When pickleball was invented on a badminton court in Washington State in 1965, it was played with table tennis equipment. The game soon graduated to perforated plastic balls and one of its inventors, Barney McCallum, fashioned a simple wood paddle—the M2—that became the sport’s longtime standard. Flash forward almost 60 years: the game is the fastest growing sport in America and the equipment choices are vast and often expensive.
Paddle buyers are now presented with options that include carbon and fiberglass bodies in various thicknesses, with foam cores and a choice of facings and shapes. Accordingly, prices have soared with the most expensive in the $250 range. In 2019, faced with a market that seemed to present a new latest-thing every six months, Braydon Unsicker, an Oregonian player, created pickleballeffect.com,…
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Cigar Aficionado (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2025