick up a little bit of useful information about anything in 34 years, so perhaps I can shed some light on the subject.

The theory of the game is simple: One person hits a ball against a wall, and his opponent must hit the rebounding ball against the same wall before it -- the ball, not the wall -- bounces twice. To say it another way, racquetball is a form of indoor tennis, but with two players on the same side of the net. 

Racquetball has two immediate advantages over tennis, the first being that it is weather-independent, and the second being that the ball can't escape: there are no fences to hit it over or nets to hit it into.

A more subtle, but perhaps more significant, facet of racquetball is that a ball hit past a player can still be played, as it rebounds off the side and back walls, so long as it hasn't yet hit the floor twice. In how many situations in life does one get a second chance, without penalty, once a first chance has been missed? Certainly not in golf, or algebra, or "making a first impression."

As a sport, racquetball may be unique. Since nearly everyone has at one time or another thrown or hit a ball against a wall, people can enjoy racquetball the very first time they play it. Yet it can demand so much speed, quickness, endurance, strength, and strategy that it is played at the professional level by some of the world's best athletes. Furthermore, racquetball is truly a lifetime sport. National racquetball tournaments feature brackets all the way from "multi-bounce", for children, to those restricted to players age 80 and older. 

You can, certainly, read about the rules and all that technical stuff in books and magazines. What you can't find there are some of the more subtle aspects of the game -- the physics, the mathematics, the psychology. 

"Physics?" you ask.
"Of course," I respond.

Einstein's Theory of Relativity is relevant, for example. To an external observer, the court appears to be 40 feet long. To the players involved, however, it is an entirely different matter. Depending upon both the importance of the point being played and the ages of the players, the distance to the ball can be anywhere from ten feet to a quarter of a mile. 

"Mathematics?" you ask.
"Most assuredly," I respond. 

At a critical point in a recent doubles tournament, I had to return a ball which bounced near the back wall. Using some calculus and other clever things, I quickly reasoned that a ball which bounces to a height of four feet will take a half-second to fall back to the floor. Furthermore, most people can run at least ten feet in a half-second -- even farther under some conditions, such as if angry bees are involved. Finally, on average, a player is within ten feet of fifty percent of the court at any given moment. It followed logically, then, that if the back wall was ten feet away and if the ball bounced four feet in the air, I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting there. 

Of course, by the time I had figured all that out, the ball had hit the floor, the game was over, and two of the players were already in the shower.

"Psychology?" you ask.
"You can bet your id," I respond.

I've read that Yogi Berra, the legendary catcher for the New York Yankees, played little mind-games with opposing players.

 "Does it seem dark in here to you?" he would mutter to a potential hitter when the count was three-and-two. By the time the batter could get his thoughts back on the game, the umpire was calling "STRIKE THREE!!"

I'm somewhat more direct than Yogi. Let's say that I have very carefully let my opponent run the score to 14-1, so as to lull him into thinking that he's playing a softie. (Nowadays, it takes 15 points to win a game, as opposed to the old days when real men -- like my friend, the dentist -- played to 21.) It is at that moment that I launch the blue sphere of the opening paragraph, admittedly at somewhat less than 53.6 meters per second. Given the tautness of my opponent's shorts, however, the results are adequate for my purposes. When my opponent finally settles down again and realizes where he is, he asks in bewilderment: "What's the score? For some reason, I have forgotten."

"It is 13-2, my favor, I believe," I answer innocently. "And next time, get out of the way, dummy. Now, whose serve is it?"

Leslie R. Tanner was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934 and now resides in Caldwell, Idaho. This piece was first published in the Idaho Racquetball Association newsletter [April/May/June 1995]. 

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