One year ago, the JLaca Museum was Destroyed by Hurricane Helene
September 26, 2025: Seminole FL: Exactly one year ago, Hurricane Helene and its powerful 4-5 rating went north past Tampa Bay around 120 miles to the west of it, landing near Perry, Florida in the panhandle. The winds weren’t too bad in the Tampa Bay area, but the flooding was afterwards. Manu beach communities were clobbered with 4-5 feet of water in their buildings. That included the JLaca museum that was built inside a 17-car garage in a flood zone.
On three separate occasions, the museum was emptied out with storm surge threats, all to no avail. This time, the storm missed us as usual – but the backflow brought in a storm surge not seen in over 100 years. It caught everyone off guard, causing billions in damage. Thousands are still homeless and many businesses like motels, beach bars and restaurants were destroyed forever.
The museum lost everything in the glass displays and everything under 4 feet was ruined – including the jai alai pinball machine.
You can see the way the how the museum looked like if you weren’t one of the 700 plus visitors that came to see it. Baseball Hall of Famers Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff were among them by clicking below.
Hard Rock Florida Angering Betters with Limits & Late Postings
September 17, 2025: Lots of Florida Jai-alai betters are angry at the “hard” cap being imposed online by the Hard Rock Casino. And not knowing until just a few hours what the odds are and being able to bet.
As the second week of the Magic City Fall season of ja-alai fixed odds betting, customers are shocked to see the amount of money they can bet on certain games and parleys. Some are experiencing a limit they can bet a game, and some are getting cut off from even betting a single dollar on additional jai-alai games. It is not uncommon to see your limit choked at $5 or even being locked out once you have bet a certain amount of money on the performance.
Apparently, these betters are doing well, or this action would not be happening.
Let’s face it. Casinos don’t like to lose money. If you win money at something, they are going to stop you somehow or another.
If you watched the movie “21” that came out several years ago, you will recall scenes where the casinos will take you down to the basement and beat the living shit out of you. All over card counting. I doubt that goes on today or did back when a professor from MIT and several students figured out how to beat the casino in the late 70s and were wildly successful in the 80s. Those were smart kids.
But they will ask you to leave the building or ban you from playing blackjack again. It does not seem fair – it is an even playing field. And nobody is cheating. Its fair game. But in every casino in the world – except for Atlantic City – the casino has the right to stop you from playing, take away your chips and ban you for life. Casinos practically have their own police department. And if on Tribal property, like the Hard Rock in Florida, they make all the rules and police them.
So, I guess the Hard Rock can limit anyone on how much they bet – even in sports betting.
I remember this went on last year and I had heard that it was illegal.
Another shenanigan game they may be playing is waiting until the last few hours to post the odds online to bet. The 5pm performance may not even be available to review until just a few hours before it starts. This really hinders betters from handicapping their choices and even more importantly parley bets, which can often spread into the next day. The other betting sites like Betrivers and Draft Kings don’t appear to be playing that game, even though some of them are not always up in a timely matter. Not sure if this is the fault of Magic City Jai-alai or the casinos, but I have a good idea.
Like I said, casinos don’t like to lose money. Period.
Longtime season ticket holder Bronwyn Doyle, the wife of current Puryear Park player Gary “Cachin 47” Doyle, barely survived of what would have been a very painful experience and a trip to the hospital with serious injuries.
Season ticket holders have the option to sit on a bench behind the screen fence (basically where the players cage would be, sit in your own chair anywhere alongside the court outside the fence, or sit inside the cancha with extreme caution.
Players were using the Matt 165G ball, the latest version of the Connecticut Amateur pelota. It is the fastest and heaviest ball they have used in Berlin Connecticut for the past 16 years and plays much faster on the St. Pete Cancha than ever before.
Mrs. Cachin was sitting at about the 10 line in a beach chair with their little doggie, splitting her time reading something on her phone or watching her husband play.
