Is Squash A Real Sport Or Just Something Made Up By The Writers Of “Frasier”

Everyone thinks they know what squash is. From the mentions of its fabled indoor courts in NBC’s Frasier, to the episode in season 10 where we actually see the Crane brothers play this so-called traditional sport, squash has long mystified and enthralled sophisticated television viewers. But what do we really know about the game? Sure, we might join in on the mirthful laughter of Daphne as she sees Niles in his athletic shorts, but deep in our minds, we are all asking the same question: does squash even exist?⠀

We at Sports Riot contacted every single affluent person we know, eventually finding Wendell Klose, a real estate developer, and Dr. Michael Hollens, an orthopedic surgeon, to ask them if squash was real. Our hopes were raised immediately with Klose when he met us wearing his “squash togs,” the possibly fictional vestments mentioned and worn by Frasier in season 11, episode 3, but we were wary that this may have merely been a case of life imitating art. In any event, when we asked Klose if squash was a real sport, he just stared at us blankly for five minutes before muttering something under his breath and walking out of the room.⠀

Dr. Hollens was slightly more helpful, if only because he had the entire 11 seasons of Frasier on Blu-Ray. But even he could not entirely confirm our suspicions that squash existed, due in part to the sheer unbelievability of the squash “goggles,” such as the Swedish variety worn by Frasier’s one-off comedic foil, Jim, in season 10, episode 15. When Hollens produced his own patently absurd version of the goggles and assured us that squash was real, we could not help but get the impression that he was perhaps pulling a practical joke on us; as if we were the uptight radio psychiatrist to Hollens’s crafty, trickster-goddess-like Roz.⠀

So, is squash real? We may never know. But there is at least trace compelling evidence out there that makes it a question worth investigating. At any rate, its existence is certainly more plausible than rowing—a sport Frasier claimed he practiced at Harvard which the show obviously made up.