Why Hardbat?

Like other sports and industries, table tennis equipment has evolved over the decades. From humble beginnings, the racket composition and surface rubbers have become complex and dynamic. Multi-ply exotic woods, intermixed with carbon and/or Arylate; tacky high-tensioned rubber on sponge; even the glue used to attach the sponge rubber to racket is chemically modified to enhance the producible spin and speed.

And so the old pimpled "rec room" paddles have been long-since thrown into dust bin? Not quite. A healthy contingent of club playing individuals have brushed off the dust and debris from between the crevices of these near-forgotten relics of table tennis history and are currently enjoying the game as it was played over half a century ago.

What would cause reasonably rational table tennis players to eschew the modern equipment technology and embrace rubber commonly found on rackets 50 years ago? In their own words ...

Ed Ball, Chief Instructor, Hardbat International:

Hardbat table tennis is where it is at. And this is where I am.

Modern inverted sponge players tease me about my Hardbat a lot because to them it is retro, but to me it is like my trademark. It is how people know me.

I first started playing hardbat in 1997 to make others aware of Mr. Bob Gusikoff's plight in West Los Angeles. Here's a table tennis legend who not only excelled in the game --1959 US Open Champ, represented the U.S.A. in the Worlds two times--but also invested his last $20,000 into perhaps one of the best table tennis clubs of all times (Mr. Gusikoff's Columbia Studios club, Hollywood, CA). With the sponge skewed clique' making the big decisions in this area, five dollars and Bob Gusikoff's legacy will get him a cup cappuccino at Starbucks.

After playing the Classic Hardbat a few times, I fell in love with the game: I love the longer rallies, the chop, and, most important, the P-E-O-P-L-E. Playing The Classic Game gave me a new sense of empowerment, to escape who and where I was. I had no real future with the sponge game whereas with the Classic Game, I had possibilites. This game relies on technique, not equipment to generate power. After spending over ten grueling years of training in a top Shotokan karate school, I had a leg up on the competition for I know how to generate power with the hips instead of using the upper body as most people who haven't had this kind of comprehensive training do.

The Hardbat renaissance allowed me to reinvent myself: In early 1998, my naive idea was to become--without the violence, of course-- a modern-day Mushashi of table tennis; however, unexpected hegemonic forces were working behind the scenes to put a bump in my road. The plebs and the petty bourgeoisie would orchestrate my being ostracized from the Game on the Westside through trumped-up charges. The ostensible reason for my ostracism was that I'm a troublemaker; however, the real reason was that I went against a certain local club director's grain by writing to higher authorities about his uncontrolled-indoor-regluing fetish at a USATT club. My Hardbat activism, too, would be bad for his Tip Top glue sales if I was successful.

That the overly educated, blind, opinion monopolizers who control our Sport don't think Hardbat is cool, aren't empressed at all, but rather condemn it, only enhances its overall appeal.

Being a hardbat revolutionary at Santa Monica College has been very challenging. And, it is hoped very profitable: I'm presently writing a fictionalized screenplay based on my personal experiences dealing with the hegemonic forces that have hijacked our game.

Thank The Supreme Power of Godhead that cooler heads prevail at Santa Monica College (and within the USATT) than those within the the venal, sinister forces who have put profit before the aesthetic appeal of the Game, before our members' mental and physical health (regluing is an attack with a deadly weapon; the "glue game" is too stressful -- too much deception).

Anyone wanting to help Bob Gusikoff with his doctor bills can send your donations ($5, okay) to Ed Ball, P.O. Box 207 Santa Monica, CA 90406. Please make checks out to "Bob Gusikoff" and good things will happen to you. (Checks over a $100 can be made out to "Hardbat" if that makes more sense to you.) We will be having a Gusikoff Cup at the 2005 U.S. Open, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, July 7-10. We need sponsors to put up prize money/prizes to attract the flagship players. Please call Hardbat International at (310) 967 5844 or email gusikoff1959@gmail.com if you are interested in donating, competing in the event or taking a Hardbat lesson (Our instructors are cutting edge, USATT instructors.) Paddle Palace has donated $100 in gift certificates ($10 increments) to help Bob. These standard Paddle Palace certificates would make excellent Christmas/birthday presents for your Level Two people. Please call Hardbat International, if you are interested. Hardbat International cares.

