The racquetball courts at Boston Athletic Club are pretty quiet these days, but the decision to shutter them in favor of more fashionable fitness pursuits has some members bouncing off the walls.

“I was heartbroken when I heard it,’’ said Bob Guerriero, who has been a member of the beloved South Boston club for over 30 years. “I was really mad.’’

The backlash, driven by a group of diehard wallbangers (that’s a racquetball term) was swift. But time, and the fickle fitness tastes of the modern gym clientele, may have dealt the game a pass shot it couldn’t handle (that’s another one).

The plan, detailed in a Feb. 2 letter to members, called for closing the club’s racquetball and squash courts, leasing away the section of the club known as the field house to neighboring Verizon, and tearing down the courts. That would mean more room for the fitness center’s weights and machines, and for something called ERG Performance Training, which offers six weeks of classes with names like Buns and Guns and Spin Power.

“They’re all into the fitness craze with their iron man stuff,’’ said Guerriero, 69. “CrossFit? I’d be in the hospital.’’

Tucked into a little elbow of industrial land off Summer Street in South Boston, the club has quietly become something of an institution over the last 44 years. Outside, on a stretch of parking lot that’s nearly as much pothole as pavement, millions of dollars worth of luxury cars jockey for space with more modest models. Inside, the city’s power brokers sweat and shower next to guys like Guerriero.

“It is a true community, and we’ve had a bit of a grenade thrown into the middle of it,’’ said Jim Curran, 67, who helped out with the league record-keeping and organized a last-hurrah outing at the end of February. Over 100 current and former wallbangers attended.

“There’s a lot of young people moving into Southie. It’s like never-never land — all young people,’’ Curran said. “For some reason, there were not a lot of racquetball players coming out of that.’’

He said the upkeep of the courts, particularly a persistently leaky roof, were partly to blame for the lack of interest from new members.

But racquetball’s heyday was at least 30 years ago. When it shows up in popular culture these days, it’s often to establish Reagan-era bona fides: A tense game of racquetball between an FBI agent and a Russian spy on “The Americans’’ only makes sense because the show is set in the early 1980s.

“Unfortunately, just like leg-warmers have gone out of style, so too has the sport that once ensnared the country,’’ wrote no less an authority than the United States Racquetball Foundation.

Invented in Connecticut around 1950, racquetball involves whacking a rubber ball around an enclosed 40-foot-by-20-foot court. It differs from squash in several fundamental ways — court, equipment, rules — none of which are likely to be interesting to people who play neither. And handball — also popular at the club courts and not to be confused with the Olympic sport team handball — is a lot like racquetball without the racquet.

In the letter to members, club owner Tim Pappas cited a shift in demand, an industrywide trend toward boutique fitness centers, and new competitors in the neighborhood, and said, “participation levels today don’t justify the cost of operating the racquetball building for its present purpose any longer.’’

Verizon, which had been looking for more space as it rolls out its Fios network service in Boston, agreed to sublease the field house area and plans to expand until the space is home to 100 technicians.

But three weeks after the courts closed, work does not appear to have begun, and some members hope they can persuade the club to compromise.

A spokeswoman for Massport, which owns the land, said the club and Verizon had “pending applications,’’ involving the club and the new Verizon space.

Neither Pappas, president of South Boston real estate firm Pappas Enterprises, nor the club’s manager returned calls for this story.

“This is a difficult decision . . . great friendships have been fostered through the game of racquetball at BAC,’’ Pappas wrote in the letter to members.

Even those crushed by the loss of the courts acknowledge that the club’s younger clientele has not shown a lot of interest in the games.

But the actual racquetball was never really the point. Guerriero can’t play racquetball anymore anyway, owing to knee and hip replacements. He said he’s keeping his membership and will continue to use the swimming pool.

“It’s a social thing,’’ said Richard Dahill, 71, who’s been a club member since 1978. “We’re older guys — we hit the ball around, have a cup of coffee, shoot the breeze.’’

Suffolk County Register of Deeds Stephen J. Murphy, who joined the club in 1986, said the changes he’s seen at the club over the years have all benefited the membership — until now.

“A lot of us in the club think it’s kind of unfair,’’ Murphy said of the decision to close the courts. “It’s putting business ahead of what longtime members have put into the club.’’

He said he hoped a compromise could be reached to save maybe a couple of the 10 or so courts at the club.

“It’s not the sport it was 30 years ago,’’ Murphy said. “But it’s still a sport for some.’’

Nestor Ramos can be reached at nestor.ramos@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @NestorARamos.