Pelota's World Series

In Cuba and Miami, the game is known as jai alai (pronounced high lie). In the Basque country of France and Spain, where it became a national pastime some five centuries ago when local townfolk used to bat a ball against church walls, it is known as pelota (the ball). By whatever name, it is a lightning-fast combination of handball, tennis and lacrosse, played on a concrete court varying in length from 100 ft. to the size of a football field.

At San Sebastian last week, deep in the heart of pelota country, 300 competitors from eight nations (Spain, France, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, the Philippines, Cuba and Italy) fought it out in the first world pelota championships. But the lineal descendants of the original simple game were so many and so varied that hardly anyone could agree on the size of the court, the resiliency of the ball, whether the game should be played barehanded, with racquets or with cestas (wicker baskets shaped like a pelican's lower bill).*Finally, to almost no one's satisfaction, it was agreed to play 18 different varieties of the game. It was also agreed that a nation automatically scored a championship point for every game it entered. Spain, a canny host--"and with plenty of cheek," said one angry Frenchman--entered teams in all events and automatically picked up 18 points.

By the last night of the tournament, with Spain and France running neck & neck for the world title, San Sebastian was abuzz with pelota talk. The local fronton (court) was crammed with 3,000 spectators straining at the wire screen that separated them from the players (and also from the hard rubber ball, covered with goatskin, that zips up & down the court at a 100 m.p.h. clip).

Spain and Mexico were matched at Cesta Punto (considered the purest pelota form) in the final. Mexico's stocky Fernando Pareyon and Manuel Barrera, a ferocious hitter, were favored by the aficionados over the wiry Spanish brother team, Manolo and Joaquin Balet, sons of a wealthy Catalonian textile manufacturer and oldtime pelota champion. While the Mexican team led a carefree tourist life before the match, Papa Balet whisked his sons off to a secluded retreat.

Better conditioned, and using a livelier ball than the Mexican variety (bringing anguished wails from Mexican officials), the fast-stepping Balet brothers whipped the hard-hitting Mexicans, 40-20. The victory gave Spain the overall championship, over runner-up France, 44-39 Noting the five-point disparity between the two countries, and recalling that Spain had entered 18 teams to France's 13, the elderly, greying president of the French pelota federation said bitterly: "Those damned live balls . . . Had I known about the scoring system, I would have entered myself in some of those silly games. I would have looked foolish, but France would have carried off the championship."

*The common denominator: the ball is served against the front wall, must land in fair territory and be scooped up in the air or on the first bounce and returned against the front wall. Points can be scored by either server or receiver. Winning scores range, whimsically, from 20 to 45 for both singles and doubles.

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