Jai alai

Jai alai (pronounced HI-li) is a sport in which players use a curved wicker basket strapped to their wrists called a cesta to catch and throw a hard ball against a three-walled court. It holds the world record for the fastest-moving ball sport, with the goatskin-covered ball reaching speeds as high as 188 miles per hour (302.5 kilometers per hour). Jai alai originated in the Basque region of Spain and France and was brought to the United States in the early twentieth century. It was especially popular in Florida and experienced rapid growth in the 1970s and 1980s. A protracted players' strike in the late 1980s devastated the sport, draining much of its audience. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, jai alai struggled to survive, with only a few sparsely-attended venues remaining in the United States.

Origins and History

Jai alai was first played in the mountainous Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France more than three centuries ago. Games were held in the courtyard of the local church, using the walls of the church as the playing area. In Spanish, the sport was called pelota vasca, while in French, it was pelote basque; both names come from the pilotta, the fur- or hair-filled ball used in the early form of the game. The term jai alai originated in the Basque language and means "merry festival" because the games were played on Sundays or local holidays.

The ball used in jai alai was very hard and often painful to catch, so players began wrapping leather on their hands to protect themselves. In the late nineteenth century, players began putting a cesta, or basket, on their hands, allowing them to catch the ball easier and throw it faster and harder.

The first indoor playing area, or fronton, was built in Marquena, Spain, in 1798. By the early twentieth century, the game had spread to Spanish-speaking countries, including Cuba, Mexico, and the Philippines. It debuted in the United States at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Jai alai was very popular with the Spanish-speaking immigrants of Florida. The first professional jai alai fronton opened in 1926 near Miami, and others soon followed across the state. In the 1930s, Florida legalized pari-mutuel betting, a form of gambling used in horse racing. The law allowed bettors to wager on jai alai games, further increasing the sport's popularity.

Jai alai built on its reputation as a fast-paced, dangerous sport, and by the 1950s and 1960s, frontons were expanded to house thousands of spectators. In 1968, players began wearing protective helmets after a prominent player was struck in the head by a ball and seriously injured. In the 1970s, the sport spread to other areas of the United States, with fourteen frontons as far north as Connecticut and Rhode Island and as far west as Las Vegas, Nevada.

The decline of jai alai began in the late 1980s when players began a contentious labor dispute with the managers of the frontons. While management made millions of dollars on the games, players earned between $18,000 and $100,000 a year. Seeking better salaries, the players went on strike in April of 1988. Management brought in replacement players, but the quality of the game suffered and fans began deserting the frontons. By the time the strike ended three years later, several frontons had closed, and the sport never fully recovered.

Rules and Regulations

Jai alai is played on a three-walled court called a cancha. The front and back walls are typically 40 feet (12 meters) wide and the side wall to the left is 176 feet (54 meters) long. The front wall is made of granite to withstand the ball's impact. On the right of the court is a 10- to 15-foot (3- to 4.6-meter) out-of-bounds area called the contracancha. The floor of the court is divided by fourteen parallel lines. Line 1 is closest to the front wall, and Line 14 is furthest away.

A jai alai ball is about three-quarters the size of a baseball. It consists of a rubber core with a hand-stitched cover of two layers of goatskin. The cover of the ball must be replaced every fifteen minutes because of the damage done by the constant impacts against the walls. The cestas used are wicker glove-like baskets custom-made from reeds in the Basque region. Cestas are about 2 feet (61 centimeters) long and curved to put considerable spin on the ball.

Each game begins with a player serving the ball by throwing it at the front wall from beyond the serving line, or Line 11. As the serve ricochets off the wall, it must land between Lines 4 and 7. A serve that falls outside this range is declared under or over-serve, and the opposing team or player receives a point. If the serve is legal, the opposing player must catch the ball in the cesta and return it against any of the three walls in one fluid motion. Players must then catch the ball in the air or after only one bounce, and throw it against any wall.

Players alternate catching and throwing until a point is scored. Points are scored if a player fails to catch the ball in the air or on one bounce, or a player juggles the ball or holds it for too long. A judge determines if the ball was caught or thrown in the proper manner. Points are also scored if a player throws the ball out of bounds, or if a player interferes with another player.

Strategy and Tactics

Games can be played by single players or teams consisting of two players—a frontcourt player and a backcourt player. Most games use a round-robin style of play consisting of eight teams of two players or eight single players. When a team wins a point, it remains on the court while a new team replaces the losing team. The losing team goes to the bottom of the progression order to await another turn on the court.