Near the end of the Sunday performance, Alex threw a remate that caromed off the side wall, hit the front wall, and out of the reach of Rastock in the front. The pelota was heading right at Bronwyn’s head. Everyone yelled “Watch it!!!”. With less than a split second of notice, she looked up, saw the pelota heading right at her face as a Hurricane 5. She quickly raised her phone up right in front of her head – blocking the near 100 mph “rock” from nailing her. The ball had a direct hit in the middle of her iPhone.
As you can see from the photos, the ball left a perfect tape mark on it from the direct hit. She also suffered an “injury” that fortunately caused no pain. She lost her nail. And yes, it was from her Middle Finger. The ball broke off her middle fingernail and left a tape mark on the phone with no other damage. The ball is 2.25” in diameter.
Without her quick reflexes, this story would not have had a happy ending. The Doyle’s attorney declined to file charges against Alex for the nail repair, citing the wording on the back of her ticket – “Not responsible for injuries incurred from a thrown pelota while inside the cancha!”.
September 15, 2025: If you Goggle “Tigers Jai alai”, one of the first things you will see is a story I wrote awhile back about how slow Tigers Chalk Talk site had been doing. “Tigers Site All but Dead” were some of the key words.
But now, it has picked up considerably in postings. Take the “Erik vs. “Aritz” debate which has had dozens of replies from fellow jai-alai fans – including Erik himself.
The reason for the uptick is that no passwords or registration are required. Tiger has done this in the past when things got slow, but someone always had to jump in and cross the line, as we can say.
So far , things have been under control from what I can see. In the past, one would check the site out multiple times a day. But lately, ,one could go days without even bothering to check on the site. By dropping the registration requirement a couple months ago, the postings have picked up dramatically.
Tigers site has been going strong for over 20 years now.
Let’s hope it can continue without any shenanigans out there messing it up!
Miami: September 11, 2025: Last Friday at the Magic City Casino, about 56 amateur and former players participated in the USNJAC event – United States National Jai Alai Championship. The event is open to any amateur player or former pros who have not played pro since January 1, 2021 and are 50 years old or more. Winners can walk home with some good chump change.
One of those regular winners over the past few years was James Langhams, the father of current Magic City star players Douglas and Benny. He also played pro himself for many years at Bridgeport and Milford and a couple more in Florida. It would be safe to say he would rank as a Top 3 seeded player. I’ve marveled his court savvy and intelligence on the cancha. His quick wrist can snap the ball as fast as anyone and clearly gave the genes to two of the best American players to come around here in a long time. I was fortunate enough to supply him with pelota’s when he contacted me several years ago in North Carlina. I had no idea it was for training his son Douglas, then an injured high school pitcher. I was wondering, who the hell plays jai-alai in North Carolina and where?
His paired opponent was “Magic Mike” aka Mike Berry. A lifetime jai-alai fan, Mike has been an amateur player for decades, playing at Tampa jai-alai and Orlando. He was also the computer consultant for Tampa Jai-alai and operates a computer repair shop in St. Petersburg and helps me on the posting on the Pelota Press. He’s been a pesky player – and anybody that has seen him knows it. He can rebote with the best of them, but rarely gets the ball past the 6 line, putting his team on the defense all the time. His soft throws have irritated players over the years especially the ones just reaching the wall. Former Tampa and Miami superstar player Daniel called him “Mickalenia” – a nod to the former player at Miami. Mike would certainly rank in the bottom 3 players (along with myself).
But when players entered the fronton at 9am to check the pairings for the first round in Singles, the image of “Douglas” vs. “Magic Mike” was the mismatch of the century. There was no way Magic Mike could win. Danny Sheriden had the odds at 2,000 to 1. Draft Kings wouldn’t take bets. Hard Rock pulled their banner down before the doors opened. We’ve seen Douglas walk out of fronton with 6-foot-long checks signed by Scott Savin before. We’ve also seen Mike riding back home in the back seat without two dimes to rub together. Some of our own players left for lunch as the event took place around 12 noon. Nobody wanted to bear the ass whipping it seemed. Sort of like me at a Yankees 1970s baseball game when Gene Michael would come to bat followed by the pitcher. A good time to get a hot dog.
