By Mark Peifer, USA Pickleball Certified Referee; Past Chairman, USA Pickleball Rules Committee
QUESTION: I was playing in a recreational game without a referee. Just as I was about to hit the ball, my opponent screamed, “Miss it!”. I called a distraction fault on them. My partner informed me that we cannot enforce distraction faults on our opponents. It turns out he is correct, but why is that the case? Why don’t the rules allow me to call such a blatant fault on my opponent?
ANSWER: Every person has a different threshold for what is a distraction. Just because something is distracting to someone does not mean it meets the definition of a distraction fault. With such a wide difference among players for what constitutes a distraction, vast disagreements would ensue.
Even the way the question is asked introduces some ambiguity. You say it was “screamed”, but would the person who allegedly ‘screamed’ “miss it!” agree, or would they say they didn’t even yell it, let alone scream it? They might very well say they only said it to their partner, and it was only in a talking voice. If opponents can’t even agree when or how the words “miss it” were delivered, there’s little chance opponents would agree on whether a distraction, as defined in the Rulebook (Rule 3.A.7), actually occurred. Distractions involve physical actions that are ‘not common to the game’. From experience, there is very little agreement among even advanced players on what actions are and are not ‘common to the game’. Those are a couple of reasons why only referees (and the person who allegedly caused the distraction) can call distraction faults.
But that begs the question, ‘What recourse do you have if this happens to you’? If I was convinced a referee would call a distraction fault if a referee had been present, then a possible course of action would include:
Me catching the ball, stopping play. And yes, I realize it’s a fault to catch the ball. However, catching the ball is inconsequential if I was genuinely distracted.
And then I’d say, “You know, in all likelihood, when you said “miss it’ (notice that I’m purposely avoiding the word ‘screamed’ because I don’t want to argue whether it was screamed or not) while I was making my shot, that would have likely been called a distraction fault if we had a referee here. How would you like to handle this?”
Without them realizing it, I’m forcing them to either admit the fault or consider the options available on page 1 of the Rulebook under ‘The Players,’ the fourth bullet down the list, which all players should know.
At that point, we are at an impasse. Their alleged distraction fault vs my fault for catching the ball. The most likely outcome in that case? A replay.
