What Happened to Jai Alai? (2013) | Hacker News Reader

What Happened to Jai Alai? (2013)

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109 pointsecliptik138 comments

These sports which are popular in only one specific region (or several regions) are really fascinating. For instance, I had to visit Ireland first to learn about Gaelic football (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_football), which seems to be a mix of soccer and rugby and is immensely popular in Ireland (the largest stadium in Dublin, which is also the third largest in Europe, is used primarily for it), but pretty much unknown anywhere else.

There's a comp which is a combo of Gaelic Football and Australian Rules Football which are somewhat similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Rules_Series

I love that the Aussies and the Irish independently developed a game that overlapped enough that they could compete against each other

They didn't. Both games are dependent on one or more forms of football that were codified in England, just like American Football.

Think of them as forks that have deviated little enough, or deviated in similar enough ways, from the upstream that they are still somewhat compatible.

Football was everywhere (e.g. calcio in Italy) The English codified rules for it but that doesn't mean Aussie rules or Gaelic Football are derivitives of the English game.

Medieval kicking games were everywhere, yes, in China and Florence and all kinds of places.

Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, I think it's quite clear they are directly descended. Factors include chronology, similarity of the games and both places being English colonies.

Proto Australian Rules Football predates European settlement of Australia and possibly even European settlement of England.

    Marn Grook, marn-grook or marngrook is the popular collective name for traditional Indigenous Australian football games played at gatherings and celebrations by sometimes more than 100 players. From the Woiwurung language of the Kulin people, it means "ball" and "game".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marn_Grook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6sOfIhCzuI

And you're telling me you believe the white Australians adopted and codified this indigenous game instead of one based on English Rugby Football? It doesn't seem likely.

Like I said, medieval kicking games were everywhere, including marn grook, but I don't see any evidence that Aussie Rules is based on it. "Some historians claim" is the strongest sentence in that Wikipedia article.

Agree, but not Rugby. Aussies Rules doesn't have much in common with Rugby.

As noted, Aussie Rules isn't rugby by a long shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMZYZcoAcU0

I'm saying I believe that Australian settlers were heavily influenced by many things that indigenous people did; what to eat, where to find good water, how to manage land, but they rarely acknowledged that influence.

The original version of AFL played by English settlers was a great deal more like original Marn grook than 'modern' codified AFL - the playing area was larger and effectively unbounded (save by the need to score through designated goal areas, etc).

Indigenous influence on AFL creation confirmed by historical transcripts, historian says

    Monash University historian Professor Jenny Hocking found transcripts placing Indigenous football, commonly known today as Marngrook, firmly in the Western district of Victoria where Australian rules founder Tom Wills grew up.

    "We found in the State Library of Victoria records of a transcription of an interview with [Mukjarrawaint man] Johnny Connolly, who describes actually playing the game in the Grampians region as a child in the 1830s to 40s,"

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/historian-reveals-mar...

> It doesn't seem likely.

You're entitled to your opinion but I'd hazard a guess you never grew up playing barefoot football on stony ground with aboriginal teams whereas I did (40 years ago).

Everybody seems to wear shoes now and many of the remote fields have grass now, with a few exceptions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UqL_M6_muU

I don't put much stock in your opinion.

The Australian game was codified first.

So are you saying it was independently created or not? It's unclear.

The Australian game is the first form of football to be codified. It probably does owe something to other forms of football around at the time in England, and perhaps also to a local indigenous game named marn-grook, but it was the first to have an actual codified set of laws. It's a winter game, designed to keep cricketers fit out of season, which is why it's played on an oval field (and the final is played on the Melbourne Cricket Ground).

This isn't just a feel-good story. Tom Wills, the main inventor of Australian football, was raised as the only white kid in his area, and played with the Indigenous kids.

Source: https://www.sbs.com.au/whats-on/article/did-afl-come-from-an...

I should have checked that after posting. It was supposed to be an asterisk indicating a footnote, and then another indicating the footnote itself. Normal markdown implementations don't span italics over paragraph breaks.

Gaelic and Aussie rules aren't so much dependent on codified association football as they were each somewhat independent codifications of existing games.

Association football has only existed as a codified game since 1863 - football before then was just a spectrum of local games played across Europe with little in common as areas got further away. Around the time of the codification of association football it was noted that different people in Ireland were playing association football, rugby football, and a third distinct game people referred to as "Irish football".

