Every sport has its seminal, game-changing moment, when new techniques or technology brings about a revolution in play.

在新方法或新技术给比赛竞技带来革命的时刻，每一项运动都会迎来重大的游戏规则的改变。

For ping pong, that moment came in 1952.

对于乒乓球运动来说，那一时刻发生在1952年。

Rec room historians love to tell the tale of Marty Reisman, the skinny Jewish kid from Manhattan's Lower East Side who entered that year's Table Tennis World Championships in Bombay as the front-runner. Standing in Reisman's way was the little-known Japanese player Hiroji Satoh, who used an unorthodox paddle fashioned with spongy rubber on each side. Unlike the hard, sandpaper-sided paddles of the day, the sponge allowed Satoh to manipulate the ball with vicious spins, flummoxing his opponents. With his competitive advantage, Satoh handily beat Reisman en route to the world title.

研究娱乐的历史学家们总是对马蒂•赖斯曼(Marty Reisman)的故事津津乐道。这位来自曼哈顿下东区(Manhattan's Lower East Side)的身材瘦削的犹太小伙子作为乒乓球运动的领军人物参加了当年在印度孟买(Bombay)举行的乒乓球世界锦标赛(Table Tennis World Championships)。赖斯曼要闯的一关是名不见经传的日本选手佐藤博治(Hiroji Satoh)，他使用了一块双面都有海绵橡胶的非传统球拍。与当时质地较硬的砂纸球拍不同，这种海绵球拍让佐藤可以打出刁钻的旋转球，这令对手仓皇失措。由于他的竞争优势，佐藤在夺得世界冠军的道路上轻松击败了赖斯曼。

Sponge quickly replaced sandpaper paddles on the international circuit. Asian players came to dominate, and the sport evolved into its modern era, where spin decides the outcome.

海绵球拍在国际巡回赛中很快取代了砂纸球拍，亚洲运动员开始占据上风，这项运动也进入了它的现代时期，球的旋转可以决定比赛的结果。

Reisman refused to evolve. His flamboyant style and hustler persona made him America's foremost ping pong personality, and he used his celebrity to promote 'hardbat' competitions, which outlawed sponge paddles in favor of old-school sandpaper. Until his death in December at age 82, Reisman would tell anyone within earshot why sandpaper was superior to sponge.

赖斯曼拒绝改变。他的华丽风格和活力形象使他成为了美国首屈一指的乒乓球人物，他利用自己的名声力推“硬拍”比赛，这些比赛为推崇老式的砂纸球拍而禁止使用海绵球拍。直到去年12月去世前，82岁高龄的赖斯曼都会告诉任何听得见他说话的人，为什么说砂纸球拍比海绵球拍好。

'If you got Marty started on hardbat versus sponge, he'd talk to you all night, maybe until 2 a.m.,' said Dean Johnson, Reisman's longtime friend and member of the Table Tennis Hall of Fame. 'That was his life. He really hated sponge.'

“如果你让马蒂打开了硬拍和海绵球拍对比的话匣子，他会一晚上都和你讲这个东西，可能一直讲到凌晨两点，”赖斯曼终身的老朋友、乒乓球名人堂(Table Tennis Hall of Fame)的成员迪安•约翰逊(Dean Johnson)说，“他这辈子就是这样，实在不喜欢海绵球拍。”

Reisman's arguments against sponge and spin have become the battle cry of table tennis purists. Excessive spin, they say, shortens rallies and puts too much emphasis on a player's wrist movement, not his foot speed and lateral reach. The shortened rallies make the game boring to watch. And sponge rackets can cost in excess of $300.

赖斯曼反对海绵球拍和旋转球的理由成为了乒乓球纯粹派高呼的口号。他们说，过度的旋转减少了对垒的回合，让运动员过于注重腕部的动作，而不是步伐移动的速度和横向出击的范围。回合变少让比赛看起来很乏味，而且海绵球拍的价格超过300美元。

'It's hard to keep the ball on the table with sponge,' said Tahl Leibovitz, a member of the U.S. Paralympic team. 'Sponge is a more complex game because deception is part of it.'

