# Balls not played with? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 11, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884 "2011-09-11T00:28:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/1 "2011-09-11T00:28:50Z")
Ain’t I a hoot! Anyway, watching The Open I noticed that the player about to serve gets three balls from the ball-giving-guy, whereupon he keeps two and throws one back. What’s that player looking for, and what happens to the rejected ball? Surely the b-g-g doesn’t offer it for a later serve? BTW; what happens with _all_ the balls used in actual play? Surely thay have some worth. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/2 "2011-09-11T15:30:19Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > What’s that player looking for, and what happens to the rejected ball? He or she might be checking to see if one ball is a little bouncier or less beat up than the others. Sometimes it’s kind of random. > [@](#): > > Surely the b-g-g doesn’t offer it for a later serve? That’s exactly what happens. It’s not baseball where they use a new ball every time the old ball hits the ground. They play with the same balls for seven games at a time, then change to new balls. (You can hear the umpire announce this if you listen closely.) ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/3 "2011-09-11T15:44:49Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He or she might be checking to see if one ball is a little bouncier or less beat up than the others. Sometimes it’s kind of random. > That’s exactly what happens. It’s not baseball where they use a new ball every time the old ball hits the ground. They play with the same balls for seven games at a time, then change to new balls. (You can hear the umpire announce this if you listen closely.) That really surprises me. It must be tradition, because balls aren’t _that_ expensive compared to everything else. Oh yeah, the game originated in Scotland. Hmmm. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/4 "2011-09-12T16:07:41Z")
Hehehe… ‘balls’. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/5 "2011-09-12T16:30:06Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > That really surprises me. It must be tradition, because balls aren’t _that_ expensive compared to everything else. > Oh yeah, the game originated in Scotland. Hmmm. 😉 You’re thinking of golf. Tennis originated in France (the name comes from French, and so does “love” - Cecil did a column about that) and the modern version of the game comes from England. There’s no reason to throw away a ball that hasn’t even been used, and a ball is still usable after it’s been hit a couple of times. I’m skeptical that baseballs need to be changed as often as they are, since older in the history of the game they weren’t changed like that, but it’s also a different sport and the balls are made of different materials. And I probably should have added that the reason one ball goes back to the ballkids in the first place is that the players usually don’t _need_ to hold three balls at once. You serve with one and you hold the other one in case you need it for a second serve. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/6 "2011-09-12T17:17:44Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You’re thinking of golf. Tennis originated in France (the name comes from French, and so does “love” - Cecil did a column about that) and the modern version of the game comes from England. There’s no reason to throw away a ball that hasn’t even been used, and a ball is still usable after it’s been hit a couple of times. I’m skeptical that baseballs need to be changed as often as they are, since older in the history of the game they weren’t changed like that, but it’s also a different sport and the balls are made of different materials. > > And I probably should have added that the reason one ball goes back to the ballkids in the first place is that the players usually don’t _need_ to hold three balls at once. You serve with one and you hold the other one in case you need it for a second serve. You’re right as rain, Marley. Thanks for the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/7 "2011-09-12T20:35:01Z")
And what happens to the balls after 7 games? Do they get recycled somehow? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/8 "2011-09-12T20:50:32Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’m skeptical that baseballs need to be changed as often as they are, since older in the history of the game they weren’t changed like that, but it’s also a different sport and the balls are made of different materials. Major league baseball may go a bit farther than they need to in replacing used balls, but it is important to have reasonably fresh baseballs. A scuffed up baseball will curve noticeably differently than a fresh one, and because (unlike tennis players) pitchers have total control of how the ball is oriented, they can use the scuffs to make pitches much harder to hit. In fact a common method of cheating in baseball was (and probably still is at times) for the pitcher to have a surreptitiously sharpened belt buckle, or hidden nail file, or something, that they could use to cut/scuff one side of the baseball they were about to throw. I’m guessing that a) tennis balls would need more than minor scuffing to get any kind of appreciable curve going in the shorter distance they travel, and b) it would be very hard for a player to control the curve in a useful way; so tennis probably doesn’t need to worry as much as baseball. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/9 "2011-09-12T21:03:13Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I’m guessing that a) tennis balls would need more than minor scuffing to get any kind of appreciable curve going in the shorter distance they travel, and b) it would be very hard for a player to control the curve in a useful way; so tennis probably doesn’t need to worry as much as baseball. A tennis court is 78 feet long, so a serve travels a longer distance than a pitch. But I think you’re right that scuffing a tennis ball (which is rubber covered with soft stuff) might not work and probably wouldn’t confer an advantage. Scuffing a baseball does, but I’m saying that realistically, they don’t need a fresh ball every time the ball touches the ground. I don’t know much about what happens to used tennis balls. Wikipedia reports that many of them wind up on the bottoms of chairs and walkers, and apparently used Wimbledon balls “are now recycled to provide field homes for the nationally threatened Eurasian harvest mouse.” You heard it here. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/10 "2011-09-13T01:57:15Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Major league baseball may go a bit farther than they need to in replacing used balls, but it is important to have reasonably fresh baseballs. A scuffed up baseball will curve noticeably differently than a fresh one, and because (unlike tennis players) pitchers have total control of how the ball is oriented, they can use the scuffs to make pitches much harder to hit. > > In fact a common method of cheating in baseball was (and probably still is at times) for the pitcher to have a surreptitiously sharpened belt buckle, or hidden nail file, or something, that they could use to cut/scuff one side of the baseball they were about to throw. In cricket a skilled bowler (pitcher) can make an old ball swing prodigiously, And ball tampering is still a problem in cricket. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/11 "2011-09-13T21:03:55Z")
How many tennis balls are the ball kids holding onto during the match? If the server has 2, the ball kid has 1, surely there are others around the court being held by the other ball kids, right? Do they open 6 at a time? 12? 18? ---
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/12 "2011-09-13T21:06:47Z")
They play with 6 balls at a time, which get replaced every 7 games, as has already been mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/13 "2011-09-14T00:02:04Z")
I thought the used tennis balls were sent to a Labrador Retriever Shelter. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balls-not-played-with/595884/14 "2011-09-14T00:57:10Z")
“Balls not played with?” is what Frankenstein wrote on his complaint form at the brothel. He also noted that the fire in his privates was “bad.”