Word: alai
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...most New Englanders, the correct pronunciation of jai alai was, like a suntan, something acquired on vacation in Florida. Since early this summer, however, when the sport made its first foray north with the opening of two jai alai frontons, or arenas, in Connecticut, bettors have learned to say hi-lie quite properly-and, for the state, very profitably. Nearly $1 million a day pours through the betting windows at Hartford and Bridgeport from capacity crowds newly hooked on the world's fastest game and the fast buck...
...alai, a three-walled version of handball, originated in the Basque region of the Pyrenees during the 17th century, and remained unchanged until the sport crossed the Atlantic and became the object of parimutuel betting. Jai alai was adapted to the requirements of the $2 windows around Miami, where it has been popular for 50 years. The eight players wear the numbers of the eight post positions on their jerseys. The march onto the court that opens each game resembles nothing so much as a parade of horses to the starting gate. Matches are either singles or doubles...
...most prestigious clubs. Bowntown at the American Club, members of the Cuban-American business establishment meet for lunch and a friendly game of cubilete (dice). A once famous Havana restaurant, Centre Vasco, has been resurrected on Miami's Southwest Eighth Street; its walls are adorned with jai alai baskets and its tables laden with steaming arroz con pollo and chilled sangria. The streets of La Saguesera bustle with fruit and vegetable stands, stores displaying religious artifacts, and cafes that serve jet-black Cuban coffee; at dusk the air is filled with the nostalgic beat of Latin music...
Today the roughly 2,000,000 Basques are an industrious, aggressive people, with a passion for gambling, especially during Sunday matches of jai alai. They speak a highly inflected language, which has some 175 verb suffixes and is unrelated to any Indo-European tongue. Those who live on the French side of the border are poor agricultural people, and many of them have been moving to Paris, Bordeaux and other cities. But the four Basque provinces of Spain (Vizcaya, Álava, Guipúzcoa and Navarra) are among the country's richest. Through the centuries many Basques have gone...
Miami expects just that. Lately even the girls have taken to requesting professional football tickets in lieu of cold cash. Like everyone else in town, they know that the hottest action around is not on the jai-alai courts or out at Hialeah, but in the Orange Bowl. There the Miami Dolphins are grinding up National Football League opponents like so many herring. And irony of ironies, the undisputed hero of sybaritic, leisure-loving Miami is the leader of the Dolphin pack, Coach Don Shula, 42, a rock-jawed, Jesuit-trained disciplinarian who would seem to fit the city...