Al Papp:

Photo by John Oros

I switched to hardbat a few years ago and it is all Lorin Benedict's fault. I had been playing the sponge game for about two years before switching, and sort of figured out two shots -- a forehand loop and a backhand push. I had become frustrated with the game mainly because of the deceptive elements that players regularly used. Deceptively spinny serves were the most frustrating. I kept missing very slow-moving balls that I could easily reach! Since I mostly enjoyed running around retrieving hits, the game got to be a real bore for me.

One day Lorin Benedict showed up with two hardbats that he had purchased from Don Varian at Hock Table Tennis. On that fateful day he let me try out his spare hardbat and I never went back after that! I kept his spare until I could get my own hardbat. I called Don Varian at Hock and he set me up with a Hock 3-Ply racket. Oh bliss!

Since switching to full-time hardbat a few years ago, my table tennis skills have improved a bit but my enjoyment of the game has increased tremendously. I have learned how to chop thanks to Hermann Luechinger and I play a balanced all-around game of defense and offense. All of the shot retrieving keeps me happily scrambling about. I enjoy the tension build-up of long rallies and positional play so I guess I am a natural for an all-around hardbatter.

I saved the best benefit of playing hardbat for last -- meeting lots of really interesting new friends who share the obsession. I always look forward to meeting up with the Northern California regulars for our periodic Hardbat Fests, and particularly enjoy the gluttonous Chinese-food dinners that we inevitably partake in afterwards. I will never forget my first conversation with Marty Reisman (he was very interested to find out that I was a computer scientist who hadn't yet been lobotomized) or the fun I had traveling around Europe with Scott and Hermann, where we met up and made friends with Hardbatters in a few different countries. It was really cool meeting Chuck Hoey in person and seeing his legendary ping pong collection, now housed at the ITTF headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. I always look forward to the US Nationals in December, not so much for the ping pong, but moreso because I love hanging out for a bunch of days with the hardbat crowd. The range of hardbatter-attended activities borders on the bizarre: renditions of Danny Boy during meals; a pre-match spontaneous recital of a Shakespeare soliloquy; an engaging story-telling session from a piano virtuoso; a visit to the impressionist art exhibits; getting educated on machine tool theory; and far too many all-you-can-eat buffets. Of course, when these activities aren't keeping us occupied, there is always the hardbat play going on all day long.

Scott "Snowman" Johnson:

Hardbat is a great way to learn correct technique and footwork. I'm sixteen years of age and have been playing for just over three years. Why hardbat over sponge? It's simple, hardbat is more fun and is more like tennis. Don't get me wrong, I can play with the glued up sponge rubbers and earn more easy points but it doesn't feel right and is not as enjoyable and players just want to win rather than compete.

Mum and dad and my grandparents all played table tennis. The sound of the hardbat is natural to me. Hardbatters are usually very social and friendly no matter what your standard of play and where you come from.

I really enjoyed meeting Hermann, Al, Scott Gordon and Marty Reisman when they came over to Gloucester. Marty really helped my game. When I play hardbat it's great fun and the room does not smell like a glue factory!

Bill McLaughlin - Webmaster, Table Tennis Dayton:

In 1991, I was a five-year veteran of the Southern California table tennis club scene, having wielded my inverted racket at Burbank, Rich's Workshop, Alhambra, West Covina and other venues. I had also brought it with me to play a few of the regulars at a certain Toe's Tavern in Pasadena, as playing with the primitive, peeling, banged-up house bats was out of the question. Or so I thought. The regulars were easy meat and bringing my $100 racket seemed a bit pretentious, so I went cold turkey at Toes and set out to play with the provided cheapo hardbats. I really enjoyed the style of play that the hardbat required and so a few weeks later, I ripped the Yasaka off of my Stiga and slapped some newly purchased TSP Miracle on each side, and voila -- I was a full-time club-playing hardbatter.

