jai alai | sport | Britannica.com Jai alai tennis Jai alai, ball game of Basque origin played in a three-walled court with a hard rubber ball that is caught and thrown with a cesta, a long, curved wicker scoop strapped to one arm. Called pelota vasca in Spain, the Western Hemisphere name jai alai (Basque “merry festival”) was given to the game when it was imported to Cuba in 1900. History Jai alai developed from a form of handball , and it is presumed that the availability of a lively ball made possible by the introduction of rubber to Europe from South America permitted players to speed up the game. The next step, it is thought, was the introduction of the guante, a simple leather glove worn on the right hand, which in turn led to the use of a flat wooden bat, or pala. A cartoon for a tapestry by Goya in the Prado museum , Madrid, “Juego de Pelota” (1777–90), depicts such a bat in use on a one-walled court.

Later the guante developed into a catching and throwing device leading finally to the evolution of the cesta, at first a short implement but now about .76 metre (2.5 feet) long, gracefully curved and efficient, with which the player can catch the ball and hurl it with tremendous power and speed. Each cesta is custom-made of Pyrenees Mountain reeds woven over a light, ribbed frame of Spanish chestnut; a leather glove sewn to the outside holds the player’s hand securely. The pelota (Spanish “ball”) is a little smaller than a baseball and harder and heavier than a golf ball. It is made of hand-wound virgin rubber with a few final turns of linen or nylon thread and covered with two layers of hardened goat skin, the outer layer of which can be replaced. In play, speeds of 240 kilometres (150 miles) per hour are not uncommon. Professional players have worn protective helmets in the United States since 1967.

The court and the fronton Similar Topics venationes The modern three-walled playing court, or cancha, averages about 53.3 m long by 15.2 m wide and is 12.2 m or more high. The walls and the floor are made of special material to withstand the pounding of the ball. The spectators sit in tiers along the open side with the front of the court to their right, the side wall directly in front of them, and the back wall to their left. The entire plant is the fronton; some Basque frontons date from as early as 1785. The game is played professionally in 10 frontons in Spain : 5 in the Basque country, of which the one in Guernica is the finest; 2 in Barcelona; and one each in Palma de Mallorca , Zaragoza, and Madrid. It is also played in southern France and in Milan. In the Western Hemisphere it is popular in Mexico, where there are two frontons in Mexico City and one each in Acapulco and Tijuana.

It was played in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, first in Chicago and then in New Orleans , but in both places it was withdrawn after the gambling laws were changed to ban betting on the game; it was demonstrated without wagering in New York City in 1938. The Miami fronton, with 5,100 seats, the world’s largest, was the only one in the United States when Florida adopted a law in 1935 permitting pari-mutuel wagering on the sport. Since that time professional courts have been established at Tampa, West Palm Beach , Daytona Beach , Orlando, and Dania (all in Florida) and in Hartford, Conn. The game was popular in Cuba before it was banned after the revolution in 1959, and there are two frontons in the Philippines. Except for the United States, where there are only two frontons for amateurs, it is a popular amateur sport wherever it is played professionally. Players American Sports Nicknames First-class players traditionally have come from the Basque country.

Outstanding contemporaries include Juan Cruz Bustinduy (playing name Juaristi) and Francisco Asis in the front court and Ramon Soroa and Tomás Cortajarena in the back court. Most players reach their top form in their late 20s or early 30s, but one of the greatest of all time was Erdoza Menor, who played until he was in his 50s; he dropped dead on the court of a heart attack. Management of the fronton in Miami supports training schools in Spain for the development of young players, the one at Guernica having graduated many of the world’s greatest. There is also a school at Miami where promising young amateurs may receive four or five years of training for a professional career. The game Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent The principles of the game are very simple. The ball is served against the front wall and must land in a designated serving zone; the opposing player in the case of singles, or one of the opposing partners in doubles games, must catch and return the ball before it touches the floor more than once. The ball must be caught and thrown in one continuous motion.

The object is to bounce the ball off the front wall with such speed and English (spin) that the opposition cannot return it and loses the point. Play continues until the ball is missed or goes out of bounds. The ball is out of bounds if it strikes the area clearly marked in red around the front wall, strikes the overhead screen above the court or any other area marked in red or outside the foul line. If a player stops his throw because another player is in front of him, interference may be called, and the point will be played over. The basic game played outside the United States, partidos, is a match singles or doubles game to 10 to 40 points. Betting is on the eventual outcome of the game, at any time during the game. As the points fluctuate, so does the spread of the odds. The American game is adapted to the pari-mutuel system. Six to eight one- or two-member teams compete for five to seven points. Two players or teams play for one point, the losing side retiring from the court and the winning side continuing to play until it loses a point and is retired or wins enough points to win the game; play-offs determine second (place) and third (show) positions.

Betting is the same as at horse races, each player being identified by a number that is called his “post position.” Under the American Qualifying Point System eight post positions (players or teams) play for five points. Play follows the usual elimination system until three positions have made three points each; the three then play off for win, place, and show places. The popular quiniela wager, in which the bettor picks two players or teams to finish first and second, in either order, was originated for jai alai wagering in the 1930s by Richard I. Berenson, former president of the Miami fronton. The quiniela wager has since flourished at horse races, dog races, and other events throughout the world. The quiniela in jai alai wagering was followed by the perfecta , in which the bettor must pick first and second in that order. Horse racing’s daily double, the selection of the winners in two different events, also became popular in jai alai; and a Big Q., picking the quiniela in two events, was later introduced. Buber's Basque Page: Jai Alai For security reasons, user contributed notes have been disabled.

Jai Alai {hy'-ly} Jai alai is a form of handball for singles or doubles competition played on a court with one or three walls. Players use a curved wicker basket (cesta) for returning the ball. The game is played most seriously in Mexico City, Havana, and Miami, Fla., and on a less competitive level in southern Europe and Connecticut. The players are professionals, and wagering is common. The game is derived from either the Aztecs or a Basque variation of handball. It developed in Spain, was imported to Cuba in 1900, and arrived in Miami in 1924. The ball (pelota) is made of hard, wound rubber covered by linen thread and two layers of goatskin; it is 2 in. (5 cm) in diameter and travels about 240 km/h (150 mph). The standard rules are similar to handball rules, except the court (fronton) is much larger--176 ft (53.7 m) long. There is one more player (or team) than the number of game points. If a player loses a point he is eliminated, and the next player comes on the court.

