April 14, 2002

7:20 PM

When my brother-in-law and a few of his friends started playing a game they called Extreme Croquet, they thought they were the only people doing it. Wrong. Very wrong. This particular brand of craziness has been going on for a long time. I have to admit, though, it is fun.
posted by yhbc (19 comments total)

Full disclosure - I’m on the “Board of Regents” (such as it is) of the said in-law’s club, although I don’t have anything to do with the actual site. Still, I was worried that a link to a brother-in-law’s site might violate the “no self-links” rule, so I e-mailed Matt first. He said go ahead.
posted by yhbc at 7:20 PM on April 14, 2002

Hmmmm....I blame Heathers
posted by jonmc at 7:29 PM on April 14, 2002

I prefer extreme ironing.
posted by muckster at 7:43 PM on April 14, 2002

That doesn't sound like a *huge* conflict of interest or anything..
posted by Settle at 9:18 PM on April 14, 2002

You can't be too careful, Settle. I didn't want to get hauled into MetaTalk or anything.
posted by yhbc at 9:25 PM on April 14, 2002

yhbc- That's a great picture. Kinda reminds me of a family reunion. I've saved it and will someday write an appropriate email to attach it to. Thank you.
posted by scottymac at 9:45 PM on April 14, 2002

Hey, if I can't be hauled into metatalk, you need not worry.

That's a beautiful photgraph, btw.
posted by Settle at 10:03 PM on April 14, 2002

*grin*

Thanks.

damn, I've derailed [joke] my own thread.
posted by yhbc at 10:10 PM on April 14, 2002

Time to roquet yhbc, then?

I and one friend used to play a self-invented version of this, with the idea sparked by reading about speed chess. Around the same time I also invented killer parchesi, with rules *requiring* bumping other players back to go if your die roll allowed it. Pretty fast-paced and brutal. But nobody else wanted to play it.
posted by dhartung at 10:15 PM on April 14, 2002

When I was a kid we played extreme croquet in the neighboring woods. It wasn't extreme anything then, we just had more fun than playing on the lawn.

Me though, I'm waiting to see extreme golf. Not like this but more like extreme croquet where the course is not ultra manicured grass growing in completely unatural places.
posted by Dick Paris at 11:37 PM on April 14, 2002

Had a couple of links in there but they went all wacky in the preview and did not post.
posted by Dick Paris at 11:38 PM on April 14, 2002

My friends and I thought that death-match Putt-Putt would be good too, but it seems that one actually needs to create a team, rules and a venue that resides outside ones head to get it off the ground.

Cheerio to the Extreme Croquet Crew!
posted by readymade at 12:35 AM on April 15, 2002

I played croquet all last summer on a 20 degree pitch with some interesting results. This summer I plan on playing at my best friends wedding on the roof of his loft in Brooklyn. I love the extreme site, puts this site to shame.
posted by anathema at 4:45 AM on April 15, 2002

Dick Paris: here's extreme golf.
posted by yhbc at 6:34 AM on April 15, 2002

Even regular lawn croquet can be pretty brutal. I remember kids being in tears after having their ball "rocketed" halfway across the next door neigbor's yard, rolling through a pile of dog shit on the way. Fun!

My own yard has more in common with a nature preserve than a conventional yard, so I'm going to try this. Thanks for the inspiration.
posted by groundhog at 7:06 AM on April 15, 2002

Try Beer Croquet instead. The actual rules are somewhat hazy to me, but IIRC it goes like this:

The Croquet field is set up as usual but a case of beer bottles is placed more or less randomly on the field.

Every time someone finishes a beer he/she tosses it on the field. You are allowed to aim your toss, but not to place the bottle.

If someone hits a bottle with ball, mallet or body, he/she has to drink. But you may toss the bottle elsewhere from where you stand.

If you hit another ball with your own ball, that player has to drink.

If you hit the case you have to drink an entire beer.

You can croquet other balls anytime.

Other than that, the game is played with the ordinary tournament rules for lawn croquet.

hmmm... that's about it.
posted by cx at 7:49 AM on April 15, 2002

Speaking of weird, made-up games that we used to play.

TOIDY-BALL
The dorms we lived in had two rooms joined by a bathroom. The bathroom had a door at each end with a relatively narrow area for the sink/mirrors. In Toidy-ball, we used to used to position a person at each door as a goalie. The goal of the game was to get the tennis ball past the goalie, through the door. Extra points if the ball happened to land in the toilet. Optional 4-player mode was to have a teammate stand in the narrow "play-area" to act as a forward and/or extra goalie. Points were scored if you hit the opposing team's forward with the tennis ball.

CONE-BALL
A kind of screwed-up Lacrosse, we used to use orange plastic safety road-cones as a type of Lacrosse stick. Teams of how ever many people divided by two with coats and hats marking the field and goals. The tennis ball couldn't be touched with the hands but could be kicked hackey-sack style. The cone was the perfect shape for hurling the tennis ball some hefty distances. Tacking was optional and usually depended on how much snow was on the ground (quite a lot usually).
posted by mrbarrett.com at 8:42 AM on April 15, 2002

knuckleball
Best played in a small room with t-shirts on. Ball is any small hacky-sack sized object, often a rolled up ball of tape. Bottom hem of tshirt is grasped with both hands and used to both catch the ball and launch the ball at other players. If a catch is missed the failed catcher may be hit with a closed fist above the belt and below the neck until he retrieves the ball and yells 'knuckleball'. If a throw was particularly bad the thrower may instead recieve the blame and gameplay proceeds the same way. If the person retrieving the ball is hit above the neck or below the belt, he may cry foul and freely return one hit (above belt, below neck).

We played this in high school jazz band, the teacher would be working with the horn section and the rhythm section (guitar, bass, drums) would go in practice room C and instead of practicing we'd beat up on each other. Actually we reached a kind of gentlemens agreement where nobody would hit too hard. If someone hit you harder, you'd do it right back, while still being 'nice' to the rest of your buddies. What really sucked was the days you wore button up shirts and ended up ripping buttons out trying to catch the knuckleball.
posted by mutagen at 10:39 AM on April 15, 2002

Beer croquet sounds like a bitch to clean up.

We used to play Strip Wiffleball. Remove one article of clothing for each of your own personal outs. If you hit a home run, you could put the clothing item of your choice back on. First team naked loses.

Because we also used to play "Plate Golf" which was kind of like disc golf, except consisted for throwing plates from a third story window and various targets on the street, shoes were usually the last article of clothing shed during Strip Wiffleball.
posted by jennyb at 11:02 AM on April 15, 2002