A couple of things right off the bat. This is what I call an
“illustrated” report. I know many of you have never seen the sports I will be
updating in these reports. This one is particularly detailed, to give you a
basic idea of how they work. Refer to this report from now on if you follow
these reports. But, as with all sports, pictures are worth a thousand words. If
you are going to watch the matches I link to (and hopefully the ones you find yourself
later), don’t watch them on a smart phone, tablet, or laptop. Get a gadget to
hook your hardware up to your large screen TV. The ball is too small, the
courts are too big, and the speed of the ball during the games, with the
exception of the first modality we will deal with, mano (handball), is simply
too fast to follow on your small screens. Believe me, I have tried. It’s so
easy to dial up the smart phone and watch. But you will be cheating yourself.
Put these games on a big screen, sit back, and be amazed. There are no
individual court sports in the world anything like these. And you’ll get to
feel how it felt when you saw your first baseball, football, or basketball game. How it feels to learn a game you’ve
never seen before. I will try to give you not only introductions to these
sports, but provide the larger context of the game. In many cases that is
difficult, and especially so for a sport that I experience in two foreign
languages (Basque and Castillion Spanish), three if you count French, where the
great St. Jean de Luz summer festival of Jai Alai is held in July and August of
every year. But I will try my best and hope to provide you with links to some
great entertainment.
There are many Basque
court sport modalities. Four are played professionally and so get exposure on
the EITB Basque Television network. I will let you know when and how to access
live games when available. But much of what you will see, if you develop an
interest, will be on demand replays. The only modality that is broadcast live
over the Internet (so far as I know) is mano. The other three sports we will
cover are pala (long bat), erremonte (remonte in Spanish) (racquet—though it
looks nothing like any racquet you have ever seen),and Jai Alai (cesta punta in
Spanish) (basket). They are all sports where players hit the ball onto a wall
(indirect court sports) and the other team returns it, except for Jai Alai,
which is a catch and throw sport. Scoring occurs when one team or player
(doubles or singles) hits or throws the ball
where the other team or player cannot return it. Balls can be hit or caught on
the bounce or fly. Indirect court sports are fundamentally different from
direct court sports like tennis or the Valencian pelota sports of Raspall
(scrape) and Escala I Corda (stair and rope), in which a there is usually, but
not always a divider (net) between the sides. I am just learning the Valencian
pelota sports, so a little later, I will have something more to show you.
Take what you like from these reports. I love all the
modalities. You may or may not. The main thing is to enjoy something that has
been very important in Basque culture for centuries.
How did I get here?
In the last fifteen years, I have wondered from American sports. First I
went to cricket, which I had a 10 year obsession with, an obsession that was
finally broken when the powers that be in that sport made no attempt to fix it
after three major match fixing scandals. So I broke up with cricket (though not
completely, I’m afraid). Then, at a time when I found I had time on my hands, I
discovered Jai Alai through the simulcasts of the performances (pari-mutual
sports events are called performances) in Miami and Dania Beach, Florida. I don’t care
for pari-mutual sports because of the
context of the games, but watching the Jai Alai was mesmerizing. They don’t
really throw the ball at 150 mph as they constantly advertise (I’ve seen games in Spain that were clocked
with a speed gun. They top out at about 130 mph, but the average speed the game
is played at (except for drop shots) is between 90 and 100 mph. Which is
amazingly fast. That led me to research on Basque pelota sports and where they
were televised.
Also I have a lifelong interest in stick and ball sports, or
hit the ball with your hand sports. I played the ones below for many years when
I was younger. Always played against opponents who were better than I in the
hopes that I would get better. I did, but never better enough. Not by a long shot. But it was great fun. The sports I
played are linked to below in order to give you the context that I had when I
found the Basque pelota sports.
US individual court sports
Match starts at 11:45 on the recording
Match starts at about 15:00 on the recording. Note the
difference in size between a singles and
doubles squash court.
Report for the week.
1. Mano (Handball)
Mano: If you aren’t
fluent in the metric system, a mano short
court is 118 feet long and 33 feet wide, with a wooden apron that is out of
play if the ball lands directly on it, but can be retrieved from it in the air.
The apron width varies by fronton. Front and back walls 33 feet high and 36
feet wide. The sidewall 33 feet high, 118 feet long. The ball must hit the front wall above 1 meter
high (about 3 feet). The first thing you will notice about all Basque courts is
their enormity.
Context: 14th
Doubles Championship:
Top four into semi-finals. 3 semifinal weeks.
EITB, the Basque Television Network, usually broadcasted
three of four of the matches every weekend. Those matches are available on demand
Roll the mouse over
“Categorios”, then “Deportes” , then roll down to “Pelota Eskuz
Professionalak 2016” and click on that. 6 horizontal pages of matches will appear at
the bottom of the screen. At this point it gets a little complicated (it took
me a couple of days to figure it out and I’m pretty motivated about this
stuff). If there are any league matches you are interested in, contact me and I
will find them for you (if they were broadcast). It’s really a terrific service of EITB, making so many of these matches available on demand. They also
provide a wonderful selection of finals doubles and singles matches going back
several years (follow the same path as
above but open the “Finilak” tab directly below the 2016 tab).