The first player to reach game point wins. In Miami an alternative form of scoring is used in which 8 competitors play for 5 points. A player sits down when he has won 3 points; the first 3 players to do so compete in a playoff to determine the match winner. Biblio: Bibliography: Hollander, Zander, and Schulz, David, The Jai Alai Handbook (1978). Copyright notice: Copyright by Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. This page is part of Buber's Basque Page and is maintained by Blas Uberuaga. Please report any problems or suggestions to Blas. Eskerrik asko! Basque pelota is the ancestor of Jai alai - Jai Alai Jai alai Basque pelota is the ancestor of Jai alai Basque pelota is the ancestor of Jai alai Basque pelota is a court game originally played in the Basaque Country in Spain and France. Several variations have been described historically, such as playing with a bare hand, playing using a racket, playing using a wooden bat and playing using a woven basket-glove. What most version have in common is that a ball is thrown again a wall.

In Basque (euskera), the game is known as pilota. In Spanish, the game is called pelota vasca, while the French says pelote basque. The term pilota / pelota comes from pilotta, a diminutive form of pila in Vulgar Latin. A pila was originally a ball filled with pilus (fur or hair). The earliest mentionings of the game pilota are from the 13th century. The game is believed to be based on ball games played by the ancient Greek and other peoples living in the Mediterranean basin during the classical era. The fronton (court) Unlike Jai Alai, which is played in a three walled court, Basque pelota is played in a two walled court. In Basque, this court is known as the frontoi or pilotaleku. Basque pelota courts with just one wall do exist (especially in the French part of Basque Country) but they are not approved for international tournaments by the International Federation of Basque Pelota. Usually, these uni-walled courts are used to play joko-garbia and open-air grand chistera games.

Rules for Hand Pelota Hand pelota, known as esku huska or esku huskako pilota in Basque, is played barehanded or using minimal hand protection. The traditional hand pelota ball has a hard core surrounded by wool. The wool is covered by leather. All in all, the ball should weigh 92 – 95 grams. Hand pelota is played either one vs. one or two vs. two in the court. The player to serve bounces the ball before propelling towards the front wall. The ball must then rebound between the low line and the high line. It doesn’t matter if it rebounds directly off the front wall onto the ground, or if it rebounds onto the side wall first. The task for the opposing team is to play the ball. They can either play the ball immediately after its rebound from front or side wall, or play the ball when it has rebounded from the floor once. Scoring A team scores if the opposing team fails to play the ball before it has rebounded off the ground more than once. A team scores if it plays the ball and it rebounds off the front wall and rebounds off the floor and outside the playing area.

A team scores if the opposing team plays the ball and it hits the front wall below the low line or above the high line. A team scores if the opposing team plays the ball in time but the ball doesn’t reach the front wall. Basque pelota around the world Basque pelota is played around the world, especially in countries that used to be Spanish colonies. Still, the game retain its strong ties to Basque Country, and many of today’s most successful Basque pelota players were either raised in Basque Country or raised in a Basque diaspora. Once upon a time, the Basque pelota was an offical Olympic sport. It was a part of the 1900 Paris Games (Summer Olympics). It was also a demonstration sport in the 1924 Summer Olympics and the 1992 Summer Olympics. International Federation of Basque Pelota The highest governing body of the sport is the International Federation of Baque Pelota (FIPV). Spanish: Federación Internacional de Pelota Vasca Basque: Euskal Pilotaren Nazioarteko Federakuntza The International Federation of Basque Pelota was formed in Buenos Aires, Argentina on May 19, 1929.

The founding organizations were the Spanish Federation of Basque Pelota, the French Federation of Basque Pelota and the Argentinian Federation of Basque Pelota. Because of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, the official modalities regulated by the international federation wasn’t defined until 1946. The International Federation of Basque Pelota is headquartered in Bernardino Tirapu, Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. Examples of countries where there are federations of Basque pelota Spain India Modalities and disciplines The International Federation of Basque Pelota has standardised the many varieties of the game into four modalities and fourteen disciplines. This includes standards for scoring, court size and ball weight. The four modalities: Jai Alai - List of Sports List of Sports Leave a comment Jai alai is a sport involving a ball bounced off a walled space. It is a variety of Basque Pelota . The term, coined by Serafin Baroja in 1875, is also often loosely applied to the fronton (the open-walled playing area) where the sport is played. The game is called “zesta-punta” (basket tip) in Basque.

The Basque Government promotes jai alai as “the fastest sport in the world because of the balls” and once held the world record for ball speed with a 125g–140g ball covered with goatskin that traveled at 302 km/h (188 mph), performed by José Ramón Areitio at the Newport Jai Alai, Rhode Island , until it was broken by Canadian long drive champion Jason Zuback on an episode of Sport Science in July 2009 with a golf ball speed of 328 km/h (204 mph). The record for a badminton shuttle during gameplay is set by Fu Haifeng with a recorded smash of 332 km/h (206 mph). Rules and customs of play The court (or cancha) for jai alai consists of walls (front, back, and left), and the floor between them in play. If the ball (called a “pelota,” Spanish for ball) touches the floor outside these walls, it is considered out of bounds. Similarly, there is also a border on the lower 3 ft (about 1 m) of the front wall that is also out of bounds.

The ceiling on the court is usually very high, so the ball has a more predictable path. The court is divided by 14 parallel lines going horizontally across the court, with line 1 closest to the front wall and line 14 the back wall. In doubles, each team consists of a frontcourt player and a backcourt player. The game begins when the frontcourt player of the first team serves the ball to the second team. The winner of each point stays on the court to meet the next team in rotation. Losers go to the end of the line to await another turn on the court. The first team to score 7 points (or 9 in Superfecta games) wins. The next highest scores are awarded “place” (second) and “show” (third) positions, respectively. Playoffs decide tied scores. Long xistera. A jai alai game is played in round robin format, usually between eight teams of two players each or eight single players. The first team to score 7 or 9 points wins the game. Two of the eight teams are in the court for each point.

