Tracing The Popularity Of Bocce Ball

By Timothy Sexton, Contributing writer

Although hardly as popular as bowling is in America, bocce ball has been a favorite sport in many European and Middle Eastern countries for millennia. In fact, the history of bocce ball has been traced back to the ancient Egyptians, according to Worldbocce.org.

Although bocce ball has at all times been a game for old and young alike, the image that comes to mind for most people is of older Italian men playing the game. Although played around the world, bocce seems to be primarily associated with Italy. This is due to its distinctively Italian-sounding name. "Bocce" actually Italian for "balls," which, of course, makes "bocce ball" redundant. Bocce is also greatly associated with Italy because that is where the game evolved, from its raw Egyptian roots into the game played today.

Going Underground

Why did bocce become such a popular game? As with a great many other pastimes, bocce achieved popularity partly as a guilty pleasure. Around the 14th century, both the Catholic Church and secular leaders began a crusade to ban the sport, according to Sportsknowhow.com.

Bocce had come to be seen as a gateway to gambling by the church, and as a distraction from the citizen's purpose of defending king and country. As might be expected, once playing the game took on a subversive quality, that only made it more enticing for many. Penalties could be stiff if caught, however: fines and even imprisonment.

Were bocce a bit more difficult to either play or get away with playing, it might have disappeared during the game's dark age. Yet bocce persisted and came into its renaissance stronger than ever, due in great part to its simplicity. That simplicity probably also accounts for its enduring popularity to this day.

The Rules

All that is needed to play a good game of bocce is some open space -- regardless of whether the surface is grassy, dirty or paved -- some balls and, preferably, an even number of players. Bocce can be played with 2-8 players. Since the rules are very elastic, it is even possible to play a wild, freewheeling game with more than eight players. Bocce may most accurately be described as a combination of bowling, horseshoes and pocket billiards. The point of bocce is to throw your larger ball as closely as possible to a small ball called the pallino, according to Bocceballrules.net

Strategy

There are two basic strategies at play: blocking and knocking, according to Bocceballsetsandrules.com. Boiled down to the essentials, blocking means using your big ball to block another player's access to the pallino. Knocking is the exact opposite: using your ball to knock another player's ball from its close proximity to the pallino.