I won a few regional tournament events using the hardbat. Paradoxically, I found that my previously non-existent backhand loop actually came alive, much to the shock of my opponents. I loved hearing them sputter, "you can't loop with a hardbat!"

After moving to Northern California in 1999, I switched back to inverted, and played weekly at the Palo Alto club, and then later the Concord TTC. In 2002, I moved to Ohio and started playing at the Dayton TTC. I continued to play with my inverted up and until I ran into two buzzsaw serving members whose side-top/side-back -- I had no clue which was what -- sent me into a ping-pong funk. Repeating my actions from ten years earlier, I ripped off the cursed inverted and welcomed two new sheets of the cheapest rubber I could find - Friendship 802, courtesy . I've played in three tournaments since, coming in 2nd place in one, tanking in the other -- thanks in part to fellow hardbatter Berndt Mann, and sweeping the U-1900 field in the third, also thanks in part to Berndt Mann (thanks Berndt!) I believe part of the reason for the poor second tournament showing was my lack of playing against hardbat. In the SW region of Ohio, there are precious few of us - frankly only me, myself and I. Calibrating shots against inverted doesn't translate well when going up against fellow mini-spinning hardbatters. But I ain't going back anytime soon.

From the first hardbat experience in 1991 to my latest, I've enjoyed the purity of the hardbat play. Though I play hardbat with my old inverted loop-drive attack style, there is minimal spin imparted upon the ball. Enough to help the ball drop down, but not enough to ricochet wildly off the opponent's racket. Certainly, serves are easier to return, and my general accuracy is enhanced. I also wield a Hock bat courtesy of DTTC member Joe Hagee, and two blue/red Sportcraft "Challenger" rackets in my bag for an even slower, defensive-minded game.

Now if I can just figure out how to slam the ball.

Victor Kan:

I played in my uncle's basement when I was a kid, 20 years ago. That was with Double Happiness brand penhold rackets with inverted sponge rubber of varying quality/condition. I think my favorite was one where the topsheet was peeled off, leaving just the yellow sponge underneath -- the ultimate sponge racket!

Then I played in middle school during gym class when they let us. Sometimes we weren't allowed to open up the ping pong tables, but whenever we were, I was there with a core group of players. I was always #2 behind Matt Kaduthadil (not sure if I spelled his name right). We used the sandpaper rackets (shakehand only) provided by the school -- my first taste of the classic game.

To be honest, I didn't like playing with sandpaper as much as I did with the sponge rackets in my uncle's basement. That might have had as much to do with the penhold vs. shakehand issue as sponge vs. no sponge.

After middle school, I stopped playing until years after college when some guys at work found an old table in a store room and we started a ladder tournament. I picked up where I started, using sponge penhold rackets, eventually switching over to shakehand sponge rackets pretty much permanently. I hadn't touched any kind of hardbat since middle school.

I forget exactly what event(s) triggered the impulse to go to Walmart and buy a $5 Wilson hard bat (blue on both sides), but that's when I started playing hardbat again. It might have been any of these:

• Reading about Marty Reisman's big money challenge and Jim Butler's acceptance of the challenge

• Seeing first hand Larry Hodges' infamous clipboard challenges

• My total dominance of the table tennis ladder at work (after the top guy left the company :-) when using sponge, making me feel that I needed a handicap (hard bat vs. the sponge that everyone else was using)

I graduated from the $5 Wilson, which felt way too hard with lots of vibration that hurt my hand when I hit the ball, to using home made blades with Friendship 799 and 802 short pips top sheets for the hard rubber. These rackets felt much nicer, perhaps imparting more spin, but more importantly not hurting my hand when playing.

I always have struggled with hard bat technique (I'm too used to spinning and the rebound you get from sponge). But I love table tennis so much that having a separate outlet (i.e. hardbat play) just adds to it. Whenever I have the opportunity to play hardbat to hardbat, I do it. Hardbat to sponge isn't as interesting except as a handicap when playing much weaker players.

