What is a basement athlete you ask? Here is my definition.
Being a basement athlete means that you play and love basement sports. Basement sports are not limited to the basement as the name would make it sound. A sport like “wiffle ball” for example is played outside yet clearly can be defined as a basement sport. Basment Sports are generally somewhat quirky and off beat, though most of them are very enjoyable. The tentative and growing list of Basement Sports is as follows…
Ping-Pong
Pool/Billiards
Foosball
Wiffle Ball
Miniature Golf
It’s not enough to just play these sports. You must be passionate about them, and quite skilled in at least one of them.
Sometimes it’s not easy to tell if you are a true “Bathlete”. Here are some sure signs (all of which I am guilty of) that you too can be considered a Basement Athlete.
1. While visiting family in Michigan you once proclaimed that you would “show them how New Englanders play foosball.”
2. You and your groomsmen held a ping pong tournament after your wedding rehearsal dinner. You won.
3. You are convinced that your expensive ping pong paddle makes a huge difference.
4. You have referred to a game of any basement sport as “epic”.
5. You have taped up a wiffle ball bat.
6. When talking about wiffle ball, you once declared that you were the “biggest power hitter in the whole church.”
7. You have at one point or another bemoaned the fact that you were in a wiffle ball “slump”.
8. You once asked the owner of a miniature golf course if he knew what the course record was.
9. You have ever done this.
So there you go. My best attempt to define what it really takes to be a Basement Athlete. Did you make the grade?
To clean my basement would be classified as an athletic event. I’m guessing that I do not make the grade….?
Hey I have a suggestion to add to the official list of Basement Sports. How about Badminton? It’s always been one of my favorites and I was just wondering if it makes the cut.
I can pretty much check off everything on that list that has to do with wiffle ball and mini-golf… I’m pretty sure you were there for most of it too.
I’d like to remind you that you could never hit my high and inside fastball or low and away splitter and that I beat you in pretty much every home run derby we had… but when it came to an actual game of wiffle ball you almost always won…
And of course, we played with a tennis ball…
Miniature golf was definitely epic…
No, no, no, no. Badminton is not a basement game. It’s a sissy game that all self-respecting bathletes reject.
I played basketball in my 7 foot tall basement and baseball on my pool table. (Don’t ask.)
The only way I can give you a pass on badminton is if you ran an entire major league schedule for at least two years with your Strat-O-Matic game set.
But then I’m not the Basement Athletics Commissioner; Adam is. See what he says.
Bill you are a dear friend, but I have to side with Dr. Bauman on this one. Badminton is not a basement sport. It is a game that some Basement Athletes choose to play. It falls into a category with croquet. That category is lawn games that victorian women play.
I love anything competitive, but I can’t imagine myself becoming passionate about badminton.
Ultimate Frisbee – Basement Sport?
Ultimate Frisbee is being discussed at the moment. I personally love it. The only problem would be is that it’s verging on a real sport!
It’s definitely the sport being considered the most for an addition to the list!
Badminton a baseball sport? Why not add Pretty Pretty Princess or Twister???
Shuffleboard is a worthy basement sport (the bar kind, not the old person kind).
Would Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero be a basement sport (or any sports video game for that matter)? I have hear just as much if not more trash talk and boast about these activities than bubble hockey.
How about Horseshoes? Seems like a basement athlete-y time of game.
does madden count we play it on the big screen in the basement?
but i do partake in pool or in our case extreme crampage pool
Horse shoes counts only if you play it in the basement — on the pool table, and keep records for two or more seasons (and can throw equally well with either hand — or with just one if you throw overhand).
Adam is right — if Victorian women play ever played your game it means you’re a sissy, not a bathlete.
Men used to be men (It was before my time)
Mike, the pool we play in the basement is crazy. I love that we play with the kids stick half the time.
Madden is a confusing one. My purest basement athletics senses would want to say no, but I can’t deny that it certainly breeds the competitiveness that Bathletes so enjoy.