Scoring typically follows the "Spectacular Seven" format in which the first team to score seven points wins. Points usually double after the first round. In Superfecta scoring, the first team to score nine points wins. The team with the second most points is awarded the "place" position, and the team with the third most points is awarded "show." A playoff format is used to determine place and show in the case of a tie.

The round-robin format typically favors teams that draw a lower post number, allowing them to take the court first and giving them more chances to score. Just as in horse racing, bettors can wager on teams to win, place, or show. Gamblers can also choose to wager on several combinations of finishing orders. For example, bettors can choose two teams to finish first and second in any order, a wager known as a quinella bet. In a trifecta bet, a gambler must predict the top three finishers in the correct order.

Professional Leagues and Series

During its peak of popularity, jai alai was played in fourteen venues across the United States. By the 2020s, athletes continued to pay jai alai in the Basque region, where it is known as cesta punta, but the only place in North America where the sport was played professionally year-round was the Magic City Casino. The World Jai-Alai League (WJAL) presented the fifth United States National Jai-Alai Championship (USNJAC) in 2024 at the Magic City Fronton. Most modern frontons survived by also offering legal poker games and slot machines. To maintain their gambling licenses, frontons must schedule a minimum of forty jai alai performances consisting of eight games.

Popularity

On December 27, 1975, more than fifteen thousand people attended a game at the Miami Jai Alai fronton, nicknamed the "Yankee Stadium of Jai Alai." The figure was an all-time attendance record for any jai alai game in the world. The sport received some national media attention and was even featured in an episode of the popular 1980s television series Miami Vice.

The players' strike played a major role in the sport's decline, but other factors also hurt its popularity. Jai alai is more of a spectator sport that does not translate well to television. As a result, it did not gather much of a following when the cable television sports industry took off in the 1980s. It also faced increased competition from the country's biggest sports leagues. Prior to 1988, the only professional sports team in South Florida was the National Football League's Miami Dolphins. Between 1988 and 1993, Miami was awarded franchises in the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball. In the northern part of the state, Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Jacksonville also received professional sports teams between 1976 and 1998. Between 1992 and 2003, major frontons in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Florida closed. However, in 2004, the first new fronton to be established in twenty-two years opened in Hamilton County, Florida.

However, jai alai venues in Florida and across the country faced hard times in the following decades. Miami Jai Alai had a seating capacity of more than six thousand, and Dania Jai Alai could seat more than five thousand, but both struggled to attract five hundred spectators to a game. At the jai alai fronton in Ocala, Florida, two-player games were held continuously to fulfill the requirements to keep the facility's gambling license.

Efforts to preserve and repopularize the sport in the twenty-first century are ongoing. In 2023, the WJAL announced interest and investment in the sport was increasing, with recording artist Armando Christian Pérez (Pitbull) taking on equity ownership in the league. The year’s other investors included NBA champion Udonis Haslem, former UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal, Olympian Monica Puig, professional tennis player Eugenie Bouchard, and retired NFL player Ray Lewis. In early 2024, Berri Fit became the WJAL’s official drink sponsor.

Bibliography

"About WJAL." World Jai-Alai League, jaialaiworld.com/about. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.

Aranguren, Maider. "Magic City Casino Works to Save Jai Alai from Extinction (Includes Video)." Caplin News, 22 Dec. 2022, caplinnews.fiu.edu/magic-city-jai-alai-chris-bueno-basque-euskadi. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.

Beyer, Andrew. "Long-Running Labor Dispute Is a Strike against Jai-Alai's Popularity." Washington Post, 24 Feb. 1989, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1989/02/24/long-running-labor-dispute-is-a-strike-against-jai-alais-popularity/920bd0b0-1194-4bb5-95ec-1e70c695a07a. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.

"Fastest Moving Ball Sport." Guinness World Records, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-moving-ball-sport. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.

Gray, Geoffrey. "JAI ALAI; A Sport Fighting for Survival." New York Times, 12 June 2004, www.nytimes.com/2004/06/12/sports/jai-alai-a-sport-fighting-for-survival.html. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.

"How to Play Jai-Alai." Jai-Alai.info, www.jai-alai.info/how-to-play-jai-alai.html. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.

Kurlansky, Mark. "The Basque Cake." Basque History of the World, Penguin Books, 2001, pp. 13–17.

Morton, Paula E. Jai Alai: A Cultural History of the Fastest Game in the World. U of New Mexico P, 2019.

Richards, George. "ESPN Asks 'What the Hell Happened to Jai-Alai?'" Miami Herald, 2 Aug. 2016, www.miamiherald.com/sports/article93237822.html. Accessed 29 Dec. 2024.