Jai alai (pronounced hie-a-lie) is the name of a sport that was developed by Basque people in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France in the 1700s. The game itself was called Pelota Vasca (Basque Ball) and some games were held at festivals called Jai-Alai (Merry Festival). The fastest and most daring of the Pelota Vasca was called cesta punta, which evolved into the game that's played today. The first indoor jai alai stadium (fronton) opened in Marquena, Spain, in 1798. A hundred years later, the first North American fronton opened in Cuba. The first successful U.S. fronton opened in Miami in 1924.
The fronton is made up of canchas, or courts. These have three walls (front, back, and one side) and a floor that are all in bounds. The court is divided by 14 parallel lines that dictate the action.
Players wear a long wicker basket (about 28 inches) with which they catch the ball and throw it with a very high velocity (the fastest speed ever recorded for a jai alai ball was 188 mph). Points are scored when the other team misses or drops the ball, holds the ball too long, or sends it out of bounds. Seven (or nine) points wins a match.
Jai alai is a betting game like horse and greyhound racing. Today, there are six frontons in Florida. Over the years, jai alai frontons came and went in New Orleans, New York City, and Chicago. Several opened in Connecticut in the 1970s; the Bridgeport and Harford frontons closed in 1995, while the Milford fronton closed in 2001. The last fronton outside of Florida, in Newport, Rhode Island, shut down in 2003. Readily accessible casinos in the northeast are blamed for the lack of interest in jai alai.
Jai alai also made it out to Nevada for a brief stay. A fronton opened with the original MGM Grand (now Bally's) in Las Vegas in 1973, but it lasted only seven years, till 1980. The game also managed a two-year stint at the MGM Grand in Reno (now the Grand Sierra), from 1978, when it opened with a fronton, to 1980 when it, too, closed.
As for jai alai making a comeback, we doubt it. No one outside of Florida seems particularly interested in it, especially now that so many other forms of gambling are readily available.