Modern Gaelic football was codified in 1884, and its rules were "dependent" on English football forms in the sense that it's codifiers explicitly rejected anything that was regarded as an English influence in writing the rules. It was a very nationalist time in Ireland and the GAA is an Irish nationalist organisation - they tried to keep out elements that were perceived as foreign, and integrated a lot of elements of hurling (a very distinct Irish game played with sticks that predates written history in Ireland).

The similarities between Gaelic football and Aussie rules is probably not a coincidence, but it's not because of soccer - the Irish diaspora played Irish football in Australia, and how the game was developed there had an influence in how the game was codified into Gaelic by the GAA. Irish football may have had an outsized influence in how football was played in Australia that it didn't have in Britain.

American football does more directly descend from codified English rules of football - Harvard were big proponents of rugby-style rules, which evolved into modern American football.

Why does your post repeatedly mention soccer? I'm not talking about Association Football anywhere, it's irrelevant to this discussion. Aussie and Gaelic are based on or depend upon or took influence from Rugby Football, not soccer.

The idea that Gaelic and Aussie were developed independently on opposite ends of the earth, in English-speaking crown colonies, and randomly just so happen to be compatible enough to play against each other be is absolutely barmy and I can't believe anyone is espousing it.

I think you're in agreement...

> The similarities between Gaelic football and Aussie rules is probably not a coincidence, but it's not because of soccer

You also get Shinty/Hurling matches between Scottish and Irish teams.

If you don't know what Shinty is, imagine if you took Ice Hockey, got rid of all the ice, allowed people to swing from as high and back as they like (golf swing, rather than "keep your stick on the ice"), and just in general made Ice Hockey really fast and violent.

> made Ice Hockey really fast and violent.

"Keep your stick on the ice" isn't a rule; it's a folksy saying that means "pay attention". Slapshots are very much allowed in ice hockey!

Ireland sponsors a bunch of local leagues all over the World to promote Hurling/Camogie and Gaelic football. Lots of fun if you want to give it a try or just watch some games.

Link to the US organization - https://usgaa.org

Australian Football is another. I'd really like to go see it after watching it streamed two years in a row.

Aussie Rules is my favorite of the football sports.

I say this as a mega fan of American Football, Union, and League. Sacrilege, I know.

The scoring opportunities are much higher. The pace is much much faster. There are more players, more umps, more space. The kicks are high, exciting, gotten off in the nick of time, barely making it. Tackles and hit are very big and constant (issues there, I know). The jumping and running are great too.

Imagine those big plays in American Football, the sacks, catches, jukes, etc. They happen every few downs, maybe once a quarter. In Aussie Rules they happen every 5 minutes or so, as the game clock keeps going.

The downsides are the somewhat strange uniforms. That's about it.

Amazing game, really. Go 'Pies!

Lived in Melbourne for a bit and was surprised by how much the locals went nuts for it.

Fun sport, fast moving, and it felt like a very three dimensional game compared to US football, which is feels heavily scripted, like running the same tests over and over and over.

I learned about duckpin bowling the same way. Never heard of it until moving to the US Mid-Atlantic.

Might be an interesting study as to why certain sports/activities take off and become popular for a while, then fade. I wonder if pickleball will follow this trend?

If you think Gaelic football is interesting you should check out hurling - I've heard it called both "the fastest game on grass" and "a cross between field hockey and murder". The game predates written history in Ireland (although I assume it's changed a lot with time).

Here's some highlights from a recent game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rNbodFzlwI

I honestly find it nearly impossible to follow what's going on when watching it in person.

Both Hurling and Gaelic football are played in the US. https://usgaa.org/

I live in the DC area and both used to be broadcast on a local station. That ended years ago. GAAGO is a paid streaming service which allows you to watch games on your PC, mobile device or smart TV.

Edit: Wanted to clarify that what used to air on TV and what is available through GAAGO are Irish matches and not those of the USGAA.

maybe apocryphal but I was always told that hurling was designed to strengthen young boys to make them good warriors. basically lots of running and fighting.

Gaelic football is one of most amazing sports I've ever seen. I had no familiarity with it until a few years ago, but watching someone run with the ball on a pitch, dribble it, then drop kick it at full speed and bend the pass all the way to the other side of the pitch to a teammate is incredible.

