Competition not limited to fields

Ping-pong table livens up clubhouse

FORT MYERS — It’s unclear what the exact purpose is, but a solitary ping-pong table has become the social and cultural center of the Red Sox clubhouse this spring.

Gone is David Ortiz, who was the center of all things in Fort Myers for most of the past 14 years. Gone, too, is the video game soccer competition that so many of the Latin players gravitated toward with cacophonous results the last few years.

This spring there’s a new clubhouse environment. Gone is the often eardrumbusting music, replaced by the quiet pursuit of a sport that favors hand-eye coordination and, in one evolution of the game, team work. Maybe that’s why it’s here?

It has been alleged that Dustin Pedroia was an early advocate of the table, but during the daily public period of play he mostly watches from the comfort of an easy chair. It would surprise no one if he was studying the opposition searching for an edge.

There are dangers to pingpong however that one might not normally expect in the average family room. Early one morning last week, Pedroia was nearly decapitated by an Eduardo Rodriguez slam as he was sipping on a coffee. Pedroia was spared by the things that have made him a four-time All-Star — quickness and a refusal to panic.

Instead of throwing his hands up in horror to try and block the speeding plastic ball and thus scalding himself, as most sportswriters would have likely done, Pedroia simply moved his head an inch or so to the left, slipping out of the ball’s way like a bantamweight boxer avoiding a hard jab with minimal disturbance to his equilibrium.

By most metrics, Rodriguez would be the No. 1 seed if joie de vivre were ping-pong’s measuring stick. No one seems as happy to be hitting — or missing — a ping-pong ball than the 23-yearold left-hander, but as a pingpong player he’ll never represent Venezuela in the World Ping Pong Championship.

This spring he has however become the master of disaster when it comes to the slam. Give him a perfectly set high ball and that baby is going to end up underneath the refrigerator. Returning a shot with his backhand? That’s a different story.

Joe Kelly is a regular at the table as well, coming at his opponents from a low crouch. He seems to win a lot, which brings with it an odd reward: the winners get to blast a ping-pong ball off the bare back of the loser.

When perfectly struck the sound is like the tip of a wet towel snapping off someone’s rear end. Very few Red Sox may know the biblical origin of Shakespeare’s phrase, “Oh, death where is thy sting?” but they know where the sting is this spring. Right in the back.

The saving grace for recipients of the loser’s penalty is twofold: first, it only stings for a second. Second, half the time the guy launching the ball is less accurate than Tim Tebow’s passing arm and the ball veers off course.

These daily games have evolved into several hybrids that world champion Yan Weihao might not recognize. One is a foursome in which the ball is played side-to-side more often than over the net. Surely there is a rationale for this but discerning it, even for some of the players, seems pretty taxing.

One Red Sox asked how long a ping-pong table would likely last in a pro football locker room. One will never know since one has never been there but the most likely answer is about 10 minutes, its demise resulting either from the crushing consequences of a diving defensive lineman’s effort to return a drop shot or an outraged assistant coach arriving with a chain saw and suggesting their time be better spent in the weight room. So goes the mindset of the two sports.

But like the spittoon, table tennis has its unique place in baseball. After all, hitting or catching a speeding spheroid wrapped in horsehide is far from a simple task, even though most of these guys make it look that way.

So who, you might wonder, would Vegas favor in a Sox ping-pong playoff? Mookie Betts would be highly seeded, his quickness and visual acuity as evident on the forehand as in the batter’s box. Pedroia would be a darkhorse because his game has been mostly kept under wraps. He’d be like a heavyweight from Honduras. No one would have much information on him.

Kelly would be a tough out and so would non-roster catcher Daniel Butler in a surprise. But of all ping-pong participants this spring the prohibitive favorite is outfielder Chris Young. Don’t bring him into your rec room trying to show off for your kids.

Young is a human backboard, returning one ball after another — ping, pong, ping, pong, pingpong, pingpong, pingpongpingpongpingpong. Point! One can only hope he hits baseballs with the same metronome-like consistency this summer.

Whether ping-pong brings together the 2017 Red Sox or causes somebody to pull an oblique muscle and hasten its disappearance, one thing is sure. It’s a better diversion on a sunny Sunday in March than Bobby Valentine’s fundamentals of baseball videos running on six TV screens. The only thing that cleared the clubhouse faster than the appearance of those things was the appearance of a sportswriter in the doorway.