If there were any kind of a Board of Directors table for the sport of jai-alai, there is certainly one name that that would be sitting up there in the front of it. That would be Francisco Eloririaga, better known as to most fans as “Elorri”. On Saturday morning, Elorri made his debut at America’s first public cancha in St. Petersburg.
As part of the “Orlando Invasion” lead by long time pro player Rastock, Elorri showed up at Puryear Park in a three-car caravan to the surprise of about ten regulars for a regular Saturday session. Looking healthy, tanned, and relaxed, the 82-year was a fixture at Orlando Jai-alai. As a former player from day 1 in 1962 to all the way to 2013 as player manager, Elorri was beloved by everyone.
He can still throw the ball around – 60 years after playing he started playing pro!
The marketing crew at Dania are getting creative as the launch a return to jai-alai this year. Without further ado, check out this new YouTube video on the format coming up for the upcoming season.
Dania Jai-alai has finally revealed their roster for the upcoming two-month season that opens December 1st. The delayed announcement might have been the result of delays on producing this new slick promo video they made – introducing the 22-man roster in grand style. Yep, fake news.
The highly anticipated news has jai-alai fans optimistic of a fantastic season as they are reopening the fronton with live parimutuel wagering following what appeared to be the end of “goat skin” jai-alai. And the end of Dania jai-alai after nearly 70-years of operation.
As expected, the roster is loaded with new players from the Basque/Spain/French region with some as young as 18 years old. About 2/3 of the roster are the new young players that will be competing against some “seasoned veterans” that are coming back, making for some interesting games.
The video announcement, a slick 2:20 long one, is new for Dania jai-alai, something Magic City has been doing for five years. Will there be an enhanced video production to watch the games? Will jai-alai there return after this 2-month season? Are they holding the season because the State is requiring them to host the performances because the decoupling deal was thrown out along with sports betting? We shall find out………
Again, the opening day is Thursday, December 1st, and festivities (A Merry Festival?) are being planned for opening day. The Pelota Press will be there with extensive coverage and hope to see a packed house that night.
Part two of the Tampa Bay vs. N. Miami Amateur Tournament was held at Luis’s cancha this past weekend. Special thanks to our South Florida correspondent, Jesus Olivera, for supplying the details and photos.
Several Tampa Bay players were unable to attend due to the hurricane that was heading that way earlier and players needed to prepare, so the format of the two cities vs. each other was pretty much scrapped. The storm eventually turned and clobbered the Ft. Myers/Sanibel Beach area, but that didn’t stop a great tournament from still taking place.
The two-day tournament with Group 1 players and Group 2 payers each with 5 teams and competing 5 games played to 8 points on Saturday, October 8th. The top three players from each group would play on the Sunday Finals.
The Group 1 players in the front were Scott Burat, Caby, Geroge San Jaun, Peer and Belota. In the back were Norge, Michael Richards (Taza) , Dave and Henry.
The Group 2 players in the front were Jose, Jay Herrera (Rubio), Jerry, Peugeot and Ivan. In the back were Bob, Corky, Joe P, George Z and Jesus Olivera.
Advancing to the finals for the 6-team game, six games to 8 points with fronts staying the poste picked by drawings numbers before the game and back rotating, were in the front – Caby, San Juan, Rubio, Belota, Peugeot and Henry. IN the back were Corky, Jules, Joe P, Henry, Norge and Jesus.
The winners of the finals would then play a Partido to 15 points for the trophies.
Jay Herrera (Rubio) was the winner in the front and teamed with Norge who won the back and played the Partido against the players that got 2nd place. Peugeot in the front and Corky in the back. Rubio and Norge won 15-12.
Jose and Mike (Taza) won a consultation quinella to 11 points. All the players that didn’t make it to the finals played a consolation quiniela.
Jesus reported that it was immense fun with Norge a vacuum cleaner, catching machine. He also remarked that he had an awesome experience to play against Corky, the former Tampa Jai-alai star player. He made incredible catches and threw BULLETS, some nearly “killing” him! .
Danai Jai-alai will reopen December 1st with a roster of 22 players.
The announcement of the players will be released by the Dania marketing team this Monday with additional details coming later in the week.
We can tell you a few things without disrupting their announcements next week:
There will be a couple surprises, but there is only one guy on the roster over 40 with everybody else in their 20s and early 30s. Tevin, who is now 50 and rumored to return is false. It’s pretty obvious were the majority of the players are coming from.
