Benny Bueno Picks up $10K Batch of Pelota’s & Makes Cancha Visit
Benny Bueno Picks up $10K Batch of Pelota’s & Makes Cancha Visit
Dana’s Jai-alai director of operations made a two-day visit to the Tampa Bay area yesterday that included a St. Pete cancha visit and a baseball game.
Benny Bueno made the trip to pick up a big box of pelota’s which are made in Tampa for use of this season that starts later this fall. The 100 goat skin balls he got will handle Dania’s fronton for the 3 month meet. At $100 apiece, they appear to be a good price, as that is the cost of a pelota we have seen mentioned over the decades. By contrast, the cost of a cesta has skyrocketed.
Accompanying Benny on the trip were his son Chris, currently on the Magic City roster, and his grandson Chris Jr., aka “CJ”.
After their stop in Tampa to pick up the pelota’s. they checked into a hotel room near the St. Pete Cancha and then headed over to the court for some action. Oddly, this is the only place Benny has strapped on a cesta over the past 2-3 years. He tried desperately to get a cancha built in the Miami area like the St. Pete one, but to no avail. The cover image on our website and Facebook site, taken by Alex, has Benny and Chris on it when they were here last time.
Benny and Chris didn’t last too long out in the heat. It was brutal, but after all, it was 2pm when rarely you find anyone outside at that hour playing jai-alai, tennis, soccer, lacrosse as you normally do during other hours at Puryear Park. Joining them in play was Seminole King, Alex, Mark Butler, and myself.
After that, the Bueno’s, Alex, and I showered and then headed to Tropicana Field to take on the Rays/Marlins game. The Bueno’s are huge Marlin fans, and we all were able to watch the game beside the Rays dugout along with 18,000 others. Ironically, while we were finishing up playing earlier, the Pinellas County commissioners approved the new stadium to replace Tropicana Field and be ready for the 2028 season along with 86 acres of an entertainment venue, restaurants, bars, hotels, a museum, housing, offices, and an amphitheater – all for $ 6.5 Billion.
One of the videos shown with this story is of Benny when he made a spectacular one-handed catch at a Marlins game several years ago when he was holding his grandson at the same time. The catch even made ESPN’s play of the day that evening. Now Chris, Jr. is 12 years old and is a baseball encyclopedia of knowledge. Last night he was wearing a Jazz Chisholm, Jr. shirt, a former Marlin star now lighting it up for the Yankees the past 3 days. Making matters worse for him, the Rays clobbered the Marlins.