Pickleball noise dispute on Cape Cod: Players required to use quieter balls

A fight over pickleball has reached a breaking point on Cape Cod.

Starting this week, players at the public courts in Mashpee, Massachusetts, have to use quieter pickleballs.

The change comes after years of complaints from neighbors about the constant popping sound.

For eight years, pickleball pops have been the soundtrack outside Earnie Barrows’ home.

“Tormenting. Awful,” he said. “You can’t even enjoy the peace at your own home, your serenity.”

Barrows’ backyard sits just hundreds of feet from Mashpee’s public pickleball courts, and he says the constant popping has consumed his life.

“I wake up in the middle of the night, still, and I can’t get back to sleep because I hear random pops,” he said.

He spent years filing complaints with the town, and now, anyone playing there has to leave the traditional hard plastic pickleballs at home, instead using balls designed to soften the sound.

“For my purposes, they’re fine. They do play different — they play softer, you’ve got to kind of hit them a little more forcefully to get the same result,” said Chris Poznick, a recreational player.

Town Manager Rodney Collins says the complaints — and concerns the town could face a nuisance lawsuit — left officials looking for a compromise.

“When I spoke to the rep from Franklin, he said that the only difference … is this one has a little bit more bounce,” Collins said. “So if we’re going to have just a little bit more of a bounce to a ball, and we’re going to resolve the noise problem, it sounded to me as though that is a reasonable resolution.”

But Rob Mastroianni, a pickleball noise specialist who’s been working with Barrows, says that ball doesn’t fix the problem.

“You’ve got your Franklin X-40, and then you have your Silent Serve, which is the quiet ball they’re endorsing,” Mastroianni said while hitting the two pickleballs. “I don’t hear the difference.”

The town created a list of approved balls. The one Barrows originally proposed is a 3D-printed ball that costs $50.

For Barrows, he says this isn’t about ending pickleball, but about restoring the quality of life he says he’s lost.

“It has ruined my peace and serenity here,” Barrows said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from that.”

Some of the other ball options come at a much lower price point, like $20 for a pack of three.

The new requirement only applies to the town-owned courts in Mashpee.

Hundreds of players have signed a petition to get the town to reverse the rule.