It's pitting neighbors against neighbors and suburbs across the United States.

Temperes are flaring.

Tension is high.

And nope, all the drama has nothing to do with politics or COVID or any of the usual suburban suspects.

The culprit now?

Pickleball.

Pickle what?

I'm Gustavariano.

You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times.

It's Tuesday, May 31st, 2022.

Today, the rapid rise of a swerp that barely anyone knew about about before the pandemic and the intense backlash rising right alongside it.

Connor Sheets is an investigator of an enterprise reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

Connor, welcome to the Times.

Thank you for having me. Okay, so pickleball, isn't that like in baseball, when you're between bases and people are throwing a ball and they're trying to tag you out and you're supposed to like get to the other base? Yeah, that's what I thought, but that's just pickle. Pickle ball is a separate sport. It started like 1965 in Washington State, and it's a paddle-based game where you have players with hard paddles hitting a whiffle-like ball back and forth over a net that's very similar to a tennis net and has nothing to do with base running.

So pickleball has been around since 1965, but you just found out about it.

So I talked to this lawyer, Nick Kaplan, in San Diego, met him at a coffee shop randomly.

He has been involved in multiple legal proceedings over, you know, the impact that pickleball has had on various communities around California.

What's this game about then that gets people so upset about it?

Like how do you play it? Who's playing it?

You've got two or four players similar to tennis. You can play solo, singles, or doubles.

Each player has a hard plastic paddle. And you're hitting this wiffle ball back and forth.

The wiffle ball moves slower than a tennis ball,

...