“Eric Piggy” aka Rocco in the News

Puryear Park “alumni” Rocco was recently in the news for being the only former jai-alai player in history to become a jockey agent. 

Rocco, who named himself after his grandfather’s name, learned to play jai-alai as a teenager off the walls of a movie theatre on Dale Mabry in Tampa and then playing a few years at Puryear Park.  As mentioned in the story, a stranger one day gave him a cesta, and to this day Rocco has no idea who that person was.

It led to a jai-alai career that started over ten years ago on March 9, 2012, in Orlando under the name of “Roco”.  Have no fear, former Tampa player “Corky” was on that roster under the name of “Korky”.  Another former Puryear Park alumni “Sebio” was on that roster as well as a comeback by another former Tampa player, and current Puryear Court player – Scott King.  Eric Pignataro later played on the Dania jai-alai roster as well as Ft. Pierce and Calder.  In between jai-alai gigs, he became a dealer at the Hard Rock in Tampa before taking up an offer to head to Sacramento California for the opening of The Hard Rock Casino.  However, Rocco and the State of California (politicians and the people in general) did not get along and he boogied out of there as soon as his lease expired and headed back to the Tampa Bay area.             

The article takes over from there and you can view it by clicking this link.