Oddsports: Freakyball
Versión en español en http://lidercorp.org.mx
The world of sports has widened today, if such thing is possible, with the arrival of the glorious sport of Freakyball (Frikibol, in Spanish).
This sport was invented in ancient times, more precisely on Thursday, 21st of February, 2008, while The Big Cheese and The Top Banana were as bored as an oyster on low tide. They decided to invent a game that allowed both to fight boredom, but, alas, the only available material were the handle of a broom and a tennis ball. What kind of game would you possible play with those things? The Big Cheese, a man of the renaissance, suddenly figured that he could hang the broom handle between the window and the wall of a narrow corridor, and because the broom handle was just long enough to be left in a precarious equilibrium, any ball that hit it would cause it to fall in a loud and deafening way.
So the Big Cheese took the south side and the Top Banana took the north side, they hanged the broom handle and tried to hit the handle to make it fall. Soon they started to hit the floor and try to hit the handle with the rebound, and thus the sport was born. Each player tries to bounce the ball to hit the broom handle and make it fall, and if he can’t, the other player will try to do it. Each time the broom handle falls, the players will move back twenty to forty centrimetres, or a floor tile measurement. The ball must bounce before it hit the broom handle, or else the point will be no good. The corridor must be narrow but long, about a metre by twenty, to be able to play increased difficulty games. Our freakyball court has increased obstacles to make it even more addictive and difficult: there’s a table with a toolbox on it, five doors, three windows, a telephone cable hanging over the players and an inclined ceiling with light bulbs on the side. Such array makes almost impossible for spectators to appreciate the beauty of the game, but even with our current setup, up to 6 spectators can appreciate the game: two standing on the north behind the player, and four on the south, sitting on the staircase.
The scoring is simple: each broom handle you throw away counts as a point, and the first player to score ten points wins the set. In championships, the first player to score ten sets wins the game. To make the game even more competitive during championships, the player that loses a set, any set, will be replaced by another player, usually the ones that also act as the audience. The players do not need to win ten sets in a row, but just to win ten sets in order to be proclaimed the champion.
Penalties are simple: if a player hits his opponent on purpose, let’s say in his nuts, the opponent has the right to hit the offending player in his nuts or in another place that hurts as much. If the opponent was hit by the ball during a play and not in purpose, say as a result of a failed catch, it’s not a fault. Freakyball can be played by all the world, regardless of sex, age, race or social status, with the possible exception of people that has problems to watch and catch the ball. It is recommended to have spare balls to turn the game more agile. Chinese fancy bouncing balls are recommended in championships because they add an extra complexity layer to the game, especially if they have been modified to resemble the Death Star: it causes them to bounce almost at random.
Therefore, as a result of this, these, those and that, The GEEK will organize soon the First World Championships of Freakyball, as soon as we have an adequate stadium and have the budget to organize it.
Enjoy.
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