Word: alai
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...alai's Jewish superstar devours all opponents
Joey Cornblit is a nice Jewish boy from Miami, and his mother has a complaint. Her son the jai-alai player is the hottest betting commodity in town. Not only is he the first American to equal the Basque masters of the sport, he is, at 22, a reigning champion. Since around $350,000 is wagered each performance in the fronton where Joey holds sway, Mrs. Cornblit, a metalworker's wife, has been besieged by telephone calls: "Did Joey eat his breakfast?" "Did he sleep well...
...answers are reassuring, but the emphatic reply comes on court. Last year Cornblit was the overall winner at Miami's World Jai-Alai, the premier palace of the game. In the second month of a season against 46 of the top professional players in the world, Joey again leads in overall wins (32) and front-court doubles championships (8) and has a shot at the singles title as well. No player has ever won the triple crown of jai-alai in Miami, but observers-and rabid bettors-believe Joey has a chance. Says Betting Clerk Emilio Posada: "There...
While jai-alai has been played for centuries in the mountains of Spain-where boys begin strapping on the huge, curved wicker cesta as toddlers-the game is played mainly at the $2 window in the U.S. In Florida, minors are barred from frontons, but as a youngster Cornblit got around the rules by climbing to the roof and staring through a vent at the leaping, whirling players below. After three years of instruction, primarily from a Cuban coach, he won a bronze medal at the 1971 World Championships at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France. He was just...
...about $80,000 a year. Says fellow American Armando Gonzalez: "His remate [backhand carom] is devastating, a knockout punch. There's no defense." An old Basque adversary, Jose Solaun, agrees: "Make a mistake against him and you're dead." Acknowledgment has sometimes been grudging, however. Jai-alai, long dominated by the Basques, is a clique-ridden world that does not suffer outsiders gladly. Solaun admits that his countrymen distance themselves from the handsome young American: "There is a resentment and coolness, a feeling that nobody can play the game like us." Another observer puts it more bluntly: "Every...