Introductory article on bocce.

1. JEFFHARRIS
49
W
ith respect to croquet fanciers, bocce is the real
king of leisure lawn games. Simple to under-
stand—participants bowl larger balls toward a
smaller target ball to see who can get closest—it can be played
on nearly any surface, from traditional crushed stone or grass to
carpet and even asphalt. The only athletic requirement is the
ability to roll a ball, thus precision and accuracy trump brute
strength. Additionally, the leisurely pace of the game means
you can keep an alcoholic drink on hand, as well as a lit cigar.
Bocce’s rules are quite fluid, allowing adjustment to suit
the situation. Officially, a bocce court is about 86 feet long
and 13 feet wide with marked foul and pointer lines, all
enclosed by a wood-wall perimeter. But a decently manicured
lawn with some object acting as a foul marker works fine. For
singles or doubles matches, eight balls are required, four per
side, plus a target ball called a pallino. (Triples and foursomes
formats are possible, too, but more balls are needed.)
Run-of-the-mill department-store sets break down fast,
so we suggest sets from Italy’s Super Martel, which retail
from $200 to $275 and are available in a slew of snazzy color
patterns (the pallino, sold separately, is $16 and the tote bag
is $20). Martel balls are perfectly round, balanced and made
of a high-grade, durable plastic. A tape measure or antenna
is also useful to see which ball is indeed closer to the pallino.
A coin toss determines which team gets the right
to place the first pallino and roll the first ball, which is
important as it sets the tone for the subsequent frame. Play
then continues with the team farthest from the pallino roll-
ing until they make a closer point. At the end of the frame,
one point is awarded to a team for each of their balls that is
closer to the pallino than the closest ball of the other team.
Games typically go to 12 points.
There are two types of rolls in bocce: pointers and
shooters. A pointer is a deliberate roll intended to nestle
as close to the pallino as possible to score a point, while a
shooter is a high velocity attempt to knock the pointers away.
Expert bocce players will often hurl a shooter through the air
in a poetic arc via an underhand, palm-down style roll that
imparts backspin so that the ball stops dead when it hits its
target for a chance to steal an extra point.
Once sufficient control is attained, tactics and strategy
can become quite complex, and that’s when the real fun
(gambling, bragging rights and spirited disputes) begins.
Visit davincibocce.com.
—Andrew Nagy
The Joy of Bocce
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