“用海绵球拍打球，很难把球控制在台内，”美国残奥会乒乓球队的塔赫尔•莱博维茨(Tahl Leibovitz)说，“用海绵球拍让比赛变得更复杂，因为其中已掺杂了假动作。”

In the months since Reisman's death, his hardbat movement has gained steam in ping pong bars and professional table-tennis halls across the world. This past January, veteran English sports promoter Barry Hearn organized the World Championships of Ping Pong at the Alexandra Palace in London. The stock-car style tournament forced players to use sandpaper paddles.

在赖斯曼去世后的几个月里，他的硬拍运动在全世界的乒乓球吧和专业乒乓球会馆里得到大力推进。今年一月，英国资深体育比赛发起人巴里•赫恩(Barry Hearn)在伦敦亚历山大宫(Alexandra Palace)组织了乒乓球世界冠军大奖赛(the World Championships of Ping Pong)。这项类似改装车大赛风格的比赛强制参赛选手使用砂纸球拍。

Hearn, who has helped snooker, fishing and darts become mainstream televised sports in Great Britain, got the idea after meeting Reisman in 2009. Hearn saw images of Reisman playing at the Garden in the early 1950s in front of 20,000 fans and saw potential.

赫恩是在2009年与赖斯曼会晤后产生这种想法的，他曾帮助斯诺克台球、垂钓和飞镖成为英国电视转播的主流体育运动。赫恩见到了赖斯曼1950年代初期在花园体育馆(the Garden)里在20,000名球迷面前挥拍的照片，于是他看到了契机。

'For once in my life, I looked backward rather than forward in history, and I found out that current table tennis had no television appeal,' Hearn said. 'The rallies are too short. It lacks athleticism. It's just not big enough.'

“在我一生中，我仅此一次是向后而不是向前看待历史发展进程，我发现现在的乒乓球在电视上没有吸引力，”赫恩说，“回合太少，缺乏竞技活力，它就是不那么受人待见。”

Hearn filled Alexandra Palace with booming rock music for the competition, and he made sure the beer stands were always pouring. He wooed top players with a $100,000 prize purse─10 times greater than Table Tennis's U.S. Open pays its winner. The two-day tournament attracted several thousand spectators and a million television viewers on Sky Sports.

赫恩让摇滚乐在比赛时响彻亚历山大宫，他还确保啤酒摊不断有酒供应，他以10万美元的奖金争取顶级选手前来参赛──10倍于美国乒乓球公开赛(Table Tennis's U.S. Open)给胜者的奖金。为期两天的大奖赛吸引了数千名现场观众以及天空体育台(Sky Sports)的100万名电视观众。

'Guys would make these amazing shots from 15 feet past the table and just smash it into the corner,' Hearn said. 'The rallies went on and on. The crowd would go crazy.'

“选手们会在球过台面15英尺（约4.6米）的地方挥拍击球，刚好把球抽到台角，”赫恩说，“回合不断，人群为之疯狂。”

In New York City, Reisman's vision has continued at a more grass roots level. In 2007 he founded the company Table Tennis Nation alongside former elite player and entrepreneur Tony Ettinger to produce simple sandpaper paddles for mass distribution.

在纽约，赖斯曼的愿景在草根阶层得到了更多的延续。2007年他与前乒乓球优秀选手、企业家托尼•埃廷格(Tony Ettinger)共同创办了乒乓国度(Table Tennis Nation)公司，批量生产简易的砂纸球拍。

The group now manufactures sandpaper paddles that are designed to make the game easier for novice players. The face of the sandpaper paddle is 25% bigger than that of a competition-grade sponge paddle. Layered wood and a carbon-fiber interior also create a bigger 'sweet spot.' It costs just $30, and players can customize designs on the paddle's face.

在设计方面，该公司现在生产的球拍是为了让新手打起球来更顺手。这种砂纸球拍的击球面比比赛用的海绵球拍大25%，层板和碳纤维内芯还构筑了一个更大的“最佳击球位置”。球拍售价只有30美元，运动员可以在面板上进行个性化设计。

Ettinger claims the paddle also neutralizes spin from sponge paddles.

