Games People Play : Boccie: Sport of Caesars at a Park Near You

The scene could have been played out any time in the past 2,000 years: a group of men, some still flexing the arrogant muscles of youth, others settled comfortably into the rounded shapes of age, standing on an expanse of green lawn playing a simple but ancient game called boccie (sometimes spelled bocce or bocci ).

It could have been in Rome, in the era of the Caesars, or Greece, in the era of philosophers, but in fact it was on a lazy Sunday afternoon in a park in Pasadena. And, compounding the irony, the older guys were beating the pants off the younger guys.

“That’s the beauty of this sport,” said Demetrio D’Amato, coach and captain ofthe Branch 108 boccie team of the Italian Catholic Federation. “It places no premium on age or physical condition. Anyone of any age can play, male or female, standing up or even in a wheelchair, and still be competitive. All you need is one good arm and steady nerves.”

Boccie, in its simplest form, is rather like a cross between billiards and shuffleboard, played on a grassy surface. The boccie “court” or playing field is a lane 10 feet by 60 feet, marked off with tent pegs and twine. Two teams of one to four people stand at one end of the court, and the game begins with the winner of the coin toss taking a “ballino,” a ball about 2 inches in diameter, and rolling it down the lane so that it comes to rest in the far half of the court, past the 30-foot mark and between the sidelines.

Team members then take turns rolling red or green wooden balls, about 4 inches in diameter and weighing about 1 1/2 pounds, down the lane, trying to get as close to the ballino as possible. It is not only permissible but a necessary part of the game to try and knock the other team’s balls out of scoring position, just as in shuffleboard.

At the end of the round, the team whose ball winds up closest to the ballino scores a point. If the ball that is second closest to the ballino is from the same team, two points are scored, and the same goes for the third and fourth balls. The game is played up to 21 points, and a team must win by at least two points.

Simplified Form in U.S.

“The form of boccie that we play in the United States is very simplified,” D’Amato said. “In Europe, where this is a big sport and they have international tournaments with big prize money, there are many more rules. For instance, you have to tell everyone what you intend to do before you do it, like calling your shots in a game of pool. But here we’re so casual about it that sometimes we don’t even bother to lay out a court, we just go out on the grass and play.”

D’Amato estimates that there are perhaps 5,000 people in the United States who play boccie at a competitive level, and there is even a national tournament in New York every year where as many as 100 teams play in a weeklong round-robin competition. A game usually lasts between 45 minutes and an hour, with a formal competition usually made up of four, five or six games over a period of three or four hours.

Several parks in the greater Los Angeles area, including Central Park in Pasadena and Ocean Front Park at Venice Beach, have tournament-grade permanent boccie courts. There is also a French/Belgian version of boccie, called petanque (pronounced pay-tonk ), that is played on dirt instead of grass, with balls that are slightly larger and heavier.

Boccie Players, Take Note

“We have about 200 active members,” said Max LeGrand, president of the Los Angeles Petanque Club. “There is a major petanque facility at the Cheviot Hills Recreation Center, and we play every weekend, with organized competitions about once a month. Anybody who plays, or is interested in boccie, will be right at home playing petanque.”

And then there’s Tony Rocco, retired builder-developer, avid boccie player, and inventor of boccine, the “high-tech” version of this old game.

“In Italy, we have a game called boccine, which is played on a pool table or snooker table,” says Rocco. “But instead of using a cue, you roll the ball with your hands. I just took that idea and expanded it to back-yard size.”

Rocco’s boccie variation is played on a 15-by-30-foot concrete pad covered with outdoor carpeting and lined with bumpers, like the edges of a pool table. The game is played with standard boccie balls, and most of the same rules apply, except that you have to bank the ball off two sides of the court before it comes to rest.

In His Own Back Yard

“There is only one boccine court in all of America right now, in my back yard,” Rocco says, “but it is so much fun to play, such a social game for family and friends, that if anybody wanted to put one in his back yard, and would pay the $2,000 that the materials cost, I would come over to his house and help build it with my own two hands. Besides, I’ve had my court set up for a while now, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, so now I need someone to compete with.”

Boccie courts in Los Angeles parks are open to the public, with no reservations required. For information on the Italian Catholic Federation boccie team, call D’Amato at (818) 799-2822. LeGrand, vice president of the Los Angeles Petanque Club, can be reached at (213) 475-8684. And if you’re interested in building a boccine court in your back yard, call Rocco at (213) 530-4185.