Players around me gave the over/under of 1 point for Mike. Certainly not 2 points, or 3 for that matter.
For years, my good buddy Rick B has argued that “any player can beat any other player at any time”. I told him several times that he was full of shit….like I’m going out there on the court and beating a player with the caliber of an Anthony or Rastock with all the marbles on the line. Have another toke, Zoltar!
Boy, was I wrong. Mike went out there and built a 5-2 lead with some great catches and returns, before winning the event 6-5 on game point with a crafty long dejada from the 12 line that Douglas barely got to but it was stuck by the wall and could not make the return fully and hit the lower pad. The last time God created a miracle was in the movie “Oh God” when (played by George Burns) told a supermarket manager (played by John Denver) he created the 1969 New York Mets miracle World Championship. Well, he just created another one. A special thanks to James for taking this in stride. Even he admitted before the game he thought something like this could happen.
HERE IS AN AI CELEBRATION (JUST PRESS PLAY BELOW):
Savin Confirms Move to Casino Miami/ 35 States offer Betting
September 10, 2025: The world’s biggest jai-alai secret is out. On Friday morning, World Jai-alai League’s COO Scott Savin announced for the first time publicly that they are indeed moving to the Casino Miami. Known as the “Yankee Stadium” of Jai-alai, or as Savin said the “Fenway Park” of Jai-alai “being a Red Sox fan!”, it is the oldest jai-alai fronton in America will once again have live jai-alai.
The Casino Miami and Jai-alai is about 3 miles north of Magic City – located on the northeast corner of the Miami Airport. The Magic City Casino is located on the southeast corner of the airport. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the opening of Miami Jai alai as it opened in 1926. The original fronton, which was located on the Hialeah Racetrack property was built in 1924 and destroyed by a major hurricane shortly afterwards. Magic City was sold a couple years ago and their lease to “rent” the fronton expires at the end of the year.
Speculation grew over the past year as to where the new Magic City Jai-alai will be located to. There were serious inquiries as far away as Las Vegas and Newport, but in reality, the old Miami jai-alai court made the most sense.
A lot of you are wondering – “that’s a real court” with a thick granite front wall, and how are they going to do this with their glass walled court?
They will be using the original side wall and front walls but will be installing a new glass back wall. This wall will be installed at the 10 line, giving them about 40 feet or so of space for the announcers and camera crew to set up. In the photos shown with this story shows containers of the brackets that will be used to install the new glass wall, which is expected to arrive from Spain in October. The new location should be able to open on schedule in February, 2026.
No new name has been chosen yet for the new enterprise. Nor was there any known length contract, but investors will need to see a profit within a reasonable time to keep the jai-alai league going.
They are still looking for the right ball to use, but until the glass wall is up and installed for jai-alai to be played, the ball to be used is another project to work on along with the name. The pelota is everything and they really want that jai-alai ball sound back. The “North Miami” ball, used at the amateur facility, will not work. It won’t at the St. Pete cancha and certainly won’t work on the real McCoy. The Matt ball is deemed too heavy and might crack the back glass wall.
I think this is great news – the critics of goat skin jai alai will have an entirely different game that has been played at Magic City for years and maintaining the cool angle views from behind. However, the cool views in the front will be gone, but they never installed bleachers or seats there for some reason and that great perspective is gone.
Savin also announced that 55,000 bets had been made on jai-alai in Battle Court as the Fall 2025 got under way this week. Indiana was recently added, giving them about 35 states that allow sprot betting on the World Jai-alai League. It certainly is exciting to watch and bet on.
August 26, 2025: The final USNJAC event to be held at Magic City will be next week. The event will likely be held at another soon to be announced location. The existing court is not transportable and likely will be removed in December.
