I’m sure many of you as kids played with “scoops”. They were the long plastic scoop shaped objects that you held in your hand. It was hard to catch the ball in the really narrow space and you always ended up throwing it straight into the ground. Well imagine that except the scoops are three times as long, attached to your arm and the ball travels up to 188 mph. This is Jai alai. The sport from the Basque country of Spain. It started by being playing on the outside of churches after Sunday mass. It evolved into one of the fastest sports in the world.
It is played in teams of two. There is a front court player and a back court player. It is played on a court with a front wall back wall and a left hand wall. There is no right wall, so the ball can go out of bounds on that side. Due to this fact all players must play with the scoop (cesta) on their right hand no matter if they are left handed. The front court player serves the ball. The other team must return the ball to the front wall before the ball bounces twice. Once a team wins one point the other team goes off the court and and is replaced with another team. The first team to reach seven points wins first place, then the next places are awarded to the next highest scoring teams.
The ball is almost like a field hockey ball. It is a solid center covered in dried lambs skin and it is extremely hard. As a result of the balls makeup and its speed injuries are fairly common in the sport. Deaths have even been reported from players being hit in the back of the head with a hurled ball (pelota).
It is an interesting and unique sport that has insight into the culture of a specific region and that is priceless. Also, it looks pretty sick.
Yeah, that sounds intense, I would imagine that injuries are pretty common, like you said. Deaths though? geez. That’s pretty crazy.
Sports like this freak me out because I’m afraid of the ball. In most normal sports, like soccer and volleyball, it’s okay because the point is to NOT hit other people with the ball, but something like this would probably just leave me on the floor curled up into a tiny little ball. I also hate dodgeball and racquetball for this reason.