Handball (Also called Wallball) is popular in New York City, along with a few other places in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_handball

You can also view tournaments that have been held here: https://www.youtube.com/@TensFinest/videos

It's one my my favorite hobbies; I've been playing since I was a teen (not that I'm any good at it lol). Outside of Florida and California I don't think many have heard of it. Though I believe there are a few places in Europe that play (Belgium I think?) but don't quote me.

Happy to elaborate further if anyone is curious!

I grew up in Denver, and we had handball courts in some of the city parks. It seemed to be super popular with central and south Americans. The tennis courts were super popular with African immigrants, mostly Nigerians.

Don't know if they're still there, or if they have been turned into a pickleball court like every other place on earth.

Ah so pickleball is spreading like crazy in CO too? I have a todo to play it just so I can see what the fuss is about.

Wait, wallball is a regional thing? My mental image of an elementary school recess yard has just changed wildly. What about 4 square?

To give a personal account, I grew up in Utah and students at the public schools which I attended knew both wallball and 4 square.

I've only ever seen Handball/Wallball in NYC. This is honestly the first time I've ever heard of four square.

Interesting! The mention of California made me think that was likely but Florida had the opposite effect. In terms of culture trends, Utah seems to lag behind California by 2-3 years (from my lay-observations) but I’m not sure about Florida. The geographical distance had me thinking it was a more-likely national phenomenon.

To continue with Kid's games, we used to play 'JailBreak' a kind of tag/capture the flag. you'd try to get your fellows, who were trapped out of jail, if you sneaked up and tagged them with your hand without getting tagged and captured. We played it in the evening sometimes. That was in suburban NJ near Philadelphia.

Yeah, that reminds me of part of how I played capture the flag as a kid, rather than its own game. One could be “caught” (tagged) and jailed if they were on the opposing side looking for the flag and they had to be tagged by a teammate while in jail to escape (still free game until you’re on the friendly side of the line).

We played both handball and 4 square in southern california, though I don't recall it being a thing at the school I attended in the midwest, nor do I remember having played it in virginia.

grew up in VA, and recall 4 square and handball

I’m fairly sure that “wallball” played in most elementary schools around the US is a different game than what is being referred to here. Growing up in New England, what we called wallball involved throwing a tennis ball against a wall and attempting to catch it before someone else, while the NYC handball/wallball is closer to racquetball, but played outside against a (usually) freestanding concrete wall with palms used instead of racquets.

I'm originally from near Philadelphia and we played a variant of Handball where we'd bounce a racket ball off the ground onto the wall and then wait for it to hit the wall then back to the ground then the other would hit. It was sort of a made up version, very different from the hard ball straight at the wall with a glove that they play on the handball courts here in NYC.

This kind of sounds like "Chinese Handball" which is a variant I've played way back. Not sure why it was called that though.

I live in Phoenix and we have a lot of handball courts, but now that I’m thinking about it I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one in use.

Belgium plays a completely different game with the same name, also called Olympic handball.

Your form of handball is played in Ireland. The world championship location alternates between the USA, Canada, and Ireland. In Ireland, it's administered by the GAA, so is strictly amateur, while in North America it's a professional game.

check out florence calcio. it's the original soccer/football

Jai Alai Blues, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMddUtwmfMI

>Synopsis: A documentary narrating the incredible story of the Jai Alai through its most iconic characters. A great many similarities can be drawn between the biography of our characters and the actual history of the Jai Alai. Beginnings in humble surroundings, huge successes all over the world in pelota courts packed to the hilt with distinguish publics, losses of identity due to adapting a traditional game to societies with completely different values...

* Complete documentary in original language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDX_xn-x7mU

There's a great book by CS professor Steven Skiena about the automated betting system he built (using early 90s-era technology!) to place bets on jai alai.

The Book: https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/jaialai/

2008 presentation: https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/tmp/oreilly.pdf

Odd Lots Podcast: https://news.stonybrook.edu/facultystaff/computer-science-pr...

Jai alai peaked in Tron (1982): https://video.disney.com/watch/jai-alai-4be38642b8814a0e1266...

All thanks to Ho-Ho’s vision for it in 1963: https://youtu.be/0HbGY6teMKU

One of my favorite minor arcs in that show

There's something like it in Star Trek, too.

