Teach me the hardbat ways

Hey guys,

Thanks for the advice mjamja. I think we'll probably get the OFF- version since we have good ball feel and control in general. It seems like a limited selection of rubber but ideally we'd go for whichever is easiest to transition from the sponge game. The DR Evil claims to be that.

mjamja thanks for the advice. I'm sure a lot of it will just be getting the racket and trying things out and using our experience in the game to apply it to the new conditions. If anyone else has any advice about things to know for USATT Nationals hardbat play (rules/regulations etc) that would be great to hear. Thanks.

I recommend the following.
Blades> Hunter Hawk, Valor Big Stick or American Chopper, Old Hock 3-ply (if you can find one), Nittaku Resist, TSP Yanagi 3-ply, Joola Tony Hold White Spot. These blades are flexible with huge control. I even loop with my Hunter Hawk with nice spin.

Rubbers> Butterfly Orthodox, Yasaka A-1-2, Yasaka Cobalt, Valor Premier, or get Classique from Coles TT cheap.

cole_ely wrote: " any blade that is not intended for recreational play and pre-manufactured with already affixed rubber is permissible" You lost me on that one, Berndt.  Can anyone elaborate?

Yeah.  I can, I think.  You can't use a Sportcraft or a Stiga or a Martin-Kilpatrick racket with rubber already affixed to it at the U.S. Nationals or U.S. Open.  You may, however, at the discretion of a tournament organizer at a tournament other than these use such a racket if the tournament organizer gives his/her approval or if there are not enough hard rubber rackets for everyone who wishes to play in a hard rubber event or events.

I believe "Classique" from Coles TT is not approved yet.

Yes.

We must go back to the hardbat days.
To the fine old rare old hardbat ways
When every town had a hardbat store:
You could buy a hardbat for three bucks--no more.

When every home had a ping pong table;
You could play hardbat with your girlfriend Mable.
You could play hardbat in a Studebaker.
You could play hardbat with the local shoe maker.
You could play hardbat with the town undertaker.
You could even play hardbat with your moneymaker.

Wives, daughters, sisters, fathers, mothers
All played hardbat with one anothers.
Not to mention with their little brothers.

Hardbat was infectious, once you took the plunge.
Then out of the blue, along came sponge.

And now we live in the Age of Tenergy
Which saps both money, time, and energy.

berndt_mann wrote: We must go back to the hardbat days. To the fine old rare old hardbat ways...

berndt_mann, are you real, or are you just Marty Reisman's spirit reincarnated?

Tassie52 wrote: berndt_mann wrote: In days of old, when knights were bold, Ere sponge had been invented, Bold Robin Hood and Little John Played hardbat, quite contented... The game has changed beyond repair, And this be true whether hip or square. Lovely work, but ... still only your opinion. In all seriousness, I really hate it when people state their personal opinions as facts.  As much as you love hardbat - and as much as I enjoy playing it too - reality is that your opinions on the state of the game remain nothing more than your opinions.  Dressing your opinions up in poetry or quoting with great erudition on the history of the sport doesn't give your personal preferences any greater claim to truth than anyone else's. Just because you think it's broke doesn't make it broke.

Well what would you have me say, Tassie 52?

The game has changed, just my opinion,
But supported by those in my dominion.

Come now.  Or how about:

The game has changed, or so me thinks;
I think the present situation stinks.

Let's try:

The game has changed; there are new rules.
Does the ITTF (in its opinion, of course) consider us fools?

Reality is that every contributor to this forum's opinion on the state of the sport is subjective, be it inclined towards bias or prejudice regarding 2016 table tennis or 1946 table tennis.  

And just because you may think glued, boosted, tensored, long pipped, antispun, foul serving, chaos at lower levels, Chopin's Minute Waltz at world class levels table tennis is just fine does not necessarily in my opinion make this version of table tennis either hunky or dory.


Edited by berndt_mann - 02/22/2016 at 5:59am

There are far more table tennis players and spectators worldwide today than there ever were in the hardbat era...and a 1000x times more table tennis tournaments of all levels are being held worldwide than in the hardbat era.  The hardbat popularity myth is just a myth.

The recent US Olympic Trials didn't have very many spectators.

berndt_mann wrote:

...too funny.

roundrobin wrote: berndt_mann wrote: As if these guys could outnumber all the spectators at the WTTC final rounds, countless Pro Tours finals and Olympics finals for the past twenty years.  And this hardbat match was played in a HOTEL for crying out loud.  Not even a real sport.

So....these were cardboard mannequins, not even real people, international table tennis could not have possibly been played in hotels eight decades ago, and there were no Men's and Women's Singles World Championships.  Victor Barna, Miklos Szabados, Laszlo Bellak, Sandor Glancz, Sol Schiff, Jimmy McClure, Lou Pagliaro and Buddy Blattner, whom I suspect were participants in this imaginary event, were all figments of my fevered imagination, as there was no such sport as table tennis in 1935, and if there was such a thing, it wasn't a sport anyway, because spectators watched it in ballrooms (or Wembley Stadium in London, for example), and anyone who wanted to watch this nonexistent sport had to learn about an international event such as that depicted in the picture above by the mythical Mr. Boggan through word of mouth, radio, or newspapers.

The hardbat gods and goddesses of the pagan past of this now wonderful sport with all its magical events, filled stadiums, and scientific scintillation are shaking their heads in deep amaze.  Too funny.

Table tennis began in 1988 when the Olympics recognized it as an Olympic Sport.  Or maybe with the 40 mm. ball.  Or maybe with the 11-point game.  Or maybe with boosters replacing speed glues.  Or maybe it'll be a real sport once the ITTF comes up with a new diabolically lackadaisical plan to muck it up once more. 


Edited by berndt_mann - 02/23/2016 at 8:53am