John Starr:

Born Again. Why do I consider myself born again? My first exposure (first birth) to table tennis was hardbat. I enjoyed the game enough to want to improve as much as possible. I played hardbat for a few years before running into an accomplished sponge opponent. He beat me so badly that I was convinced that sponge was the way to improve. Little did I know then that one could be as competitive with hardbat as with sponge. I thought that the only reason he won was equipment. I switched to sponge and started on a new table tennis life.

I met DJ Lee and he showed me how to use the sponge to advantage. Alan Nissen taught me how to chop. I enjoyed my new skills, but soon discovered my playing philosophy (keep the ball in play as long as possible) was not shared by everyone. I played in many tournaments and leagues and had many successes. I still wanted to keep the ball in play as long as possible but that was not possible with the speed and spin of the sponge game.

The start of my rebirth occurred when I started reading about hardbat players on the table tennis newsgruop - rec.sport.table-tennis. It seemed that hardbat was still alive and well in the US table tennis community. People actually used it in tournaments. I thoguth I'd try it again. It was wonderful. The ball is just a tad bit slower and that makes for a longer rally. Just what I was looking for.

If I smash a ball, it has a good chance of coming back and I get to smash it again. When I chop, the ball is easily hit back and I get to chop again. The skills I learned from DJ and Alan were still there and I could use them in longer points.

My rebirth was completed at the 1998 US Open. I met numerous other hardbat players. I got to watch Danny Seemiller win the hardbat event. I got to see John Tannehill display what I personally think are the best hardbat skills in the country. It was a great experience. I decided that the Open would be my last sponge event. I switched to hardbat permanently in the middle of my last round robin and have been enjoying the game of table tennis more than I ever have since then. I love the sound the paddle makes when striking the ball. I can "feel" the ball more through my hand. Like I said before, the longer points are a dream come true. I always have a hard time putting my feelings into words.

But I want to say that playing hardbat just feels right. It's like this is the way it is supposed to be. Skill against skill in long points without equipment being a deciding factor.

Hermann Luechinger - Webmaster, United States Classic Table Tennis Association:

I've never cut down a cherry tree, but I'll tell the truth anyway: I play hardbat because I can't play sponge! I've learned to play TT in Switzerland in the late forties and early fifties. There was only hardbat then, though we didn't call it that, we just called it Tischtennis. I didn't play for very long, just four or five years and then switched to skiing because I finally could afford it. From there on I played only occasionally, mostly at work in the late sixties using the company paddles - worn out "hardbats".

Then in 1999 I took up table tennis again for health reasons. I started playing at a senior center where ninety percent of the players were Asian, and all played with sponge rackets. So I went to a local sporting goods store and bought a Stiga sponge paddle for about $20. That wasn't good enough I was told (by players that were barely past the beginners stage). I was to buy a paddle from Paddle Palace for the unheard price of fifty to a hundred dollars.

Well I did that. It didn't help. I still lost to rank beginners. I could not handle spin and misjudged the trajectory of the ball.

Some of the players at the senior center were taking an introductory table tennis class at the local Junior College (Seniors at a Junior College?) so I went to check that out. The class was given by Dennis Davis, USATT National Coach. It was the last class of the semester and there was not going to be another course. He watched me play and told me that I played with a hardbat style. He recommended that I switch to a hardbat: I would play better and the opponents at my level would have a lot of trouble playing me, since they were not used to a low spin game.

Well I had heard about "junk" rubber and how most players hated to play against it. Some put hardbats into the junk category too. I didn't want to be one of those hated players so I didn't switch, stayed with sponge, and made no progress. But I was still intrigued by this hardbat thing.

So in the Summer of 2000 I went to a tournament in San Francisco to watch them play (sponge) and see if I could find out anything about hardbat. I saw a guy wearing a Reisman t-shirt and playing with a paddle that made a noise when he hit a ball. I cornered him and asked if he new anything about hardbat. He said I was lucky and he would introduce me to somebody who knew everything about it.