Velocity in Star Trek Voyager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9D2Z93LnN8

I think you meant Miami Vice.

I went to Jai Alai periodically when I lived in Tampa in the 80s; I had Cuban friends who were into it. It's a really interesting sport...a little like racquetball, only the ball is hard like a softball and moves at ballistic speeds. Getting hit was a Bad Day. And it's loud. I played a number of sports, and there was not a single moment I said "I wanna try that".

I guess I saw the beginning of the decline. It was as they report, mostly filled with well dressed Hispanic men obsessed with betting. But I never saw it more than 3/4 full. Shame it's on the out.

It always seemed to me to be a lot like a slightly less offensive version horse racing, with much the same profile - e.g. 90% of people watching it only care because it's something to gamble on.

Edit: Also reminds me a bit of what I beleive is called royal or court tennis, an extremely rare (there's only something like 30 playing venues in the world) variant of tennis that is played on a special enclosed court with some of the walls and ceiling being in play, and also certain parts of the walls are angled in specfic ways so apparently all kinds of chaos occurs.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Jesmond-...

“Real” tennis I think it goes by

That's it. There's a Lucy Worsley series about Tudor England where she goes to the actual 'real tennis' court in Hampton Court where Henry VIII played and they do a bit of a demo with some folks in period costume (as Lucy does). A little bit like Jai Alai, maybe.

>90% of people watching it only care because it's something to gamble on.

This is now the raison d'etre of the vast majority of esports (especially the non-tier-1 events/leagues)

In Spain the Quiniela, a soccer based lottery where you bet on match results over a week.

The US has caught up with you...we now have a similar sort of sports betting (tho not called a 'lottery'). "Fantasy Soccer" is now a thing as well, unfortunately[1].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_sport

Well, is not a "lottery" because is not random, you check boxes from a paper form made of 15 matches with these options:

1 - X -2

1: Home team wins X: A draw 2: Foreign team wins

slightly less offensive version horse racing, with much the same profile

With one major difference - the horses could read their own odds.

Forever cemented in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0p6thEs1kM

I remember as a little kid, watching the Miami Vice television show introduction, seeing the Jai Alai players. It was exotic.

As a little kid growing up in Miami, I had to learn that jai alai wasn't well-known elsewhere in the US. I remember watching the ads for it on TV, though (like dog racing) I was too young to go.

For me, I thought the large school lockers I saw on TV were pretty exotic. Why were they large enough that someone could hide in them? Ours were about backpack sized.

My Mom explained that's where people put their winter clothes, which also explained why the lockers were always inside enclosed hallways. I was used to having hallways with one side open, to allow a breeze.

To show you what I mean, here's my elementary school, https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7538402,-80.2581714,3a,27.4y... . They didn't install A/C until I was in 4th grade. The entire classroom wall facing the hallway was a bank of doors that could open up to allow a cross-breeze, with a wall of windows on the other side.

For that matter, snow was pretty exotic too. ;) When I went up north to Tallahassee for college, us S. Florida people were so excited when the temperature got to freezing. We stayed up late to see if the water we left out would freeze.

On that note, I also remember TV shows as a kid, the parents always came out in full pajamas, fuzzy slippers, and a robe on. "Who dresses like that?" I thought. Didn't know a single person in SoCal that did, to this day even. In fact summers I'd live in swim trunks (only) for three solid months.

Even in Washington, DC, which isn't New England, I can get away with bumping around the house in shorts and tee shirt only until about the end of September.

Of course, the TV shows were largely filmed around LA, so maybe the cast got hardship pay for the costumes.

TV produces so many ideas per second. Young minds absorb them not realizing they come from a bunch of stressed out writers in a room. The ideas are really transient but that moment on TV makes it seem so important.

Me, too! Remember the Serpentarium? And the king Cobra shows with nothing but grass between us and the snake?

Grew up outside of Gainesville and always wondered about Jai Alai. The ads on TV made it very important but no adult I knew cared about it. Very confusing.

I went to U.F. in the 90s (grew up in South Florida). Some college buddies and I went to a Jai Alai game in Ocala once. It felt like we'd stepped back in time a few decades. Here's photos of the Orlando fronton which has a similar vibe:

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/orlando-jai-alai-31-ph...

