Is your MLB team out of it? Not very excited about your college football or NFL team’s prospects? Maybe you should take up fistball which most word processors don’t even recognize as a real word, even though the sport even has national teams competing in a World Cup.
It’s kind of like volleyball without a net but played on a soccer like field. I was brought over by German immigrants half a century ago and is getting HUGE in Wisconsin. Will it spread here from the cheeseheads who love it up north?
Here’s more on the sport from ESPN.com (with demonstration video)
makes spectators want to ask, “Did you make this game up?”
But no joke, this a serious, speedy sport played in Europe and Brazil, with a small, fervent following in the United States. The USA national team will play in the International Fistball Association World Cup in Austria beginning Aug. 7.
Fistball is made up of two five-a-side teams, pummeling a ball for two 12-minute halves on a 50- by 20-meter field, half the size of an FA regulation soccer pitch. Balls can bounce once between hits, up to three times per possession, as each team’s aim is to put it across the rope so the opponent fails to return.
Defensive player David Kleist, 26, puts it a different way. “You take volleyball and merge it with tennis. But on grass, like at Wimbledon.”
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site that generates millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports You can follow him on Twitter