That's when I met Scott Gordon, Chairman of the Hardbat Committee of USATT. He immediately asked me if I would like to play with a hardbat right then and there. I didn't know a spectator could just muscle in and play on a tournament table. I borrowed a hardbat from Scott and started rallying with him.

Hallelujah! I could play table tennis again. It felt like old times. Attack and defense, and an occasional dropball. It was fun! I think I even impressed Scott - this old guy (that's me, not Scott) playing table tennis in the classic style of the forties and fifties. After that, I tore the sponge rubber from my paddle and glued on some hardbat rubber.

That summer I went to the U.S. Open in Ft. Lauderdale. I had a chance to meet and rally with some of the biggies in hardbat table tennis. Me, a nobody, I couldn't believe it. I tried out some paddles from Marty Reisman and bought a copy of the paddle he used. It turned out to be a bit fast for me. But what the heck - it reminds me of the time in the fifties I saw Marty play during intermission at a Harlem Globetrotters game in Zurich.

I had such a great time with this group of hardbat players that I just had to volunteer to help promote the sport.

Oh, and about the health reason why a started playing TT again: I don't play it for health reasons anymore, just for fun, but my doctors all want me to continue playing. They think I'm doing better because of it! How lucky can you get?

My hardbat: A 3-ply Hock paddle from Steve Berger with the new REISMAN rubber. A bit slow so and I'm going to try a faster 3-ply paddle from Marty, with REISMAN rubber again, of course.

Berndt Mann:

Look. Any ben zi with 12 layers of marinated 2.6 mm. Bryce on a Sardius can get lucky and gloop off a 4,672 rpm gloopkill that temporarily freeze dries some poor garbage grinder in his tracks. It takes a real man or a Lily Yip to coldcock a 110 mph flat friggin' fireball of a hardbat forehand that second bounces on the table behind you.

I, an insomniac's insomniac, have been tired of the "60 years old" feeling for about 50 years now. And having reduced three of his more promising juniors to near tears and befuddlement back in '92 with a late model Leyland-clad Hock No. 54 during a break at a Rocky Wang coached clinic at the now defunct Eastern Training Center ("that old man can't hit my loop! BAM!!!!! ... maybe that old man can hit my loop!"), Rocky told me "you have really hard loop with Mark V GPS but you too inconsistent. No touch. But why do you want to learn to walk all over again with sponge bat? You already know how to walk."

Well, I spent a few more desultory years Spinny Topping and Asti Boosting and Lightspeeding and V-Maxing and Donic Vario Softing my social doubles buddies into such annoyance and exasperation that they didn't want to play either on my team or against me no more, being that either as opponents they'd be constantly straddling over the back barrier to retrieve my loop kills or as partners strolling back to the back barrier on our side to pick up my whiffs.

This was costing me both friends and rating points so I went back to my childhood sweetheart, the one that I brung to the Big Dance in the first place. And I ain't looked back (well maybe stolen a peek) at that cat-suited sponge spandexed Sirena beckoning y'all onto the rocks. I've gone back to my Hepburn of a hardbat, and she suits me just fine.

Gail "Grasshopper" Hudson - Hardbat Dominance Hierarchy Dominatrix:

Why do I play hardbat? So I can eat dinner afterwards, of course! (I'm not kidding. I eat like a horse.)

I started playing hardbat about four years ago. I'm lucky enough to live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I have lots of people to play with. I play with Al Papp and Hermann most often. I didn't play ping pong as a kid so I'm a complete newbie.

What do I enjoy most about ping pong? Watching people's faces light up when I tell them that I play ping pong. So many people wonderful memories of this sport. Even my mom got excited and started telling me about the table my grandpa made in the basement and playing with my uncle and aunts.

Ping pong makes people happy. :)

If you primarily play table tennis hardbat and would like to tell your story,
please email me at wbmcl@excite.com.