ABSTRACT
Better known as jai-alai, meaning “merry festival” in Basque language, pelota (Spanish for ball) was introduced in the United States during the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Watching those first matches must have been thrilling. To see agile athletes throwing the pelota at up to 150 miles per hour against a stone wall, then catching the pelota to smash it again against the wall–what a sight. By 1904, the game had evolved from Aztec days (pre-Cortez) when players used their bare hands to slap a less lively ball, to swatting the pelota with a flat bat, to hurling the pelota from a short basket, to the final weapon. The “cesta,” then and now, is a long curved wicker basket tightly strapped to the player's wrist; in this manner it becomes part of the hand which at the end of a strong shoulder creates a rifle arm. A skilled player hurls the pelota–a hard rubber ball covered with goatskin a little smaller than a baseball–faster than the eye can see. That is, for the spectator. The players follow every movement of the pelota usually leaping high in the air, arms outstretched, to make spectacular catches.
