CROQUET NEWS:  A Blood Sport? No Sweat. Try Croquet!

23 July 2006
Croquet Club of Vermont, Woodstock, Vermont, USA
by Chris Bohjalian in Burlington Free Press, Burlington, Vermont, USA
photo by Park-McCullough Archives, North Bennington, Vermont, USA

Park-McCullough is situated in the rolling hills of Southern Vermont, and its historic buildings remain in their original 600 acre context.

Now that the World Cup is over and Americans once more are returning soccer to its rightful spot as our most favorite sport after curling, I have to ask: Why hasn't croquet become bowling for the new millennium?

Make no mistake, I like bowling. And I like soccer, too. Personally, I think soccer would be more interesting if the players used a bowling ball instead of a soccer ball. It would sure make those headers a lot more exciting. And there couldn't possibly be less scoring.

In any case, I had the chance to play croquet the other night, and I was reminded of just how much I love that game. It has everything a sport should have: A ball capable of breaking a glass window; rules that encourage malevolent, antisocial behavior; and plenty of down time when it isn't your turn to drink beer. Or wine. Or frozen margaritas.

Just for the record, I didn't see any of the American World Cup soccer stars hoisting back a cold beer during their matches. In hindsight, it might have helped.

Best of all, croquet is one of those sports in which it is impossible to work up a sweat. It is, in this regard, the exact opposite of soccer, where you have to run till you die.

And unlike bowling, you don't have to wear creepy shoes to play croquet or find a bowling alley. You can play croquet in any yard that has a patch of grass that is even remotely flat. (Actually, some folks don't need even that. Players who savor "extreme croquet" actually search for terrain that is rocky, hilly or marshy -- which means there is no crevice or crevasse in the Green Mountains where you couldn't play the game.)

Now, some Vermonters take croquet more seriously than others. My friends Reed and Lisa Prescott recently bought a croquet set that looks like it belongs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Croquet Club of Vermont has regular matches at the Woodstock Health and Fitness Center. And, apparently, some passionate aficionados actually gather in their croquet whites on Thursday nights in the summer at the Park-McCullough Estate in North Bennington.

Some people have asked me why croquet players wear white. And the answer is simple: Croquet is a vicious sport, and white shows the blood better. This is also, in my opinion, why it's more fun than bowling. Let's face it, in bowling, you never have a chance to send your opponent's ball into the next county. You do in croquet. In bowling, you are always alternating turns. No one ever rolls more than three boulders -- er, balls -- in a row. In croquet, a good player may traverse five or six wickets in a single turn, slowing only because his friends will hit him with their mallets if he doesn't stop.

I have seen my next-door neighbor, Rudy Cram, polish off a game in two or three turns. Rudy is the Michael Jordan of croquet. It's not just that he makes the game look effortless; after all, anyone who doesn't make the game look effortless needs defibrillation. It's that he handles a croquet mallet with the precision of a heart surgeon. It's that he is capable of hitting a croquet ball the length of an aircraft carrier. It's that he is so accurate he could split an atom -- not merely a wicket. Consequently, his turns last longer than rain-delayed baseball games, and when Rudy plays, we all have plenty of time to drink. And think. And wonder why wickets get sticky.

No one, of course, thinks a whole lot while bowling. If you're thinking anything at all, you're wondering why people who bowl together weekly need to have their names sewn onto their shirts. (Answer? Beer.)

It's this unique combination of malice and sloth and intellectual rigor that makes croquet great -- and why I believe that someday croquet could replace bowling as the perfect activity for everyone who wants a sport that allows them to be completely inactive.