One City's Mystery Pickleball Hater Is Vandalizing Courts and Equipment
Pickleball's explosion in popularity in recent years hasn't come without its fair share of pushback. Many people who live near courts are sick of the constant popping sounds, for example, while others are annoyed that spaces in parks are being cleared or renovated to accommodate pickleball courts.
One New York City resident has apparently had enough and is taking it into their own hands. In the past week, players at Riverside Park in Manhattan have shown up to the courts to find nets cut up, poles thrown in the trash, and garbage bags filled with pickleball equipment. Police and players confirmed to local outlet West Side Rag that it's happened three different times in less than a week. He appears to be deliberately targeting the pickleball operation, although his exact motivations remain unknown.
On the morning of May 18, players showed up at the courts and found a man who had taken down all five nets as well as several ball barriers and stacked the poles on the side of the court. When confronted, the man took off.
"The nets are not easy or meant to be taken apart," Riverside Park pickleball courts organizer Elizabeth Shapiro told West Side Rag. "It must have taken him hours to take them apart and stack them all up."
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They set everything back up, but the newly erected nets didn't last long. The next morning, three players arrived at the courts and found the nets and poles had disappeared entirely. Mark Hurst and the two players he was with began searching the area for the missing equipment.
"I later discovered the poles all in a garbage bag on the middle (promenade) level of the park," Hurst said. "The bag was dumped amidst 19 other garbage bags that were full of leaves, twigs, and dirt. Fortunately I was able to see the shape of the poles in the bag and retrieve it."
It was a group effort that required scouring the whole area to track down all the missing pieces. While they were able to find the nets, they were cut up and everything found was "pretty much unusable." On May 20, the pickleball hater seemingly struck for the third day in a row, with more equipment missing.
"The assumption on the first day was this guy was trying to steal the equipment and sell it, but the next day it became clear he’s just a vandal who is being really destructive and disruptive," Shapiro said.
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An NYPD representative was unable to immediately comment to Men's Journal when reached by phone, but West Side Rag reports that officers said unknown individual "did dismantle and damage pickleball nets in Riverside Park" and a report for criminal mischief was filed, but no arrests have been made. Meanwhile, the local pickleballers are using portable nets that they're locking up at the site.
It's hardly the only pickleball-related incident in the city. Last year, a turf war broke out in Manhattan's Community Board Eight on the tony Upper East Side, where residents sparred over pickleball courts taking over open space in a local park. Local outlet Upper East Site first reported the news. Meanwhile, The New York Post reported on a 2022 pickleball battle in the West Village with similar problems. Still, they largely involved community complaints and light police involvement, rather than outright vandalism.
"People have been stepping up and showing up early to set things up and staying late to lock things up," Shapiro said of the Upper West Side vandalism. "People have been donating money to a fund that was used for the new equipment."
The moral of the story here is that where there's a will, pickleballers will find a way.
