THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME IN THE WORLD
words_robert pursell. photo_nicholas rodriguez. design_nan gallagher. Sitting down on a wooden folding chair in a back office of the Casino Miami Jai Alai, just a few miles away from Miami Airport, Eric Irastorze cuts an impressive figure. He is a world champion athlete, widely considered the best among his trade and at 6’4”, 220 pounds with a chin that could cut granite and dark, wavy hair, the 36-year-old French native has the looks of a movie star. In another time and place, he might have been a celebrity. So why isn’t he famous? Because Irastorze plays Jai Alai, a little known sport that once held considerable notoriety in South Florida, but that has since seen its popularity fade. Jai Alai games in Miami used to draw thousands of spectators in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Jai Alai courts (called frontons) spread all across the nation, most notably in Florida, Connecticut and Rhode Island, where thousands of people piled into matches to partake in the exciting pace and widespread betting aspect of the sport. Casino Miami Jai Alai was considered the Yankee Stadium of the sport, attracting the best competition and players. And while Miami Jai Alai still hosts the best players in the world, games now attract thinner crowds, many of which are liver-spotted geriatrics who anxiously place bets in the casino lobby, often lacking the energy to actually shuffle into the fronton playing area. “Obviously I hope more people down here will get into the sport,” Irastorze said. “But I’m going to keep playing regardless. I love the game, it’s magical. If people would come out and watch it, I know they would fall in love with it.” After spending one afternoon watching it, it’s easy to see how one could fall in love with the sport. Tracing its origins back hundreds of years ago to the Basque Country of Spain, Jai Alai has been billed as the fastest sport in the world. If you mixed racquetball (what your unathletic father plays with his office buddies) with the mind of a madman and a healthy dosage of steroids, you’d get jai alai. It’s played on a fronton roughly half the size of a football field and consists of three walls (front, back and left). The ball (called pelota) is made of goatskin and rubber and is caught and thrown by the players using hook-shaped wicker baskets (called a cesta) that cover each player’s right hand. The games are played with teams of two and end at seven points. Scoring occurs when one team fails to field the ball before it bounces twice, or fails to catch it cleanly. And while whoever came up with the PR slogan of “Fastest sport in the world because of the balls” should probably
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WARP SPEED. One of the fastest sports in the world, an average throw of a jai alai pelota travels at 150 miles an hour. The sport originated in Spain and frontons in Miami were world famous in past decades, but now the sport is mostly enjoyed by devotees. be fired, the title couldn’t be more fitting. The game truly is fast. Like really, mind-numbingly fast. Consider this, the fastest ever recorded Jai Alai pelota was traveling at 188 miles an hour. Most throws average around 150 miles an hour, and given the fact that the pelota is about as soft as a rock, perhaps the PR slogan should read: “The most ridiculously dangerous sport you’ve never heard of because the balls are essentially large bullets.” We cringe when somebody gets hit with a fastball in baseball. Getting hit with a Jai Alai pelota conjures the same experience, only ten thousand times harder. “I’ve seen some incredible injuries during my time playing,” said Juan ‘Arra’ Arrasate, the manager of players at Miami Jai Alai, and a former 20-year pro. “If you get hit with the pelota, you are going to break some bones. I was lucky to never get injured, but I remember this one guy who got hit in the patella by the pelota and his patella shattered into about 20 pieces.” After saying this he paused to look up at the television set in his office broadcasting the Jai Alai being played at the casino. His eyes flashed as he watched a player scale the left wall of the fronton to stop a pelota no less than six feet above his head from speeding past. “But just look at how beautiful that is. How could someone not love it?”
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Miami Jai Alai is still the preeminent fronton in the world and one of only two frontons in the U.S. that operates year-round. The biggest draw to the games is the betting aspect with betters being able to combine picks for winning players and teams to reap large benefits. Since all balls and cestas need to be handmade, it is astronomically expensive to play. Each cesta costs around $500 to $600 and lasts roughly three weeks, while each pelota costs between $100 to $200 and only lasts for about 20 minutes of play. Worldwide participation is low with only an estimated 500 people playing and about 100 playing professionally. American Amateur Jai Alai, 1935 NE 150 St., Miami, 786-389-2123; americanjaialai.com