(Archived for posterity https://archive.ph/r2Yga)

Never did, but going back to "exotic", when I moved to Illinois I encountered a lot of new vegetation. "What's this one?" I asked. My friends looked at me with an odd expression. "Maple." Me: "Oh! It does look like the Canadian flag!"

To them, mango, avocado, and Key Lime trees - all which we had in our yard - were exotic. To say nothing of lizards and iguanas, nor having a flock of parakeets fly out of a tree.

Thank you for this explanation of giant TV lockers for a SoCal raised guy.

I'll forward your thanks to my Mom!

There's a whole episode involving Jai Alai too (which those clips in the intro are from.) Spoilers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJ46LJlt0M

As a kid to me that was the "Odds and Evens" Bud Spencer & Terence Hill movie (they were extremely popular in certain parts of Europe)

First time I saw jai alai was in that movie, and it was shot in the famous Miami arena.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ymDte0gjqM&t=4670s

I remember going to jai alai games in Miami as a kid. I was never very into sports, but it was fun to watch.

As far as I could tell, the adults were there to bet on the games.

It had a last gasp since 2013:

> But jai alai, the world's fastest-moving ball sport, fell off in the 1990s and didn't get a boost until 2018, when Florida banned greyhound racing and casinos needed a parimutuel activity (in which all bets are pooled) to continue offering slots and table games. [May 19, 2021]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/insider/story/_/id/314...

Florida lawmakers then tried to really kill it:

> State lawmakers recently eliminated a measure requiring casinos to host several pari-mutuel betting sports, including jai alai and harness racing. [Dec. 10, 2021]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/goodbye-jai-alai-players...

But it lives on as Battle Court Jai Alai at Magic City Casino in Miami:

https://www.usbets.com/jai-alai-battle-court-season-2-begins...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/battle-court-spring...

It exists at Calder also, Florida regs require pari-mutuel activity to qualify for a slot machine license. They replaced the expenses of running a horse racing meet (and cleared up tons of land they could sell) with jai-alai and they pay a few locals to put on an exhibition. I say exhibition because, although it is bettable, most games get fewer than $20 and the attendance is typically less than a local gym's pickup basketball game.

> Florida regs require pari-mutuel activity to qualify for a slot machine license

I thought the 2021 NBC article I cited was indicating that regulation was eliminated.

Edit: I don't understand what that article is claiming since "In Florida, slot machines are heavily regulated by FGCC and are legal only in the eight pari-mutuel facilities in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties and at certain Indian tribal facilities."

https://flgaming.gov/faq/

All Jai Alai needs is a promotional anime series, and it'll be back in business.

I know I'm not the only person who got into Go due to Hikaru No Go.

https://www.cbr.com/shonen-jump-hikaru-no-go-board-game-popu...

Fun fact, jai alai means "cheerful/happy party" in basque. And it's quite alive in the basque country. If you want to watch some recent matches: https://www.eitb.eus/es/tag/cesta-punta/

Correction for a name in the article: it's Patxi (and not Paxti). Pronounced "Pachi" as in "Pachinko".

It's the diminutive or familiar version for Frantzisko, Francisco or even François.

Interesting - where in the world is this the case? Mexico? I had a Spanish friend called Francisco, known as Paco, but a Portuguese Francisco I know was utterly baffled that his name could be shortened that way.

It's a basque nickname, so you'll find them basically in Spain and France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paco says:

> Paco is a Spanish nickname for Francisco. According to folk etymology, the nickname has its origins in Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the father of the Franciscan order; his name was written in Latin by the order as pater communitatis (father of the community); hence "Paco" was supposedly obtained by taking the first syllable of each word.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco has the same description, and comments that it's similar to how José is "Pepe" through "P(ater) P(utativus)", the husband of Mary, the father of Jesus. It then adds "[cita requerida]" to that description.

https://spanish.stackexchange.com/questions/17631/why-is-pac... mentions that one, and adds another possibility; writing "Phranciscus (the latinised version of Francisco de Asís's nickname) as Ph.co in signs and inscriptions", thus becoming "Paco", "Pacho", and "Pancho".

That cites http://www.alsurdelafrontera.es/2015/02/como-se-llega-de-fra... which cites Diccionario del origen de las palabras by Alberto Buitrago and J. Agustín Torijano.

But isn't Beppe an Italian nickname for Giuseppe?

