Back in our Miami days, we used to spend our time drinking Mimosas on South Beach and jaberjawing with local celebs like Don Johnson and Merlin Olsen. Those were easy days, full of sunshine and beautiful women, days when arguing about sports was the last thing on our mind. It seemed like the sprawling South Florida sun had conquered our anger and our competitiveness was shifting towards laziness. Little did we know that all would change when we stumbled upon a dusty old gym that held a prize more valuable than a giant gold statue of Joe Montana; our destiny. Inside that ramshackle old warehouse a supremely beautiful game was being played, an activity that some call the game of Kings. That game was none other than the legendary sport of Jai-alai, or Murderball as it is called in Bangkok or Jakarta. It was so beautiful that it stole the air right from our lungs. True love, ladies and gents, only happens but once in a blue moon, and for us, it happened when we laid our eyes on the most majestic of all athletic endeavors.
A salty one-eyed Cuban fellow named Juanitaz noticed our interest in the game and took us under his wing. He was the Mick to our Rocky and taught us all of the ins and outs of the game. For those who haven't ever seen or heard of Jai-alai, we'll teach you the basics and try to enlighten you on the single greatest ball slinging event to hit the world since Monica Lewinski. Now we're sure you're saying to yourselves isn't this Jellyball sport just some weird foreign take on racket ball? The answer is no. Sure the components are similar, but you need something a little tougher than little blue rubber balls to play Jai alai. You need the balls of a man, or at least a ball covered with goatskin that can withstand the speeds of 188 MPH. 188 MPH?!?! That's faster than Lindsey Lohan was going when she slammed her Mercedes into a wall, and she was high on coke! Mmmmm, Mean Girls...... Sorry, we got lost in thought...... Pants back on, and back to Jai alai. The rules are simple. It's a mans game, and the sport requires you to either put up or shut up. A Jai-alai game is played in round robin format, usually between eight teams of two players each or eight single players. The first team to score 7 or 9 points wins the game. Simple rules for the simple man. For God's sake, the most interesting man in the world plays as as witnessed in his Dos Equis commercial. "His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body."
"Think of it as handball on steroids AND crack" Juanitaz told us as we took the court for the first time, Kyle in the frontcourt and Sean in the back. Naturally we dominated our opponents in the regular Angry Guys fashion you great people have come to expect from us. For 30 minutes that Cancha (Court) was ours and we flew around it like two bee stung badgers on a mission. Kyle served up some lightening fast goodness for our opponents who were barely quick enough to dive out of their way. Sean continually climbed the left wall to dig out hard to reach balls with his Cesta (Fancy looking wicker glove) only to fire them back with the passion of a South Miami sunset. The game ended when Kyle dropped a wicked difficult "chula" shot on the opposition (the Jai-alai version of baby bounces) which sent them diving to the floor. Bloodied and bruised, the losers stayed down on the floor as the Angry Guys were crowned the best new thing in Jai-alai since the Pelota. For the next year, with Juanitaz at our side as manager, we barnstormed around the world challenging the greatest supposed Jai-alai champions to games with everything on the line. We beat Kevin Pacquiao (Manny's little brother and one of the Philippines greatest Jai-alai players) in double OT with a thriller of a battle. We won the prestigious Francisco Churruca Cup, named after the greatest Jai-alai baller ever and even had our Cestas retired in the homeland of the game, Basque. Yes, it goes without saying that at the end of the year, our competitive batteries had been recharged and we were ready to once again roam the Earth arguing about sports and sports related topics.
Jai-alai is truly the sport of kings and should be practiced all over the US rather than just in South Florida and some shady gambling establishments in the Northeast.Yamabethur!
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