The server on one team must bounce the ball behind the serving line, then with the cesta “basket” hurl it towards the front wall so it bounces from there to between lines 4 and 7 on the floor. The ball is then in play. The ball used in Jai Alai consists of metal strands tightly wound together and then wrapped in goat skin. Teams alternate catching the ball in their cesta and throwing it “in one fluid motion” without holding or juggling it. The ball must be caught either on the fly or after bouncing once on the floor. A team scores a point if an opposing player: fails to serve the ball directly to the front wall so that upon rebound it will bounce between lines No. 4 and 7. If it does not, it is an under or over serve and the other team will receive the point. fails to catch the ball on the fly or after one bounce holds or juggles the ball hurls the ball out of bounds interferes with a player attempting to catch and hurl the ball The team scoring a point remains in the court and the opposing team rotates off the court to the end of the list of opponents.

Points usually double after the first round of play, once each team has played at least one point. The players frequently attempt a “chula” shot, where the ball is played off the front wall very high, then reaches the bottom of the back wall by the end of its arc. The bounce off the bottom of the back wall can be very low, and the ball is very difficult to return in this situation. Since there is no wall on the right side, all jai alai players must play right-handed (wear the cesta on their right hand). Jai alai: The sport that almost caught on in the U.S. | MNN - Mother Nature Network Jai alai: The sport that almost caught on in the U.S. The Spanish sport thrived for a few decades before becoming a niche gambling attraction. 1 Jon Tambourendeguy (right) of France's jai alai team competes during the match against Mexico in 2010. (Photo: Guillaume Bonnaud/AFP/Getty Images) The ball flies through the air at high speed. It passes dangerously close to a player’s head . His teammate makes a leaping catch and then, in one smooth motion, turns and throws the ball.

This may sound like baseball , but it's not. The game is jai alai, a sport from Spain's Basque country that was first imported to the United States more than century ago — yet not many people know about it. Jai alai is similar to racquetball , but instead of racquets, players have curved baskets that are strapped to their hands. The goal is to catch the ball, or the pelota, in the basket, called a cesta, and then throw it back against the front wall in one smooth, constant motion. The added leverage provided by the cesta is what allows the players to throw the ball at such high rates of speed. The pelota routinely hits speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour, and the fastest jai alai throw ever recorded was 188 miles per hour . If the opponents cannot catch and return the ball, and the ball stays in bounds, the thrower earns a point. The sport's court is designed with spectators in mind. The 175-foot long court has three walls. The fourth wall is for viewers, who can sit see all the action from an ideal angle . Jai alai venues are called frontons.

Two men playing jai alai in Tampa in November 1989. (Photo: Scott Halleran /Allsport/Getty Images) A gamble in the U.S. Jai alai was one of the fastest growing spectator sports in the U.S. in the last half of the 20th century, according to SB Nation . The high-speed, acrobatic catches and throws, and inherent danger (players were not required to wear helmets until the 1960s, and injuries from flying balls are still common) drew fans and curiosity-seekers in droves. The first fronton on U.S. soil opened in 1904 in St. Louis. Twenty years later, the first professional venue opened in Florida, which would become jai alai's American heartland. Many frontons were also established up the East Coast, but their popularity waned by the 1980s, and most closed soon thereafter. Jai alai enjoyed a brief run in Las Vegas during the 1970s. The sport's Sin City foray highlighted one of the main reasons for its one-time popularity: gambling.

Jai alai's style of scoring and player rotation makes it ideal for parimutuel betting. This is the same style of betting used in horse racing . The jai alai venues that remain open today are focused on gambling. All of the surviving arenas are in Florida. At the height its popularity in the 1970s, some Florida venues would routinely see thousands of fans each night. People would come to bet, but many were there just to watch and enjoy the excitement of the game . The state has passed regulations meant to keep jai alai alive. Casino operations are allowed to have various other forms of gambling — such as poker and horse racing simulcasts — as long as they also offer jai alai. These regulations have kept jai alai going on American soil. Players practice in an empty jai alai venue at Miami Casino. (Photo: Lee Cannon /flickr) Failure to launch So what happened to jai alai? Why did it never rise above niche sport status? Just when the game was set to explode into the mainstream in the late 1980s and early '90s, the players went on strike .

Inferior part-timers were brought in during the strike, but the buzz surrounding the game was not the same. By the time things got back on track, jai alai was back to being a niche sport that had little mainstream buzz. Also, despite being a great live spectator sport, jai alai is not very TV-friendly. With the advent of cable TV and channels like ESPN, there were simply other, more televisual niche sports to choose from. Though frontons outside of Florida have closed, and attendance numbers have dropped, the sport has not disappeared. Pros from overseas still come to Florida to play, and the best players can still earn six-figure salaries. The players also get prize money for winning a match, and they can earn a small percentage of the gambling revenue. Despite its decline, jai alai still has a following. Interestingly, one of the newest frontons in Florida involves no gambling whatsoever. Built in the city of St. Petersburg, it is a public court that is specifically for amateur players . The hope amongst local enthusiasts is that the new court will make jai alai accessible as a sport to play not a sport to gamble on.

Can a new generation of homegrown players revitalize the sport and make it about more than gambling? Related on MNN: What happened to Jai Alai? - SBNation.com Michael J. Mooney | February 28, 2013 What happened to Jai Alai? Echoes of a dying game Looking at the rows and rows of seats, you can imagine a different time. There were thousands of people every night, men in dark suits and hats packed shoulder to shoulder. They’d be waving programs, downing brown booze, smoking cigarettes from cigarette cases or, better still, puffing thick cigars that would fill the room with pungent smoke and give the air just below the giant ceiling lights a ghostly blue haze. As the men on the court used oblong baskets to hurl a goatskin ball over and over against a granite wall, the men in the crowd would be hollering and belly laughing and slapping each other on the back. There was a time when the audience at the Miami Jai Alai fronton was so loud, the players on the court could barely hear their own thoughts.

 Tweet Share on Twitter Share Share on Facebook Pin Pinterest 34 Comments ⋆ Rec Recommend this Post 1 Now though, the seats are almost all empty. On this clear-skied, 85-degree Tuesday afternoon in mid-winter, there are more players in uniform than spectators in the crowd. On the other side of the building, in the freshly renovated casino, there are plenty of people at the poker tables and parked in front of the more than 1,000 flashing slot machines. But in this massive auditorium, once the epicenter of the gambling action, it’s dead. You can hear the scoreboard beeping, and it sounds like the entire building is on life support With every throw, you can hear the ball—in jai alai, the pelota—crash against the wall with a thunderous, echoing boom. You can hear the scoreboard beeping, and it sounds like the entire building is on life support. What was once a five-star restaurant at the top of the grandstand, the Courtview Club, is almost always dark and vacant now. The skyboxes, once bustling with young women offering cocktail service, now gather dust year-round.

