This article appeared in the February 2014 issue of the USBF Western Sector Newsletter.

A reader posed a simple question to me earlier this month.  The answer was not so simple and gave me an idea for this month’s column.  After a shot was made the pallino landed on a wooden plate on top of the sideboard and came back into the court.  The court had a two-inch thick sideboard with a two by six plate on the top of the sideboard.  Was the shot valid or should the frame be annulled?

Generally, if the pallino hits the top of a wooden sideboard, and comes back into play it is considered a valid shot.  This is spelled out in the game of raffa (Article 1.e) where the sideboards are valid but the concrete wall supporting the sideboards is not valid.  However, in the game of open this is not clearly defined. In this case the top plate covered the top of the sideboard so the pallino did not hit the top of the sideboard and the general rule would not apply.  This situation could be clarified if there were posted House Rules to handle the situation.  In this example, the owner or operator of the court could have posted a rule stating that the top plate is either valid, or invalid if a ball lands on it.  This would handle this particular situation for anyone playing bocce on that court.

Unfortunately, there are many variations in the construction of bocce courts that pose problems.  In southeast Portland, Oregon, there is an indoor court that has a building roof support column in the court. The club has an interesting rule about a ball hitting the column. First, all balls striking the column are valid.  Second, each player on the team whose ball strikes the column has to put one dollar into a kitty.  At the end of the evening, the kitty is divided up among the players with the best record that night.  Some players have developed strategies on how to generate the maximum contributions to the kitty.  Other players have learned the hard way and always place the pallino far away from the column!

Another common problem arises when a ball or pallino hits the backboard.  There are many ways to construct the backboard on a court.  Some courts have a stationary backboard or a backboard attached to a wall behind the backboard. Others have backboards that are suspended from a chain or rope. There are swinging backboards with rubber fastened to steel brackets supported on the sideboards.  There are backboards suspended from a stationary pipe above the backboard fastened to the sideboards.  There are even courts at the Custom House State Park in Monterey, California, that used to have no backboards at all, just a ball eating ditch at the ends of the courts!

In all these and many other instances, there comes a time when a ball or pallino does something funky and hits a backboard supporting device, the metal at the top of the backboard, or the wall above the backboard.  These situations generally provoke serious discussion among the players as to whether the shot is valid.  Because of the variety of situations it is easy to see why these events are not clearly covered in the rules of the game. This is where House Rules come into play.  It is always beneficial when the club or operator of the court has determined from experience how to handle these events and still be in general compliance with the rules of bocce.  For example, in some cases House Rules will state that metal attached to a backboard is “in play” if hit by a ball or pallino because it is part of the backboard.  This eliminates the guesswork about whether it hit or did not hit.  Other courts might define the metal as “out of play” depending on the configuration.  In rare cases there are some clubs in Northern California that have solved this problem by declaring the entire backboard “out of play” and all balls that touch the backboard are removed from the court.  House Rules might also be considered for other situations that occur that are not spelled out in the official rules for the game.

The raffa rule (Article 1.e) cited above states in its entirety: People, fixtures, objects or any other things (posts, lamps, metal wires, branches, ceilings, walls, protection nets, etc.) to be found either upon the sideboards or outside of them, including the retaining walls supporting the sideboards, are considered as foreign to the game and thus irrelevant to the game’s regularity.  This rule can certainly apply to the game of open if clubs use the rule as a House Rule.

In order to answer the question posed at the beginning of this article, one would have to know about the House Rules established for that specific court.  If there are no House Rules the answer can be determined after a spirited discussion by the players involved in the game!  The point of this article might be for players to ask in advance what House Rules there may be to handle these kinds of situations.   If no House Rules are posted, an agreement before the game between team captains might also help address various situations before they actually occur in a game.  Also, the clubs and operators of the courts might consider having written clarifications for these types of situations.  This will avoid some future arguments and lead to a more enjoyable bocce experience for players when faced with these situations.