George Gershwin, an early American musical genius, transformed public opinion on a style of music that was up until that time found mainly in such “unrepeatable” places as bars and speak-easies. The uniquely American sounds of early jazz received a broad new audience with
advent of Gershwin’s phenomenal hit orchestration, Rhapsody in Blue. Almost single-handedly he brought a “tavern sound” of ragtime to mainstream public and can now be found in high-brow music collections.Like pre-Gershwin jazz, Croquet in its early days kept some unruly company. In 1890’s Croquet at Boston Common, one of United State’s oldest public parks, gathered gambling, drinking and licentious crowds. Boston clergymen decried this filthy behavior, which tainted Croquet’s image as a public sport.
Croquet in United States began as a watered-down version of courtlier British Commonwealth 6-wicket Croquet. This posh sport was and is still played among Brits on neatly cut greens similar to those found on golf courses. Heavier wooden mallets and balls are necessary to obtain high accuracy. Intense skill and strategy were aspects of 6-wicket Croquet that US version did not contain at first. Garden Croquet, as it is known (among other aliases), has remained popular in US since its introduction over a hundred years ago. US players though, considered it more of a light hearted game than a sport and thus failed to maintain high status of English 6-wicket.
It was not until late 1970’s that United States began to capture on a widespread basis original essence of Croquet. Finally it had regained it standing and elegance as a refined sport through a bit of effort by Jack Osborn in 1977. Despite its small beginnings, Osborn’s United States Croquet Association has grown to include nearly 10,000 croquet players playing across US and Canada on over 600 well-groomed lawns. While Croquet garden game still enjoys a large following in U.S., there is also now room for players who are passionate about more competitive type of croquet that includes deep skill and focus.