I'm way out of my depth, and it appears to be full of folk etymology.

http://spanishlinguist.us/2013/03/pepe-and-paco-2-mysterious... says Real Academia España says Pepe comes from Beppe and there is no support for the "pater comunitatis" origin for Paco.

There is much discussion in the comments.

"Beppe" and the less used "Beppo" are both diminutives (not nicknames) of the popular (especially back in the day) biblical name Giuseppe. "Chicco" is an interesting case in Italian, as it is more of a nickname than a diminutive (hypocoristic, to be precise), and it can be used for the full names Francesco, Enrico, or Federico.

I know that when romans invented latin they transliterated greek letter Φ to P. So I checked the name written in greek and sure enough it could be abbreviated as paco if you don't know how to pronounce it : Φραγκίσκος

In Portuguese Francisco is usually shortened as Xico or Chico.

That'd be for the Basque Country region, the region of origin for Jai Alai.

There, the equivalent for Francisco is Frantzisko, although I think is way less commonly used. I almost always hear Patxi, even in formal settings. For example, a former President of the Basque Government (the Lehendakari), and also former President of the Spanish Congress of Deputies, always goes by "Patxi" (Patxi Lopez).

Also, like in the Patxi Lopez case, you might be born or living in the Basque Country and named Francisco, but go by Patxi.

Going by Patxi when you're named François it's because the Basque Country region also overlaps with France.

I was going to say it sounded very basque to me.

Thank you

In Mexico a more common nickname for Francisco is Pancho, as in the famous revolutionary Pancho Villa.

It's origins are in Basque country, the Basque language uses the 'x' in that way a lot.

Pronounced like “Hi Lie”

A Florida brewery, Cigar City, makes a 8% IPA called Jai Alai which I once ordered from a distributor, but had never heard it pronounced correctly. They came out with a keg and said “here’s your Jai Alai” which I heard as “here’s your High Life…” (light American lager) I was very confused.

Since OP didn't answer, it is actually a pretty great beer. True to style and super clean.

I’d say it’s more like “hi ah lie”.

Great beer though. That and the Guayabera.

Speaking of regional sports: 16-inch softball!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-inch_softball

I actually played this once in Southern California, so it's not totally regional. But pretty much a Chicago thing.

My father discovered this on a trip to Chicago long ago, and brought a few home to Massachusetts. They were great for playing in our yard, where the fence was too close for a real softball, but these are much harder to hit >100ft so they let us use the whole yard.

We always called them "Chicago softballs"

One of the few sports where a beer belly was actually an advantage!

This was a regular for springtime gym class in my NJ public high school -- easy to run with the only gear needed being a ball and a bat, basically softball but slower and softer.

One for the Steven Skiena algorithms fans: In his other book "Calculated Bets" he devotes an entire chapter, entitled "what is jai alai", to explaining the intricacies of the game. His interest in probability and the math behind gambling was sparked by visits to these sporting events with his family.

Tevin/Shepard retired at the end of 2020, almost 30 years. That’s a long career in any job.

I'd like to know what happened to Squash. Up until the mid 90s or so it was really popular. Then it seemed like everyone stopped playing and courts closed left right and centre

I wonder if it's because squash courts are a pain to keep clean - they're a magnet for scuff-marks from the balls (and racquets...).

I tried to get into it recently and found the cost prohibitively expensive to play casually.

Contrast with Pickleball- for $100 I have a racket and balls and can play on courts, if I pay $300 I can play almost anywhere, and that is the lifetime cost

I played in racquetball leagues in the late '80s and early '90s. Same thing happened.

We had a raquetball court in my college dorm, which had been converted from an old city hotel. A friend knew the rules and invited me to play, and I ended up getting a set of rackets and balls. It was a lot of fun, and a real workout. This was in 1990. I never saw a court or an opportunity to play again after I moved out of the area.

Racquet sports and fitness trends come and go. When I was a kid, decades ago, squash was niche but well known, kids like me and my friends spent hours playing variations of table tennis, "pelota" was a cheap game with made-up rules ("tedesca" was another one, but on the soccer field, some of my older compatriots might remember), and "aerobics" was trendy in the few gyms that operated at the time. Tennis always had a hard core group of participants, and padel is nowadays, by far, the most popular racquet sports in latin or latin-adjacent countries.

The fact that Jai Alai was designed for betting reminds me a whole lot of backgammon.

