One hundred and 50 miles per hour. That’s the estimated speed of the ball that goes careening toward a Jai-Alai player’s face after bouncing off the far wall.
In that moment, he's calculating the ball's trajectory, how to hold his basket-like cesta to catch it without breaking his wrist, and the angle he needs to throw to land a kill shot.
In Jai-Alai, Teams of 1 or two face off on a court not unlike one made for racquetball. Players launch the ball like a cannon to the far wall — at high speeds, hoping to trip up their opponents.
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"They're trying to basically get the other guy to drop the ball, get the other guy to throw a shot and throw it off the court. So it basically goes back and forth until someone drops the ball or the ball goes out of play," said Stuart Neiman, director of Operations for the World Jai-Alai League.
Miami has a long relationship with the game of Jai Alai. In the 1980s the game was a huge deal in the city; it was played by celebrities and royalty.
Julen Goitiandia is currently one of the league’s players, known as pelotari, who play at JAM Arena at Casino Miami.
Gotiandia says when he plays, he’s also thinking about his grandfather, who once stood in this same spot playing the same game at Miami’s historic Jai-Alai fronton.
"For us, it's a family tradition because my grandpa, my dad, and my uncles all played. It's our daily bread," Goitiandia told WLRN in Spanish after a practice session.
It’s so prevalent that his two brothers are also Jai-Alai athletes, and they all play at the JAM Arena at — though not on the same team.
He has trouble playing against his brothers because he doesn’t want them to lose, but jokes that they don’t have quite the same problem.
The Goitiandia brothers are part of the latest generation of Jai-Alai players, trying to bring the sport back to its heyday of popularity, going back 100 years.
"The building that we're in is the original building from 1926 and celebrates a hundred years this year," Neiman explained. "Jai-Alai began in Havana in the 1890s. The folks who had a lot of success with it in Havana decided to bring it to Miami in the twenties during the land boom."
The World Jai Alai League is looking to modernize Jai-Alai for a new audience, starting with the venue, which was recently rebranded as the JAM Arena.
Though Jai-Alai is a lesser-known sport today, it was once synonymous with Miami culture — even making a brief appearance in the opening sequence of Miami Vice.
The fandom for the sport waned after 1988, when pelotari embarked on the longest player strike in U.S. sports history. They refused to return for nearly three years until they could secure a labor contract and better working conditions. When they came back in the 90s, the fans didn't.
The sport never regained its popularity.
"The record attendance here, which we'd love to get back to was 15,000 in 1980," Neiman said.
The World Jai-Alai League has updated the rules of the game to make it more palatable to a young audience used to faster sports. The court is shorter, so the ball bounces back at the players even quicker. Players are now constantly jumping off of sidewalls and diving to the floor to catch the high-speed ball to keep the rally going.
The league introduced a new game type called “Battle Court,” with small individual teams competing in brackets.
All of the changes are part of an effort to bring in new fans and — maybe — bring Jai Alai back to a semblance of its heyday.
The Jai Alai spring season at JAM Arena runs from February through May, and players come back for the fall season from September to December.
