This Is A Clear-Cut Case Of Marketing Run Amuck!

 

Years ago, when I was younger, I played a lot of Four Wall Handball. Still today I think that Handball was the greatest sport I ever tried my hand(s) at (no pun intended).

I used to think, when I got old, I would take up Racquetball. Handball player had a great dislike for Racquetball Players, Racquetball Racquets and Racquetballs.

We felt this way because they appeared overnight from out of nowhere. We played at the YMCA. There were only 2 courts but we never had a problem getting a court reserved when we wanted to play. Once Racquetball Players arrived on the scene there were so many of them that we had a hard time getting a court reserved.  They were very good at beating us to the reservation desk and they got the time slots reserved ahead of us.

To get right down to it, we also had no respect for their “sport”...

Ø The Racquetball Racquet made their reach longer.

Ø With this longer reach they did not have to run as much.

Ø Since they did not have to run as much they were not in great shape as we knew we were.

Ø Because of their longer reach they did not have to go crashing into the walls as much as we went crashing into walls.

Ø Because they did not crash into walls like we did they never left blood on the walls they did not crash into.

We thought why bother playing such a sport if you did not get to experience the extreme pleasure of the excruciating pain you would experience when you hit a ball wrong with your unprotected hand. (Actually it hurt a lot even when you hit it correctly with your unprotected hand.)

Racquetball Players never banged or scraped their hands into the wall trying to get to that impossible to get to shot from that lucky opponent you were playing. (It was at moments like this when we developed an extreme dislike for our opponents.)

Racquetball players never got the exhilaration of looking at their hand after a match and seeing a whole bunch of black and blue bruises (Definition of Bruises: Tender areas of skin discoloration caused by blood leaking from blood vessels damaged by pressure or impact).

We just knew we were in better shape than they were, we knew we would live longer than they would (This was a plus because, when they started dying, we could then get our time slots back) and we knew our bellies were flatter than their bellies were.

Regarding the 3 “knews” in the above paragraph...We Were, We Would and They Were.

The Bottom Line Before The Bottom...We Thought They Were Sissies.

************

Finally I am getting around to the Subject Title of this Blog Posting... “This Is A Clear-Cut Case Of Marketing Run Amuck!”

Back in California in the 1990s, long before I got old, I did play some Racquetball. I succumbed because there were no Handball Players in the gated community where I lived. I bought my own Racquetball Racquet and it has been hanging in my garages ever since.

I held onto it all these years because of the Features Card that came with the Racquet which told me of all the wonders of my Racquetball Racquet.

My Dear Readers, I now give you the Lying Promo Words that came with my Dust Covered Hanging In My Garage Racquet...

Dare To Discover The Player You Could Be

Our racquets excel in every facet of the game, each has also been “turbo charged” in particular qualities to maximize each player’s strength and style.

For the power player daring enough to summon the ultimate force in racquetball, capable of blasting all opponents to smithereens.

This is Fella...Remember the word “Smithereens”.

For the shot-maker and pacesetter who deftly delivers searing, precision zingers that are unrelenting in their pacesetting game of attrition, punishing opponents on a torturous tour over every inch of the court.

For the counter-punching, shot-making maestro calling on catlike quickness and defensive wizardry to bedevil the opponent into disbelieving bewilderment and frustration.

If there is a jail for Exaggeration, the guy who wrote this over the top Description of this Racquet’s Destructive Powers would be in Jail. Not only that he would be Solitary Confinement in that jail.

If one day a guard said to the warden, “We can’t find the key to the Lying Racquet Composer’s Solitary Confinement Cell!”. 

The warden would probably reply, “  he ain’t ever getting outa Solitary Confinement!”

It is frightening to think about the possibility of 2 players buying this Weapon of Destruction Racquet and playing a game against each other. If these racquets lived up to the Manufacturer’s Exaggerated Hype, at the end of the match there would be...

No Smithereens Left Standing

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: One night as my Cousin Leon and I left the YMCA he said to me, "Handball is like hitting yourself in your head with a hammer. It feels so good when you quit." My Cousin always did have a way with words.