Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket: The Pickler Limerick Challenge Heats Up

We here at Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket are happy to report that the ongoing Pickler Limerick Challenge is drawing lots of entries.

It makes sense. After playing pickleball, the thing that pickleballers like most is talking about playing pickleball. So, it stands to reason that some of them would be masters of rhyming verse.

Or to put it another way, that they’d be able to make succinct and funny observations about pickleball, which is so rich with comedic fodder.

Here’s an example:   

That was one of the several stellar contest entries submitted by Joe Carty, 65, an avid recreational pickleballer from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Carty found pickleball while recovering from hip replacement surgery due in part to his tennis playing. Thinking that pickleball was part of his path to rehab, he gave the game a try as therapy.

“On the first day playing pickleball, I went for a ball and my achilles went ‘pop’, so that was another two years of rehab,” he told me.

But did he give up? No, he didn’t. He plays pickleball multiple times a week now.

“I never played tennis again,” he said.

And as a former creative director in an advertising company, he has discovered he also likes rhyming about pickleball too.

Here’s another one of his poems.

While Carty is adept with the pickleball rhymes, he’s certainly not alone among the enthusiastic pickleballers who’ve written to MFTLB with their entries and stories.

People like Robert Canaan, a certified coach living in Rosarito Beach, Mexico.

“The limerick I’m sending is a small tribute to the retired older Americans I train here,” he wrote. His limerick:

Pickleballer Kathleen Gallegos, who plays with the Wickenburg Ranch Pickleball Club, in Arizona, said she was up to 1:30 writing pickleball limericks.

Gallegos gets extra points for getting in some product placement.

Other rhymers have also written limericks that mention pickleball pros. That’s good too. Here’s one by Delray Beach, Florida pickleballer Daniella Niss that pays homage to the South Florida pro Anna Bright.

The contest will continue for another couple weeks, with results being announced in the next Pickler newsletter.

We here in the poetry division of Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket will be working diligently to select the “winners.”

The first-place winner will get a copy of my book, “I Dink Therefore I Am: Coming to Grips with my Pickleball Addiction.”

The second-place winner will get two copies of the book. 

And some of the best poems readers have submitted will be passed along for your enjoyment in the upcoming newsletter.

Poems like this one from Jeff Rice, a pickleball player in West Palm Beach, Florida.

If you’d like to join the fun, please submit your limericks and something about your own pickleball adventure to frank@thepickler.com.

MURMURS FROM THE LOSERS’ BRACKET

Read past editions of Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket, including:

• The Ozempic Ad
• Ball On Court? Maybe Not
• The PPA, the APP and Monty Python
• Time to Get Help at Bangers Anonymous
• “It’s an Injury Sport”
• A Pickleball Translation Guide
• What’s Your Pickleball Nickname?
• Tennis the Menace
• Is There Such a Thing as “Pickleball Torture”?
• How to Be an Effective Pickleball Snob
• All You Need Is Glove
• The Lesson McDonald’s French Fries Have for Pickleball
• Tunes on the Court
• The Poetry of Empty Courts
• “Head Targeting” Rule Change Not a Brainy Idea
• Getting Beyond “Good Game”
• Why Are Pickleball Trophies Such a Big Deal?
• Stop Messing with the ATP
• When Discussions of Rules Turn Unruly
• A Former Pickleball Addict Speaks Out
• Separating the Drinkers from the Dinkers
• Turning Every Magazine into a Pickleball Magazine
• Zen and the Art of Pickleball Maintenance
• Spirited Pickleball Poetry
• Making Pickleball Less “Devastating” to Amateurs
• Finding Romance on the Pickleball Court: Top 10 Pickup Lines
• Sign of the Times: Pickleball License Plates
• Red Light, Green Light: Playing Traffic Cop on the Court
• The Pickler Limerick Challenge
  

Frank Cerabino is a long-time columnist for the Palm Beach Post in Florida, a pickleball addict like the rest of us, and a newly published author. Check out Frank’s newly released book, I Dink, Therefore I Am: Coming to Grips with My Pickleball Addiction (available on Amazon and a great read (or gift!) for any pickleball player), for pickleball tips and laughs!