Same for the sectioned-off rows that once comprised the sizable press box. Even the players’ names, they once sounded so exotic and intriguing. Now they just seem … foreign. The few people in the audience who are actually paying attention to the action—there are no fans here, just bettors rooting for their wagers—feel comfortable yelling at the players by name, even when they are only barely pronounceable. “Goiko!” they yell. Or “Aritz!” Or “Paxti!” An old Cuban man in a weathered leather jacket and worn blue cap stands up near the back, lifts his fist, and shouts: “Tevin! Make it happen!” Now he’s the only American-born player left on the Miami Jai Alai roster. He’s the only American jai alai player he knows. The player known as Tevin is named Leon Shepard. As is the tradition in jai alai, professional players are each known by one short nickname. He picked “Tevin” because he’d been listening to a lot of R&B singer Tevin Campbell at the time. Shepard grew up in Bridgeport, Conn. He’s been playing professionally for 21 years.

Now he’s the only American-born player left on the Miami Jai Alai roster. He’s the only American jai alai player he knows. Last year at the World Championships in France, when organizers couldn’t find a second American player, he was paired with a Cuban-American partner. “I guess they thought that was close enough,” he’d say later. He has a long, narrow face, with eyes that seem calm whether he’s plunging toward the floor in service of a ball or patiently waiting his turn in the cage next to the court. At the moment, he’s wearing white shoes, white pants, a thick white helmet, a red sash around his waist, and a black jersey with a number 5 on the front and a 25 on the back. (The number on the back is a player’s permanent number, and the number on the front is his playing position, which changes every game like with a racehorse.) Attached to his right hand is a long curved basket—a cesta—handmade from steamed chestnut wood and woven reeds from the Pyrenees Mountains. When it’s his turn, he walks calmly onto the court—the cancha.

Imagine a three-story, three-sided 176-foot long racquetball court, with two cement walls, one on the side and one in back, one granite front wall on the end (granite is the only substance that can withstand the repeated force of a speeding pelota), and one chain-link fence through which the audience can see all the action. That same fence also protects the audience from errant balls, which are bouncing around the court sometimes faster than the human eye can track. It’s hard to describe jai alai to someone who’s never seen it. It’s sweeping and whirling and violently fast. It’s hard to describe jai alai to someone who’s never seen it. It’s sweeping and whirling and violently fast. Shepard’s opponent starts the point by whipping the ball against the front wall. In one smooth, continuous motion, as the ball takes a bounce, Shepard leaps to catch it in his cesta and whips it back against the wall so hard the collision sounds like a shotgun blast. His opponent whips it back, and this time it caroms off two walls at an angle, forcing Shepard to climb the side wall a little like an outfielder in baseball pulling back a homerun.

He’s three feet off the ground, his torso completely parallel to the floor, when he returns the pelota with just enough velocity to get it to the front wall. It’s like a well-executed drop shot in tennis. His opponent can’t cover all that space in time. Point, Tevin. After the incredible display of athleticism, there are one or two aahs in the audience—a missed free throw in a meaningless NBA game garners a louder reaction. Within seconds there is a new opponent on the court, and Shepard serves. Jai alai is played in a round-robin style, eight players (or pairs when they play doubles) at a time. When you win a point, you get to stay on the court. The loser sits at the end of the bench and hopes to get another chance. The game is over when someone gets either seven or nine points. Shepard wins the next point. Then the one after that too. Nobody cheers though. Most people don’t even look up from their $1 programs. Jai alai used to be a very popular spectator sport in this country. Presidents watched jai alai with their wives. This is what a dying sport looks like.

For decades, the Miami fronton was known as the “Yankee Stadium of jai alai,” a temple to the game, the site of the largest jai alai crowds in American history. Since the 1920s, the best players in the world have gathered here every winter. Jai alai used to be a very popular spectator sport in this country, with frontons up and down the Eastern seaboard. Presidents watched jai alai with their wives. Ernest Hemingway bragged about getting to hang out with jai alai players. In fact, during World War II he concocted a scheme in which jai alai players would somehow lob grenades down the open hatches of unsuspecting German U-boats. Now, the sport seems like a relic, a vision into the past. It’s vestigial, like an appendix. But the truth is, this could be the future of any number of sports that are popular today. With a few small twists of fate, in time, this could be baseball or hockey or even football.

If rule changes—precipitated by concussions—lead to an erosion of the fan base, football, like jai alai, might one day exist only for the purposes of gambling. It’s not impossible to imagine someone looking back a few generations from now on the hordes of drunken, screaming fans who fill up Cowboys Stadium and tailgate in their jerseys the same way we see those old jai alai patrons, with their suits and bourbon and cigars: anachronisms, ghosts from another time. After three in a row, Shepard loses a point and moves to the end of the bench. A minute or two later, since nobody has seven points yet, he gets another chance. But he bobbles a ball and loses the point. He finishes the game in fourth place, out of the money. (The top three finishers in each game get a bonus that ranges from $30 to $90.) The man who had cheered him moments ago didn’t even stick around for the end of the game. He’s back at the teller bay, ready to make a bet on the next game. “It’s like we’re able to play beautiful music out there,” Shepard would explain later.

“But nobody can hear the instruments.” It’s not impossible to imagine someone looking back a few generations from now on the hordes of drunken, screaming fans who fill up Cowboys Stadium the same way we see those old jai alai patrons. — On most days, Leon Shepard wakes up early to get his kids, ages 7 and 8, to school on time. Then he goes back to bed. He gets back up around 11 a.m. After breakfast, he gets in his Chrysler 300 and drives from Miramar, the pleasant, tree-lined suburb where he lives, to the fronton, right next to the Miami airport. He usually arrives for work between 12 and 12:15 p.m. He gets a massage and a stretch, and his uniforms (eight different no. 25 jerseys) are clean and waiting for him. There are no practice courts to warm up on, so 16 men at a time take turns flinging the ball against the front wall to loosen up. Though the speeding pelotas can do some serious damage—every so often a player has an eye knocked out—the most common injuries are to shoulders and elbows, similar to pitchers.

every so often a player has an eye knocked out “I’m my own boss. We have insurance. And at the end of the day I get paid to throw a ball around.” For the last five years, Shepard has come to jokingly call the fronton a “factory,” but he knows it’s not a bad job. He’s only at work four and a half hours a day—he’s usually home before rush hour. Most players play in five games a day, so all told, he’s only really on the court for 10 or 12 minutes, not a bad schedule for upward of 70 grand, even in bad years. Between the monthly base salary ($3,000 on average), the bonus for each win, place, and show, and the cut of the slot machine revenue players get as part of their union contract (around $2,000 a month), a few players in Miami make well into the six figures. “It’s a pretty cool gig,” he says, laid back as usual. “I’m my own boss. We have insurance.

