New White “Matt Barcardi 151” Pelota’s coming to Puryear Park
St. Petersburg. FL: For years, I have been pushing Connecticut Amateur Jai-alai owner Matt DiDominzio to change the color of the pelota’s he orders to white but for some reason that never went anywhere.
His last batch of pelota’s were a heavier and faster 151-gram ball. But Matt said they were too fast on his cancha. The only way we could get more of them was to order 200 of them. He was going back to a slower and lighter ball. Two hundred! At a bulk price of just $10 each, we are looking at about $2,200 in cash – with shipping – just to obtain more of them. Two hundred balls is the minimum number the company will make at a time.
Then Puryear Park’s “Big” Mark Thornton and Mark Butler stepped up and basically rounded up the money ($2,000) with Eric Auman covering the shipping costs. Nearly 20 players have chipped in at $10 a ball, with a few players ordering 25 balls apiece.
Thorton agreed with me on the white balls. The balls are wrapped in white tape for two reasons. One is to SEE the ball better in white coming off the green wall and the other is for aerodynamics of the ball. That is the study of the properties of moving air and the interaction between the air and the ball moving through it, and air flows around it. Without tape, the ball will fly like an unlicensed pilot.
Why have a green ball or a tan colored ball that can easily get lost coming off the green wall – especially when it’s getting dark out. With the new white ball, it will remain white. And Matt DiDominzio has been adamant that after a ball is thrown a few times, it won’t need tape – period. If that is the case, tape might not be needed at all, but he noted that the ball might get some of the walls green color on it. To me, a big bonus is the potential to get rid of the white tape markings that cover the front, side and back walls over time, making them unsightly.
There will likely be a handful of pelota’s leftover for sale, and we will have them available for sale at the cancha or on this website under the link “Store” for $15 each with $5 going to the Puryear Park Jai-alai renovations fund.
The new white pelota’s will weigh 151 grams each, this being named the “Matt Barcardi 151 Pelota”. It will be anxious to see how the new pelota’s play out. The arrival time is anywhere from 1-3 months, hopefully on the earlier side.
