Word: jai
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Sport. Newsreels have shown to millions of U. S. citizens the lightning-fast Cuban handball game jai alai (pronounced "hy aly"). Unknown to U. S. sport addicts is "Cuba's Babe Ruth," $2,000-a-month Jose Gutierrez, No. 1 handballer...
...Central American amphitheatres. Hernan Cortes took it back to Andalusia, whence it penetrated the Pyrenees and the people called it pelota (ball). The game became the main diversion of so many festivals that the Basques gave it another name, now mispronounced all over the world, meaning "merry festival"-jai alai (pronounced high...
...comes. Bets are made on teams, on separate matches, on the length of time one player will hold the court. In a doubles match the players move so fast that without their bright shirts in solid contrasting colors you could not tell the teams apart. Two rhythms work in jai alai like the separate yet dependent movements of a fugue. One is the sweep of the cesta. catching the ball on the back swing, throwing it the same second with a stab or a sweep, depending upon whether the player wants to make a long shot...
...betting allowed.'' Near them is where bets (called "contributions"' to make them legal) are placed. Alarmed by the rumor that 27 penniless bettors had committed suicide in one week in Havana, the State's Attorney of Cook County once tried with no success to have jai alai banned. Usual odds-on favorite for individual bets is Domingo Ugalde, called "The Fox" because of the sly cuts, curves, angles, backspins he knows how to use. He began playing when he was nine in Marianao, Cuba. He speaks broken, almost unintelligible English. Asked what makes him so good...
...Gibbons. In Liberty's red leather and lacquer cabin Publisher Patterson studied maps and winds while Daughter Alicia snuggled on a chaise-longue reading. . . . They stayed at Havana four days. A "norther" swept across the bay. nearly bumped a bulky launch against the Liberty. The crew watched a jai alai tournament and cock fights. Finally they took off for Santiago de Cuba, stopping en route at Manzanillo to avoid a squall and because Publisher Patterson liked the name. At Santiago they visited Spanish War battlefields, ate melons, saw the straits where much-kissed Hero Richmond Pearson Hobson sank...