And at the end of the day I get paid to throw a ball around.” Shepard is 6’2, a lean 180 pounds, with the chiseled right forearm and bicep of a man who has fired a ball like a rocket six days a week, for 21 years. Because of the configuration of the court, all cestas must be strapped to the right hand—even for natural left-handers like Shepard. So most pelotari (the traditional word for jai alai players) have a markedly different, more toned physique on the right side of their bodies. Shepard’s right bicep is 30 to 40 percent larger than his left. It’s a game dominated by players from Spain, France, Cuba and Mexico. Some of the pelotari in Miami grew up riding their bicycles over the lush green mountainsides of the Basque country to play barefoot against the wall of a church. Shepard grew up playing baseball. Starting at age 5, he played center field. He could hurl the ball from the warning track to the catcher better than anyone he knew. He was a star through high school, and his mother was there cheering all the way.

They would talk about how one day he would play in the major leagues. With his speed, they thought he might even have a chance at Ricky Henderson’s stolen base record. But by the time he was 18, he found baseball boring, unfulfilling. “I didn’t feel challenged anymore,” he says. “There was nothing new to discover.” Shepard was at a bowling alley one night with friends when he saw some local jai alai players in the parking lot tossing around a rubber ball with these strange looking baskets he’d never seen. Something about the way it looked intrigued him. It was a little like baseball, but not really. He asked if he could give it a try. Right there in the parking lot he strapped on a cesta and threw the ball against the wall of the bowling alley. Or rather, he tried to throw it. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get the ball to come out of the cesta and go the way he wanted. He was fascinated. The game dates back centuries, to the rolling hills where France and Spain meet. There, jai alai is called, simply, pelota. It started in small town squares, a derivation of handball.

By the 1800s, players were using essentially the same equipment as today (although now players also wear helmets), and gambling was already an integral part of the sport, just as it is in horse racing. Jai alai came to America in 1904, at the St. Louis World’s Fair, and to South Florida and the Northeast by the early 1920s, and over time the relationship between the game and gambling in the United States flourished. The Miami fronton was finished in 1926, designed to be bigger and better than anything that had come before. Through the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and even into the early ’80s, business boomed. In 1965, the fronton was renovated and the grandstand expanded, from a capacity of around 7,000 to well over 13,000. In the 1960s and 1970s, as states began looking for more ways to make money, legal wagering on jai alai expanded, and the sport became tied to pari-mutuel gambling, sharing space with slot machines.

But by the late ’80s, just as ESPN was ushering in a new era of sports entertainment, things had changed. Through the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and even into the early ’80s, business boomed. Wanting to learn more, Shepard went to the local amateur courts in Bridgeport. Connecticut, like Florida, used to be a jai alai hotbed, because it was legal to gamble on the game. At the Bridgeport courts, 50 or 60 people would hang out there every day, some for exercise, some because they wanted to bet on themselves. He was told there was one rubber ball court and one that used a real pelota. A real pelota looks like a goatskin tennis ball. It’s slightly smaller than a baseball, and it’s harder than a golf ball. A top player’s serve can reach 180 miles per hour, easy. Shepard, looking for a challenge, opted for the court with the real pelota. The first time he threw a ball, he whipped it overhand, the way he’d throw out a runner from center field.

The pelota went straight into the ground, bounced up, and hit him in the face. As he sat in the hospital, after a concussion and seven stitches, his mother asked him if he was done with this silly game, if he could re-focus all of his attention on baseball. “I looked at her and told her it was the exact opposite,” he says. “I was hooked.” — Jai alai featured on AMC's Mad Men He started going to the amateur courts every day. It cost him $7 an hour, and he’d play eight hours a day. (After coming every day for a few months, they cut him a better deal.) He could borrow a cesta, and he loved strapping up and stepping onto the court. He loved getting the ball on his right side and using his left hand to help with an especially powerful reverse. He loved the way he could set up a point, moving a player around before going in for the kill shot. He loved the sounds of the impressed crowds as he got to balls that seemed impossible. Soon, much to his mother’s dismay, he dropped baseball altogether. For two years, he was an amateur court regular.

He worked until he was comfortable with his right hand, until he found a natural balance. His speed and his strength—his ability to get balls nobody else could, and to return it from all sorts of twisted postures—made up for what he lacked in experience and knowledge of the game. His first offer to play professionally came not from his hometown fronton in Bridgeport, but from the fronton in Orlando. He drove down there by himself and met with the players’ manager. Shepard was asked what he wanted his jai alai name to be. On his entire drive down, he’d only had one cassette tape: Tevin Campbell. He heard it over and over. Ever more, he’d be known as Tevin. But before his first game in Orlando, a fronton in Connecticut called him with an opening closer to home. Just like that, he was headed to Milford. There had been some American-born players, starting in the late ’60s. By the mid-’70s, what was probably the sport’s peak in popularity in America, a few American players had even become crowd favorites.

There are 25-year-old clips on YouTube of the famed “Joey” – Miami-native Joey Cornblit – that have thousands of views. Shepard started his professional career in 1992, when he was 20. That was at the tail end of a long players’ strike, when the sport was already beginning to die, well past the days when men couldn’t even get into the fronton without a jacket. Still, he was getting a starting base salary of $2,200 a month to play a game that thrilled him. He played 10 years in Connecticut. He started in the matinee performances. (In most pari-mutuels, a set of races or games is called a performance.) The game was so popular, there were two performances a day, with the better players generally slotted for the evening games. He quickly moved up to the later games, where in a few years he worked his way up the standings. In 1996, he won the World Series of Jai Alai, a large tournament featuring some of the best players from casinos all over the world. He won it again in 1999, and a third time in 2000.