In the places it's traditionally played, the betting is the whole point.

"Tennis but you can bounce the ball off the walls" seems to be a popular idea. There's squash and racketball, of course, and more recently I heard about padel [0], a Mexican game that's trying to go international.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padel

More than trying, it's everywhere.

Yes, there is another game where you can do that, Real Tennis or Royal Tennis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_tennis

I spent a few years in Bayonne, France.... Pelote courts were all over the place, south towards Spain and inland into the low Basque Pyrenees, and often full of people of all skill levels playing variations of pelote and jai alai. If anyone wants to see it, wants to play it, go there! And equipment (for non-pros) is easily bought at local Decathlons (a sport store).

During the last decade, we drove three times through France to spend our summer holidays in Biarritz.

One of the many selling points for us was the Gant d'Or tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GVwqcCzWyk

Baseball's roots are steeped in shepherds leisure. https://3seaseurope.com/oina-baseball-romania/

My high school in south Florida had a Jai Alai arena next door. I always wanted to go to to a game, but never did since our house was so far away and I didn’t get my license till after we moved away.

It reminds me of American Football vs Rugby Union vs Rugby League - all similar with a similar shaped ball, demarcated field lines and H shaped goal posts at each end but very different.

>> In just the last few years, the game of football has been party to a bounty scandal, performance-enhancing drug allegations, concussion-related suicides, rapes, murders, drunken driving deaths and at least one child-molestation scandal. The NBA has had a referee go to prison for betting on games he officiated. Baseball’s own Hall of Fame couldn’t find a single living player worthy of induction this year. And the NHL’s audiences and revenues have spiraled downward thanks to a number of labor disputes and games now appearing on cable channels nobody can find.

Wow! There goes the little FOMO I have [or had] on watching sports.

I read recently that the gameplay of baseball is highly corrupt and oriented toward putting on a good show. https://slate.com/culture/2021/06/ball-doctoring-mlb-pitchin...

pitchers ball doctoring all over the league still leaves a level playing field.

fixing games is the only kind of cheating that would really ruin the game.

As a baseball fan, it's funny to see this article from a few cycles of the pitching/batting arms race ago.

Corrupt is not quite how I would describe what's going on. Baseball has always had elements of deception, rule bending, innovation in equipment, the need for secretive methods of communication (and therefore codebreaking), and acts that are against the rules but within the spirit of the game (and acts that aren't against the rules but do violate the spirit of the game).

Baseball has a very rich and complex culture surrounding it.

Perhaps it doesn't ruin the game, but it must have an effect of disillusionment. What do kids from Little League think? What do new recruits to the Major Leagues think? When do they find out?

This doesn't seem to be discussed by color commentators. My father's a huge fan and doesn't seem to mention stuff like that from modern times. I had the impression it was a few crooked pitchers who would eventually get caught.

Do any players try to play "honestly" without indulging in the rule breaking... sorry, bending, that "everybody else is doing"? How does that work out for them?

“Cheat? Good heavens, this is an amateur cricket match amongst leading prep schools, I'm an Englishman and a schoolmaster supposedly setting an example to his young charges. We are playing the most artistic and beautiful game ever devised. Of course I'll cunting well cheat.”

― Stephen Fry, The Liar.

it's understood to be a gray area. you're not supposed to be throwing spitballs, true, but batters aren't necessarily unhappy if pitchers have more control and are less likely to hit them in the head.

the players also aren't necessarily using special-purpose foreign substances; sometimes they take advantage of some combination of rosin, sunscreen, and sweat, each of which is totally legal.

the recent crackdown is basically only because it's a lever to improve batting. if offense got too good for some reason, i bet they would loosen up again.

Just to add to @currymj's response, sticky stuff won't help a Little League pitcher. There is a level of velocity and control you need that no 12 year old could muster.

From my outside point of view, it appears that every professional sport is highly corrupt. Some more so than others, though.

I don't follow sports at all, so am unaware of the larger sports world and what is or is not popular. But I'm a little surprised to hear Jai Alai described as "dying".

It's still played in high school sports in my part of the US. Only at rich kid's schools, true, but that's been the case since approximately forever.

Are you thinking of lacrosse or squash? Searching for High School sports pages on this turns up very little.

No, Jai Alai for certain. And I'm not anywhere near Florida. :)

Pickleball

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