All the agreements have been signed and the administrative stuff has been taken care of. With all the “i’s” doted and the “t”s crossed, they are ready to go for a two-month season. Good old-fashioned jai-alai returns with goat skin rapped pelota’s and granite walls.
Try to support them, a successful run will lead to more jai-alai in the future.
Keep an eye on this site and Dania’s social media starting Monday for the latest details.
A lot of Pelota Press readers have been asking “Where’s Marty?”, “We miss his stories!”.
Marty Fleishman spent 40 glorious years in jai-alai and now the past 26 months supplying great stories on his career here at the Pelota Press and they will resume in another month.
On September 13th, he drove to upstate New York for his wife Sue’s reunion and continued to Nova Scotia where he encountered something he was used to while living Kendall, Florida. Yes, that dreaded “H” word – a hurricane. He was greeted by Hurricane Fiona. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
He is now in Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec and up next is Quebec City in a few days then Finger Lakes of NY.
Marty was hoping to be able to write stories on the trip but found it too difficult.
His blogs will resume in the first week of November. As the stories have progressed, he had just started to work at Dania jai-alai, so we still got a lot more stories to come.
For the second time in 5 years and the third time in in the past 18 years, a devastating hurricane destined for the Tampa Bay area changed course at the last minute and did significant damage elsewhere. This one walloped the Sanibel-Ft. Myers Beach area directly with 150 mile plus winds and a massive tidal surge causing hundreds of billions in damage and lost live of people that may reach 100 or more. Eighteen (18) years ago, a similar hurricane name Charlie took the same path, but the massive size of the storm – covering over 560 miles long and an eye 40 miles wide will likely end up the most damaging in Florida history.
The huge storm remained a hurricane that took it past Orlando and up to the Daytona Beach area as a tropical storm where it eventually reformed again in the Atlantic and struck South Carolina as a Hurricane again.
Our prayers are out for everyone that has suffered from this hurricane, especially those in the Sanibel/Captiva Ft. Myers area. The Sanibel causeway was destroyed, leaving no way to get on the islands by vehicle. The entire area was under 10 feet of water and mostly destroyed.
Here in the Tampa Bay area, we were spared of any damage. The JLaca Museum was dismantled again for the second time in five years and moved to the upper floors to protect the thousand artifacts from getting destroyed by 8-12 feet surges that were predicted – if the hurricane had stayed on track. Instead, the opposite happened, with 5-6 feet reverse as the water was pulled out of the intercoastal. The Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater area has now gone 101 years without a direct hurricane hit and one must wonder how much longer that will last.
The one thing that is scary is these storms are now frequently hitting 150 miles per hour in wind speed, something virtually unthinkable 40 years ago. The damage from storms in the Cat 4 or Cat 5 is catastrophic. Ian was just two mph short of getting classified as at Cat 5 with winds at 155 mph.
The St. Pete Cancha was also spared of any damage – just one of the upper panels above the front wall came loose.
Berlin Connecticut will be the “jai-alai capital of the world” once again as Matt DiDomizio is staging another tournament open to all players.
A pick your player tournament will be staged on the weekend of November 5-6th.
On Friday night of that weekend, the popular Spectacular 9 event will take place, where various players are paired with others.
All games are played to 9 points for both events.
The cost to play in the tournament is $50 ($100 per team) which includes Friday night. Players are not required to play on Friday if signing up for the PYP Tournament being held Saturday and Sunday. Players do have the option of playing just on Friday night for $10.
The deadline to sign up in on Halloween.
Contact Matt at Connecticut Amateur Jai-alai to sign up. Things still are not the same up there with the death of their beloved cat, and hopefully a tournament like this will help relieve their loss.
There’s not a dry eye in Berlin Connecticut today. The beloved “Jai-alai Cat” at Matt’s Court, who has “more court time than anybody”, has passed away.
A fixture of Matt’s amateur jai-alai court, the cat had about 15-20 names over the years.
“Our place will never be the same without him”, Matt’s cousin Carlo remarked. “Many great memories from him”. I’m sure the hundreds of players that have played there over the years will concur.
The cat was given to Matt in 2010 when he opened the jai-alai facility, and it had a great home for over 12 years.
Two other cats still reside at the complex, but they too, have lost a close friend.