When he started playing, in the early ’90s, people would recognize him every so often outside of the fronton. Now it’s pretty rare. He moved to Miami 11 years ago. The job allows him plenty of time with his kids, which is important to him as a single father. (He also has two older children who don’t live with him.) Once a year though, he still enjoys the chance to go to Europe to compete in a few world championships. The crowds are much bigger, often more than 7,000 people, and the games are that much more intense. “It feels more tense than a tight tennis match,” Shepard says. “That feeling when you’re on the court and the building is packed and you make a great play and everyone goes crazy—it’s just awesome.” When he started playing, in the early ’90s, people would recognize him every so often outside of the fronton. Now it’s pretty rare. He doesn’t talk about his work much. When he mentions it to someone new, there’s always an early, inevitable question about whether the games are fixed. After all, this is the only professional sport specifically designed for men to bet on men.

Shepard says people inquiring about fixing games have approached him three times in his career. It’s always been away from the fronton, at a club or a diner. Each time, he says, he politely explains how difficult it would be. To fix even a simple win, you’d need at least half the field in on it. That might be eight different players who would want an equal cut—and that’s a lot of people to keep quiet. Plus, these days if there’s anything even remotely suspicious on the court, the guys upstairs review the tapes. They call players into the offices. They’ll get rid of anyone who causes any kind of trouble, no hesitations. Shepard has seen a few players kicked out over his career. “It’s just not worth it for anybody,” he says. “All that risk—for what?” — There’s a small museum of sorts near the front doors at Miami Jai Alai. Most people pass it on the way to buy a beer or one of the surprisingly good Cuban coffees, and they never look in. There are handcrafted figurines from 60 years ago. There are old pelotas and cestas from significant games over time.

There are framed magazine and newspaper articles, some from as far back as the ’30s, some from as recently as the ’80s. Collectively, the room seems to chronicle the rise and fall of the game in this country. In 1965, Sports Illustrated ran a long feature about how jai alai was beginning to steal great young athletes from other sports. (Indeed, the first American-born professional debuted three years later.) “Anyone who has ever played tennis can take a crack at racquets or squash or badminton or table tennis without looking too much the fool,” the story says about the keen physicality required of jai alai.

“But attempting to throw a jai alai ball around without any experience is equivalent to sitting down to a mah-jongg game with your Chinese laundryman.” The same article also recounts a tale of a player in the 1930s who died after taking a pelota to the head, and another story about a man who, after a head injury, went from being “an austere type of person” to “very jolly and outgoing.” “The lobby used to be so packed every night, people could barely get to the window.” A teller named Bertha has sold and cashed betting tickets here for nearly 40 years. She started on Christmas Day in 1974. Back then there was a strict dress code. A man couldn’t even get in the building without a jacket and tie. Women would come in groups, she remembers, and shout out the names of the players they thought were cute. Yes, there was a time when jai alai was rife with groupies. Boxers would come to the fronton to be seen after winning fights at the Fontainebleau. There were regular appearances from celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason, and later, David Letterman and Sylvester Stallone.

“The lobby used to be so packed every night, people could barely get to the window,” she says. “And the people who came here back then really, really loved it.” Above the small museum sits the office of Daniel Michelena. He is one of the game’s all-time greats. A Basque native who debuted in 1983, he won each of jai alai’s highest honors at least once. He retired after 19 years and nine Triple Crowns—when a player at one fronton ends the year leading the roster in singles, doubles and overall wins. Now he’s 50 and he’s the director of player personnel in Miami. He still has a broad chest—the right side is still slightly more developed than the left—and when he talks about jai alai, it’s clear he wishes he could still play. “It’s the most spectacular sport in the world,” he says with an accent that sounds a little like a French Canadian adopting a Spanish lilt. “When you play it right, there’s nothing more exhilarating.” But it also wears down your body. After only a month off, it might take three weeks for your arm and shoulder to re-adjust to flinging a pelota.

That’s one of the reasons South Florida became such a popular jai alai destination, it was somewhere European players could come to stay sharp during the winter. These days at the fronton, Michelena recruits and signs players, he assists with immigration papers, and he helps with labor negotiation. But he ultimately considers himself an ambassador of the game. On his wall is a colorful photo of his home in the Basque country, where the sport was born. On a table behind his desk sit a series of detailed jai alai player bobblehead dolls. Each has a tiny cesta, a sash, a helmet and a different player’s face. They were part of a promotion about 10 years ago. There are still plenty left. — Over the years, in an effort to coax out every possible gambling dollar, jai alai wagers grew increasingly complex. That meant young people didn’t find the game as accessible as previous generations, and casual gamblers were confused and less inclined to give jai alai a try. To try to expand the potential customer base as much as possible, the fronton dropped the dress code requirements, which meant the game also lost a bit of the upscale allure it always had and the real high rollers stayed home.

With more gambling, there came more affiliation with organized crime. There’s a dark side to jai alai’s history that’s a little hazier than the stuff in the small fronton museum. It involves meat grinders and brutal murders and the infamous Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. There were FBI investigations, federal indictments and plenty of frontons shuttered. And more and more, potential patrons worried that the games were fixed. Soon other gambling options sprang up. First, there was the state lottery. Then came the Indian casinos and the so-called “cruises to nowhere” (boats that take gamblers into international waters for a night of government-free wagering and return to port a few hours later). There were just too many places that made it simpler to bet on things that didn’t seem so susceptible to corruption. And while jai alai was never as culturally entrenched as baseball or football or basketball, at the height of jai alai’s popularity in the ’70s, football and basketball weren’t nearly as popular as they are now. Miami only got the NBA in 1988. The region didn’t have major league baseball until the Marlins in 1993.

The last straw, what history might record as the fatal blow for jai alai in America, was a player’s strike in 1988. It stretched out over three years, and as the fronton brought in inferior replacements, there was some picket-line violence and an exodus of patrons. By the time Shepard turned pro in 1992, the strike was over, but the industry never completely recovered. A sport that in the 1970s was growing, and once seemed on the verge of breaking out, had become moribund. With the rise of fantasy sports and office pools and the massive modern sports entertainment complex, jai alai got left behind. With the rise of fantasy sports and office pools and the massive modern sports entertainment complex, jai alai got left behind. Now, unless there’s an old movie or a gambling-inclined uncle involved, there’s almost no way a young person would ever even be exposed to jai alai in this country. ESPN doesn’t show it on television in the US or cover the sport on the dot com. Even in Basque, more and more kids are playing rugby and soccer.