Another place to get on demand mano matches, much more
easily, is at Fronton TV. They don’t have as many of this year’s doubles league matches, but they have a
wonderful selection of doubles, singles and singles Quattro e Medio (Lau eta Erdico) matches (a special type of
singles match that we’ll cover when those tournaments happen later in the
summer and fall).
Last week, on Saturday and Sunday, the second round of
semi-final playoff matches were played. There are three rounds of semi-final
matches. The first round, the top team plays the second place team and the
third place team plays the fourth place team. This is very different from American sports playoffs. What it does is set
up a second week’s playoff where the two winners play each other in one match
and the two losers in the other. It almost always sets up a scenario where the
winner of the winner’s bracket is promoted to the final, and the loser of the
loser’s bracket is eliminated. Then the third week of semi-finals consists of
one elimination match and one “dead rubber”match (a match between a finalist
and a team that has already been eliminated). A smart way to get an extra week
of playoffs and extra revenue. Also one more chance for the fans to see the
players.
2nd Semi-Final Match One. Mar. 19, 2016
At Pamplona Labrit Fronton—
Very nice pictures of the outside and inside of the fronton.
A note about players’ names, in this modality, and all other
professional modalities. The players have a “playing name”, a single name that
is usually their personal name or family
name. Roman numerals after the name mean that there is at least one other
professional player with the same playing name.
Games are played to 22 points. There is a point on every
serve. Service changes sides when the other team scores a point.
The first name of the team is always the front court player
and the second is always the back court player. Front courters are usually
small, quick, and have deadly kill shots. The last two weeks, Olaiazola II has
been on fire. Back court players are bigger and stronger and do the donkey work
in this sport, returning 50 to 100 times
from 60-80 feet away. Watch and you will be amazed at their strength. And feel
the pain in their hands.
A note about balls used in these matches. During the week
before the match, each team chooses 3 balls that it will use in the match. This
is followed closely by the press and there are newspaper stories about it. For
this match, the weights of the balls chosen were:
Olaizola II-Urrutikoetxea-105.1; 106.0; 105.8 g
Bengoetxea VI-Untoria
104.8; 105.1; 105.1 g
Whenever the service changes, the ball changes. The
broadcast sometimes notes which ball is in play. In this match it didn’t. These players apparently can feel the
difference 1/28th of an ounce makes.
O-Urr 22 B-Un 10
The key to the game stories are the data at the bottom.
Total number of shots are usually given, along with a set of statistics next to
each player’s name. All players’statistics except the last one are for
“winners.” “Sakez” is a service ace. “Errores” or “fallos” are errors. The sum
total of your team’s winners and the other team’s errors adds to your team’s
score. For example, in this match, O-Urr’s
winners added to 15 and B-Un’s
errors added to 7, making 22 for O-Urr. Similarly, O-Un’s winners added to 8 and O-Urr’s
errors added to 2, making 10. 22-10 was the final score. Olaiziola II’s
winners added to 14. Anything over 10 is a great day. His cross court kill shot
was magnificent, unplayable. He sat on the left front about 25-30 feet from the
wall waiting for errant long shots from Untoria like a bear waits for a salmon, and pouncing
on the slightest of mistakes (mistakes that don’t show up as errors in the
statistics, they show up as winners for Oliazola II). If you look at the game
statistics, you will see that Urrutikoetxea did not make any errors. He hardly
ever gave Bengoetxea VI a chance to get his team back in the game.
Urrutikoetxea has unlimited potential. He has won singles tournaments, showing
that he is what is very rare in this game, an all round player, a back courter
who can also play up. If you haven’t ever seen pelota mano and want to start by
watching this game, you couldn’t chose a better game to watch. This game wasn’t
close, but they rarely are when one team is playing so close to
perfection.
If you wish to see O-U’s first semifinal v Mts. de
Irujo-Restuza (the team that went 13-1 in the league phase), it is on the same
page as the full game replay of this match. Olaizola II, was, if possible, even
better in that game than in this one.
Second Semi Final Match 2, Mar. 20, 2016
Played at Eibar Astelena
Fronton
M-R 22, A-A 16.
With the loss, Artola-Albisu were knocked out of the
tournament.
The key to this game was an injury to Artola at 14-14. He
tried to retrieve a long shot off the wall by Rezusta and badly sprained a
finger. He had to leave the game but came back. Unfortunately he couldn’t play
with any effectiveness after this and Mts.’ team went on to score 8 of the next
10 points, winning easily.
Full
game replay (featured semi-final begins at 1 hour and ten minute mark on
the recording).
Mts-Resusta now meets Bengoetxea VI-Untoria this coming Sunday at
Vitoria’s Ogueta Fronton.
The game can be seen live on EITB this Sunday at:
The matches begin at 11:00 am Central Daylight time. The
feature semi-final begins at about noon.
The other semi-final, the one that has no effect on the final,
between Olaizola II-Urrutikoetxea
and Victor-Albisu
(Artola’s injury has sidelined him), will be played at
Pamplona Labrit Fronton on Saturday. The matches begin at noon, CDT,
with the feature match at about 1:00 pm. Use the above address to access that
match if you are interested.
Aspe Entertainment Company--Player, match, and League table information
Fronton TV (click on "Videos" then "Programmas").--Matches
Wikipedia article on Basque Pelota--basics and dimensions of the sport.
