Word: jai
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...game is jai alai, pronounced "hi lie" and meaning, roughly, "merry festival." It is a kind of jet-propelled handball that probably originated with the Aztecs, traveled to Spain with Cortes, and was reintroduced to the New World by the Basques, who claim it as their native sport. The object is simple enough: players wearing basketlike cestas heave a ball against a wall until someone misses. But ah, the details. The court is about 200 ft. long; the ball is so hard (rubber core wound with nylon string, covered with goatskin) and goes so fast (up to 175 m.p.h.) that...
...Come On, Choo Choo!" Florida's six jai alai frontons tempt fans with drinks, dinners, dames-and enough pageantry to make Nero jealous. At the world's biggest (capacity: 6,000) and costliest ($4,500,000) fronton in suburban Miami, customers do not even have to leave their upholstered seats to get taken to the cleaners-pretty girls in green and gold uniforms prance up and down the aisles collecting bets...
...jai alai is no game for amateurs -and the life of a pelotari is short as well as happy. After a few years, shoulders and arms are noticeably deformed by the strain, and biceps bulge almost as large as Sonny Listen's. Few professionals risk playing past 35. When their legs tire and their reflexes slow down, they are likely to catch a pelota where it hurts-like Erdoza, a Basque champion of the World War I era, who was known as "El Fenomeno" until he put a little extra on a forehand one day and wound up whistling...
...More than 50 million people attended horse tracks, bet $3.6 billion on how the nags would finish, and thereby contributed some $288 million to the treasuries of the 24 states that get a cut of the pari-mutuel proceeds. This, plus dog racing in seven states, Florida's jai alai and Nevada's wide-open casinos, pushed the gambling revenues even higher...
...fencers, who usually succeed in impressing everyone with their unusual abilities, succeeded again Saturday. In the foil matches, Harvard, through the efforts of Jai Yuh, claimed one victory out of nine attempts...