And on the rare occasions when someone does come into contact with jai alai and shows a slight interest, the equipment is far from cheap. One pelota costs $100 and only lasts 20 minutes on the court before it cracks and splits and needs to be thrown away. A cesta is about $600. At Miami Jai Alai, all the balls and baskets are made in-house. If you take the winding, musty staircase up from the locker room, past the old wood paneling and a dark room full of plastic furniture, you’ll find two doors. Behind one, there’s a Basque man crafting pelota after pelota out of rubber, latex, and sheets of goatskin shipped from England. Behind the other door you’ll find two men, Wagi from Indonesia and Carlos from Mexico, who have cut and carved reeds and wood for four decades each. Every day, they sit in the same seats, in the same dimly lit room, making and fixing each cesta used on the court. On the walls hang the kind of antediluvian tools horror films are made for. Most of the time, Carlos doesn’t need all those tools though.

He prefers to cut and shape the reeds the way he’s always done it: with a piece of broken glass. As they sit there, day in and day out, Carlos and Wagi don’t say much. Every once in a while they’ll watch a visitor fumble around with a cesta and a pelota. Mostly though, they watch a flickering 13-inch television, which at the moment is playing old Seinfeld reruns. Neither man speaks much English, so they’re not too sure what’s going on in each episode, but they smile when they hear the laugh track. — One of Michelena’s biggest rivals from two decades ago was a man named Juan Ramón Arrasate. On the court, he went by “Arra.” For years they would duel every day, always close to each other at the top of the annual standings. These days Arrasate is still at the fronton, too. He’s clean-cut, with glasses and an accent similar to his old rival’s, and he’s the fronton’s players’ manager. He sets the schedules and oversees the operations behind the scenes.

Around here, he’s part father figure (especially to the handful of guys under 30), part coach and part cat herder. Arrasate’s office is right next to the locker room. On his desk are several incredibly intricate wood carvings. One looks like an ancient tree god. One looks like an elaborate puzzle-toy Santa Claus might have brought children during the middle of the 19th century. Each one of these has taken 30 to 40 hours of labor, he explains. Shaving, carving, sanding, working slowly over time, one thing becomes something else completely. The game only exists in America at all because that loss is well worth it for casino owners. These days, the casino is losing money on jai alai. The game only exists in America at all because that loss is well worth it for casino owners. Without jai alai, there would be none of those lucrative slot machines or poker tables on the other side of the building. See, aside from the Indian casinos, the only places you can gamble in Florida are pari-mutuels, which in order to offer casino-type gambling, by law must also feature a sport like jai alai or horse racing.

Florida law dictates that a fronton must present a minimum of 40 performances—with eight games per performance—to maintain its license. Until the law changes—and there are lobbyists on both sides pushing legislation every year—jai alai will have some breath left. But last year the president of the fronton in Ocala, Fla., seeking to abide by only the letter of the law, quietly fired all of the professional players and support staff and hired two locals—one of which was a former University of Florida placekicker. (The law doesn’t require a minimum number of players.) While professional jai alai players came from all over the state to protest outside the fronton, the two men inside played each other over and over behind a black curtain. It’s a future everyone at Miami Jai Alai hopes to avoid. There are trophies on Arrasate’s walls next to old photos and a beautiful portrait of the village where he’s from in Basque, where the sport is still pure.

A lot of the Basque men at the fronton have photos of their hometowns, and while they all appear relatively similar to an outsider (they all look like picturesque isle villas tucked into where the lush green mountains meet the sparkling blue sea), the men all argue among themselves over whose hometown is the most beautiful. He, too, has seen the game change over the span of his career. It’s not all for the worse either, Arrasate points out. For generations, smooth, poised pelotari have graced the frontons. There were a few especially large lugs over the years, but the best have always disposed of their opponents with style. It’s only been in the last two decades, Arrasate says, that the really great athletes have turned to jai alai. “Look at someone like Tevin,” he says. “He started with only raw skills, but he had that pure athletic ability and that drive to succeed.” And then there’s Goiko, full name Iñaki Osa Goikoetxea. He’s won nine triple crowns, and at his age (32) and the rate he’s going, he could easily snag an additional five or six, maybe more.

Details magazine ran a short profile of Goiko last year, calling him the “Michael Jordan of Jai Alai.” “We didn’t have guys who had that combination when I played,” Arrasate says. “They were either big and powerful or they could climb the walls and get to the hard shots. But he’s both. It’s impossible until you see it. He’s really incredible.” Shepard agrees. “He’s the single most dominant player I’ve ever seen in my career,” he says. “He’s powerful and technically skilled. Possibly the best to ever play the game.” He adds: “I just always try to give him a hard point. It’s all you can do.” This is the strangest irony of a dying sport. As frontons close, or switch over to simulcast betting only, the talent pool has been consolidated over the years. Then these bigger, better athletes face off against each other every day, sharpening the skill level even more. It’s as if all the talent in the NHL were concentrated on only the rosters of the original six teams, or if there were suddenly only 16 major league teams, or a dozen pro football teams, and they all played in near empty ballparks and stadiums.

“Some of the best jai alai ever played is being played right now,” Arrasate says. “And almost nobody’s around to see it.” Imagine if a hundred years from now, the best shortstop, or the greatest point guard of all-time comes along when no one watches the game anymore. Imagine if a hundred years from now, the best shortstop, or the greatest point guard of all-time comes along when no one watches the game anymore. What if the best quarterback ever to play the game—the man who goes on to win 10 championships—is playing in Super Bowls at a time when the game is no longer televised? Maybe by then fantasy football players will have transitioned into future markets and peewee leagues are scarce. Maybe nobody cares by then, because there are new sports and new distractions and entertainment our naïve 21st century minds can’t begin to fathom. There are already plenty of serious problems in sports. Boxing has withered from the single most popular sport in the country 100 years ago, with much of the blame going to the weak, disjointed sanctioning bodies and the suspicious, contemptible promoters. Certainly, an undefeated record in the ring doesn’t mean as much as it once did.

