About pballgoods.com?

I fell in love with pickleball through a fence.

I was just walking my dog past the courts in West Concord when a few strangers  waved me over and said, "Come play, we'll teach you." I did, and I never really left.

I'm a retired electrical engineer. Before retiring, I spent my career designing things- precise, systematic, built to work. I never thought of myself as creative. Engineers solve problems; the things we normally design (in my case, microcontrollers used in engines) are hidden underneath the flashy stuff.

My father passed away in 2019. He was a career military veteran who served in wartime, and he was also, quietly, an artist and a tennis player. His passing made me wonder, for the first time, whether I had any of that creative side in me too. It also gave me a strange kind of way to keep talking to him - like I was poking at the universe, seeing what might come back if I actually tried to make something. And I kept thinking about my own kids playing card games with their grandparents around the kitchen table. I wanted to build something that could do that for other families — give them a reason to sit down together and share something, the way we had.

Then I hurt my shoulder. Recovery meant a lot of time off the court, so I finally had the space to sit with that question. I started sketching out a card game — one that captured the slang, the shots, and the slightly ridiculous joy of pickleball. That time off also became an unexpected education: I spent it learning everything I didn't know about actually bringing a product to life, from manufacturing to packaging to getting it in front of real players. What started as a distraction became Pickleball Slam: a strategy card game with characters that bring pickleball slang to life on a play on the "kitchen" and the only card game I know where you can play doubles! It was followed up by Pickleball Playing Cards Featuring Slang, Shots & Playing Tips to play all your favorite classic games, pickleball charades, or use for court assignment on Up & Down the River in pickleball.

A former Hasbro executive saw an early version of the game and mentored me, just because he believed in it. Not long after, the Boston Globe wrote about a retired engineer designing her first game around her favorite sport, and NPR's Here & Now had me on to talk about pickleball, the game, and everything in between — a conversation that ran on public radio stations across the country. That was a fun day! 

Today I still play pickleball several times a week and coach clinics whenever I can. Pickleball Slam and the Pickleball Playing Cards are both extensions of that - games built by someone who's actually out there on the court, made for anyone who loves the game, is learning it, or wants to understand what pickleball-obsessed friends or family keep talking about.

Thanks for being here. I hope these cards bring you as much joy as the fence brought me.

- Marcella Meyer, Carlisle, MA

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