埃廷格称这种球拍还可以化解海绵球拍打出来的旋转球。

'A $300 sponge paddle tries to shorten the rallies,' Ettinger said. 'Our paddle is designed to make it easier to return the ball.'

“售价为300美元的海绵球拍意在减少回合，”埃廷格说，“而我们的球拍设计是为了让回球更加容易。”

Table Tennis Nation promotes hardbat play at bars and restaurants around the city, and the upscale table-tennis club SPIN, with amateur tournaments it calls Slams. It also holds regular competitions at the headquarters of various tech startups, where ping pong tables have become regular office furniture.

乒乓国度公司在这座城市周边的酒吧、餐厅以及高档乒乓球俱乐部SPIN，通过它称之为满贯(Slams)的业余比赛推广硬拍打法。公司还在各个科技初创企业的总部举行定期比赛，乒乓球台在那些地方已经成为了常备的办公家具。

The company's paddle, however, won't be seen at international tournament soon. The International Table Tennis Federation bans sandpaper paddles, requiring all players to use sponge.

不过，该公司的球拍不会很快在国际比赛中露脸。国际乒乓球联合会(The International Table Tennis Federation,简称ITTF)禁止使用砂纸球拍，要求所有运动员使用海绵球拍。

Dr. Michael Babuin, chairman of USA Table Tennis, said the ITTF has no motivation to promote cheap sandpaper paddles, when the technology used in sponge paddles continues to drive the sport forward.

美国乒协主席迈克尔•巴布因(Michael Babuin)说，海绵球拍使用的技术还在继续推动这项运动向前发展的时候，国际乒联是无意推广价格低廉的砂纸球拍的。

'They are not in the business of promoting sandpaper bats, they are in the business of promoting higher-dollar bats,' Babuin said.

巴布因说，“他们现在不是要推广砂纸球拍，他们正在做的是推广造价更高的球拍。”

But Babuin believes the hardbat competitions could help bring more recreational participants further into the sport. A statistic often repeated by table tennis aficionados holds that 20 million Americans play recreational table tennis each year. USA Table Tennis, by contrast, has a membership of 9,000.

不过巴布因相信，硬拍乒乓球比赛有助于吸引更多的休闲式运动者进一步参与这项运动。乒乓球迷经常反复提及的一个统计数据称，每年有2,000万美国人打乒乓球，并以此作为娱乐休闲的方式。相形之下，美国乒协只有9,000名会员。

'We need to develop a grass-roots level,' Babuin said. 'In my opinion, there is no better way to bring people into the sport than with a sandpaper paddle.'

“我们需要发展草根阶层，”巴布因说，“在我看来，没有什么方式比砂纸球拍更能把人吸引到这项运动中来了。”

Sandpaper's defeat by sponge frustrated Reisman for decades, said Johnson, who is writing a book on the history of American table tennis from 1931-1966. The chapter on Reisman contains numerous photos of the table tennis hero alongside various celebrities, always dressed in flashy styles, dark glasses and a fedora.

约翰逊说，砂纸球拍不敌海绵球拍让赖斯曼失意了几十年。约翰逊正在写一本关于1931-1936年间美国乒乓球历史的书。在有关赖斯曼的一章里，有这位乒坛英雄与各界名人的大量合影照片，他总是衣着华丽，戴着墨镜和软呢帽。

The book also contains a photo of a then 22-year-old Reisman, just before his famous match with Satoh in 1952. In the final years of his life, Johnson said, Reisman began to view his defeat by Satoh as a positive chapter in his life.

这本书里还有一张赖斯曼22岁时的照片，这刚好是他1952年与佐藤打那场著名比赛之前照的。约翰逊说，在赖斯曼人生的最后几年里，他开始把自己败于佐藤手下的经历看成是他人生之中有积极意义的篇章。

'It tickled him because so many people talked about what a tragedy it was that he lost in 1952,' Johnson said. 'But if he'd won, maybe he'd just be some other world champion.'

“这事让他感到很满足，因为这么多人都在议论他在1952年的失利是件多大的悲剧，”约翰逊说，“但如果当初他赢了，他也许只是另外的某个世界冠军而已。”