In just the last few years, the game of football has been party to a bounty scandal, performance-enhancing drug allegations, concussion-related suicides, rapes, murders, drunken driving deaths and at least one child-molestation scandal. The NBA has had a referee go to prison for betting on games he officiated. Baseball’s own Hall of Fame couldn’t find a single living player worthy of induction this year. And the NHL’s audiences and revenues have spiraled downward thanks to a number of labor disputes and games now appearing on cable channels nobody can find. It probably seems like the sport you love will never die, because there so many fans and they are so passionate and die-hard, and how could that ever fail? Except that there were once passionate, die-hard fans of jai alai. In time, most of them did in fact die. — As the Tuesday afternoon goes on, Leon Shepard changes shirts several times. The games tick by. One minute he’s in purple, then he’s in red, then it’s green. He wins a doubles game, then he finishes another singles out of the money. Then another. Shepard is 41 now. He’s not as fast as he was.

His body gets more sore than it used to, and it seems to take a little longer to recover. But he still has a family to feed. There’s one pelotari on the roster who’s 49. Shepard figures if he takes care of himself he might be able to last that long. He has other plans too though. He and some friends have a business concept he can’t give too many details about. He says they have a patent pending. He also has some ideas about how to save the game. If the fronton ever offered him a PR job, he’d take it in a second, he says. He’d try to bring in basketball players and baseball players to make publicized appearances in the offseason. He’d like to try to reach out to the South Florida sports community more. He’d also make sure the nicknames sound more relatable. “This sport doesn’t have to die off in America.” “I know we’ll probably never get back to the crowds we had,” he says. Right now, at the busiest, the fronton is lucky to get 500 people.

“Maybe we could get that up to 3,000, or 2,000, or even 1,000. This sport doesn’t have to die off in America.” In his last game of the day, Shepard takes an early lead, but then loses a point. As it cycles around this time, he wins two more points before losing again. It’s good enough for third place and a small bonus. Surely, someone in the room has bet on him and just won money. But at the moment, there are no cheers. Nobody’s paying attention. There’s nothing but the long, lonely echoes of men throwing a ball against a wall.

Design Team Jai-Alai rules, tips, history and how to play Jai-Alai Jai-Alai Rules, History, Tips & Equipment A history of Jai-Alai, how to play, tips for improvement & necessary equipment How to Play Jai-Alai Jai-Alai is a Basque word meaning "merry festival." The sport is played in an open arena and is promoted by the Basque government as "the fastest sport in the world." Jai-Alai History Jai-Alai, originated as the sport of the Basques in the Northeastern part of Spain and the Southwestern part of France in the Pyrenees Mountains. The game evolved from different types of hand and racquet sports and became known as Pelota Vasca or Basque Ball. The game was usually played on Sundays or Fiesta days. The Church walls served as the walls of the court. The game soon spread to Italy, Mexico, and Cuba. The first indoor court was built in 1798 in Marquena. It was first introduced to the United States at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. The sport became a gambling alternative to horseracing and is popular in Florida.

Jai-Alai Rules Jai-Alai is usually played eight players or eight teams of two players. A Jai-Alai court, also known as a "cancha," is composed of three walls (front, back, and left) and the floor between them. The court is divided by 14 parallel lines going horizontally across the court. Line one is closest to the front wall while line fourteen is closest to the back wall. Games are played to seven or nine points. Two teams are on the court for each point. The team that wins the point stays on the court to meet the next team in the rotation, while the other team goes to the back of the line. Each round begins with one team serving. The server must bounce the ball behind the serving line, and then with the cesta "basket" throw the ball so it bounces off the front wall and lands between lines four and seven on the floor. The ball is then in play. Teams go back and forth catching the ball in the cesta, and throwing it in one fluid motion. The ball must be either caught on the fly or either after one bounce.

A team scores a point if a player on the opposing team: Fails to serve the ball so it bounces between the fourth and seventh line Fails to catch the ball on the fly or after one bounce Holds or juggles the ball Throws the ball out of bounds Interferes with a player trying to catch the ball. Points double after the first round of play. A round consists of each team playing at least one point. Jai-Alai Tips One should practice using a "kill shot" serve called a "chula" shot, where the ball is played off the front wall very high, then reaches the bottom of the back wall by the end of its arc. The ball is difficult to return because it bounces very low off of the back wall. Jai-Alai Equipment Teams need one jai-alai ball, called a pelota, 125g -140g, covered with goat skin. Each player needs a cesta, a curved throwing and catching instrument. The cesta is 3 to 3 inches. Traditional jai-alai players wear a faja, a red sash, as part of the standard uniform.

The rest of the uniform consists of white shoes and trousers, and a colored and numbered shirt indicating post positions. Players also are known to wear a casco, Spanish for helmet. More from Team Sports National Jai-Alai Association -- History of Jai-Alai About/Contact Us What is Jai-Alai? Jai-Alai (pronounced “hi’li”) is the world’s fastest sport. It offers more excitement, more action, more thrills and more fun than any sport in the world. Jai-Alai originated in the Basque Country of Northern Spain almost four centuries ago. Nestled between the Pyrenees Mountains in North-Central Spain and Southern France, the game was played outdoors using church walls as thecourt. The game originated asan attractionfor the annual festivities meaning “Merry Festival”. The first indoor court was built in 1798 in Marquena. It was first introduced in the USA at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Jai-alai was first played professionally at the Miami fronton in 1926, and exciting non-stopaction continues to this day in several frontons across the state of Florida. How is the game played?

Jai-alai is a distinctive sport which requires its own special equipment. The cesta, a Spanish word for basket, is a long, curved basket a player uses to catch and throw the pelota and is hand-women specifically for each individual player. The wicker basket is made from reeds found exclusively in the Pyrenees Mountains and the frame is made of steam bent Chestnut. The pelota is the hardest ball of any sport. It is roughly ¾ the size of a baseball and is harder than a rock. The core consists of Brazilian virgin de pola rubber, is layered with nylon and hand-stitched with two goat skin covers. Jai-alai is played on a special court called a “cancha”. There are three walls, with the front wall made out of granite because it is the only material that can withstand the impact of the ball. Jai-alai is played on a special court called a “cancha”. There are three walls, with the front wall made out of granite because it is the only material that can withstand the impact of the ball. The rules of jai-alai are similar to those followed in racquetball. All games start with a serve which must land in a certain lined area.

The receiving player must catch the pelota in the air or on the first bounce, then return it to the wall in one continuous motion. The player continues to volley until the pelota is missed or goes out of bounds. Games are played with a single player on a team, or doubles with two on a team.

Question: Jai Alai is a variation of what court sport?
Answer: PELOTA