Word: alai
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...game of jai alai (pronounced high lie) is Cuba's contribution to Miami's sport life. Long popular in a grubby way, despite its commercialization - its bursts of breath-taking action punctuated by frequent intermissions while the audience was canvassed for bets - it may prove to be a big-time gambling game...
...years, olive-skinned jai alai professionals, wielding elongated basket-like contraptions called cestas, have whipped pelotas from one end of a three-walled concrete court to the other, banged their heads against the wall in disgust when they muffed a point, and pulled off shots requiring marvels of footwork and timing. Despite these pulse-quickening bursts, most Miamians found they could take Cuba's fast-paced game or leave it alone. In either case, they kept on leaving their spare change at Miami's horse and dog tracks...
When racing was banned, jai alai suddenly became the lone remaining form of pari-mutuel wagering in Miami - and in the rest of the U.S. Since then, Cuba's national pastime has boomed at Miami's Biscayne Fronton, where attendance last week was almost double last season's and mutuel betting more than double. One night 3,478 fans watched the Latins strut their stuff and bet a record $66,335 on their favorite pelota-slingers...
...played seven seasons in Shanghai before the war. The box-office star is Enrique ("Superman") Vallejo, a none-too-agile, 191-lb. Cuban who whips the ball with terrific force. Win, lose or draw, he is billed - and viewed by many female fans - as the Errol Flynn of jai alai...
...beautification. Manila's boulevards were shining with the façades of new public buildings and loud with the riveting of further construction. There was talk of building a resplendent new capitol out in suburban Quezon City. The dining rooms and bars of a huge new jai alai palace were going full blast. So was the new, prophetically named Casa Mañana nightclub...