By Katie Thomas

updated 9:05 p.m. ET April 29, 2009

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. - With her fearsome nickname, unpredictable style of play and two pairs of custom-fit, rubber-soled shoes, the athlete known as Timebomb thundered onto the court at Mountain View Middle School.

But even as the crowd whooped and the loudspeakers shook to the strains of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” before a recent game, other details made it clear that Timebomb — along with her teammates Reckless, Ginger and April Surprise — was no ordinary athlete. She plays for carrots. She has hairy ears. She is not potty-trained.

Timebomb is a donkey, and she and the others arrived at this gym to play a quirky twist on basketball in which humans ride donkeys. Called donkey ball, the pastime has been around since at least the 1930s, kept alive by fewer than a dozen family businesses that truck the donkeys to school gyms across the country in exchange for a cut of ticket revenue.

Company owners say that their donkeys are beloved, spoiled pets, and that their work helps local charities that host the events to raise money. But the practice has drawn criticism from animal-welfare groups that say the donkeys are mistreated, leading some schools to cancel the events. That, along with a handful of lawsuits, has left some operators to wonder how long this peculiar slice of Americana will survive.

“I would ask people to actually go see a donkey basketball game before they jump on the bandwagon of trying to put it down,” said Brenda Amburgey, who owns Circle A Donkey Ball in Henry, Tenn. Between animal-cruelty concerns and liability issues, she said, “there’s going to come a day when there’s no longer going to be a donkey ball.”

The rules of the game are straightforward enough: teams of four players must be astride their mounts in order to shoot, pass or play defense. Dribbling is nonexistent. Participants wear elbow pads and helmets, and they usually attend a briefing on the rules and treatment of the animals.

If the game is simple, playing is not. The sport turns on the donkeys’ stubborn nature, a quality that is encouraged by the referees. Some are trained to buck or to duck their necks — sending the players sliding to the floor — and referees reward the mischief with carrots. Other donkeys plant themselves under the hoop, providing players with a reliable scoring opportunity.

“It’s like a rodeo with a basketball involved,” said John Sisters, who along with his wife owns the Vermont-based Green Mountain Donkeyball, which ran the event here.

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Bob Crosby, who owned a donkey ball business from the 1950s through the 1990s, said the game was played outdoors in the early days and was a modified version of baseball. It morphed into basketball in the 1950s and ’60s, he said.

The oldest company still in operation is believed to be Ohio-based Buckeye Donkey Ball, which was founded in 1934 and is owned by a nephew of Crosby’s, Pat Barthen. The handful of remaining companies around the country follow a common business model, taking 50 percent to 60 percent of revenue from sales of tickets priced at about $6 each. Some, like Green Mountain Donkeyball, operate fewer than 20 events a year. Others, like Buckeye Donkey Ball, hold as many as 300 and have several teams of donkeys on the road.

The game is most popular in rural communities, where the event is often a sellout, said Jessica Cordell, Crosby’s granddaughter and the owner of Dairyland Donkey Ball in Wisconsin. Half the fun is watching the school principal or the mayor fall off a donkey, she said. But, she added, “if you play in downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul, they just don’t know each other.”

Despite its popularity, donkey ball has been criticized by animal-welfare groups that say it is stressful to the animals, who travel long distances and are ridden by inexperienced players. The Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals all oppose the sport. PETA’s campaigns have persuaded schools from Idaho to North Carolina to cancel events.

“Donkeys have no place in a gym,” said Kristie Phelps, a PETA spokeswoman. “They are very easily confused, and they have no idea what’s going on.”

Unlike circuses and zoos, donkey ball companies are not required to be licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture because their events are considered a competition, not an exhibition, said Jessica Milteer, a spokeswoman for the agency. Regulation of competitions is left to the states, she said. Phelps said enforcement of potential animal-cruelty violations was difficult because the companies moved from town to town and state to state.

Camie Heleski, an instructor in Michigan State’s Department of Animal Science who has studied donkey behavior, described the game as mostly harmless.

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