Based on the email received, it appears 58 “amateurs: and “ex pros” are participating on Friday, September 5th, with the current pros playing on Saturday and Sunday – September 6-7th. The winners of Friday’s event will also play on Sunday in the finals. Post time is 10am on Friday and Saturday, and 12 noon start time on Sunday.
Everyone gets to practice on Thursday:
From 11:30am to 3pm – Miami-Dade and Broward Counties
From 3:00pm to 5:30pm – St. Pete. Orlando and Ocala
From 5:30pm to 7:30pm – Connecticut
The World Super Court teams will then practice from 7:30-10:30pm.
FROM MAGIC CITY WEBSITE BELOW:
2025 U.S. NATIONAL JAI-ALAI CHAMPIONSHIP
September 5th and September 7th
Friday – Play Begins at 10am Sunday – Play Begins at 12pm (Semi-Finals & Finals)
Last Year The Magic City Fronton hosted a thrilling weekend of jai-alai, the world’s fastest ball sport. The World Jai-Alai League (WJAL), the leading professional jai-alai league in the United States, presented the fifth annual United States National Jai-Alai Championship (USNJAC).
U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship featured jai-alai athletes from around the U.S. competing in singles and doubles play. The Tournament featured top American athletes competing for the national title. Fans of all ages were invited to witness the electrifying live matches at the Magic City Fronton with free admission.
In case you haven’t noticed, there has been a couple of updates to the Pelota Press Website.
Even though the museum was flooded last September and is closed for good, the JLaca Museum section of this website has been totally updated with lots of pictures of the artifacts and visitors to the place. Be sure to check it out.
A new section, Cancha Pics, is a sampling of photos over the past 25 years or so. Be sure to check them out, too!
August 22, 2025: Former Pro player Freddie Santana had just recently moved from the Miami area to Seffner Florida, a Tampa suburb. The “high cost of breathing air in Miami” was his clever reply when asked by the Pelota Press on why he moved to the area. He was making his debut last night at Puryear Park in St. Pete – America’s first and only public jai-alai cancha. The last time he had strapped on a cesta was as a player at Calder the two seasons there over 4 years ago.
Thirty-five years ago, he had started playing pro at the Tampa, Ocala, Ft. Pierce, and Miami frontons. Recently he was a referee at Dania Jai-alai.
“Cool Hand” had immediately stepped on to the court and was doing excellent, winning his first game with Rastock and was in his second game when a “pop” went off. He had just severely strained or torn his bicep. I guess he was going at it too hard on his first appearance on the court with 9 other players. It a tough break for a guy who was enjoying the court , the Matt Ball being used and everything else.
Let’s wish him well and we will keep you updated with any updates. Likely timeframe would be around 4-6 months, if serious enough. He just needs to wait to see what the X-rays show. A large icebag was applied immediately after the injury, but you can tell he was in pain. Many will recall that former Pro “Don” experienced the same injury last year on the St. Pete cancha in a big tournament. Many will also recall when “Coya” made his debut out there several years ago. While attempting to catch the first serve of his inaugural game as a backcourter, he pulled a muscle in his leg and went down. He has never returned.
UPDATE: Bicep seems to be healing and may return to action soon.
It looks like Orlando Jai-alai is holding its “season” this week. Yep, for some reason they are still holding the once required motion to hold a certain about of jai-alai performances to maintain other gambling options such as parimutuel wagering on horse tracks and poker playing.
They have done this 2-man sham thing every year as a precaution to keep their hopes alive to eventually reopen the gambling room somewhere in the area.
Getting the politicians to agree on that has not been so lucky. Even a huge $500 million dollar investment on the 50-acre lot Birdoff owns was turned down because they wanted a small poker room as part of the plans.
The building is currently a church the last time I heard, and somehow they must get out there on the court a hold their 7 performances a day for the week.
