I wrote a long answer to this question yesterday, and by the time
I went to post it the board was down!
I first saw jai-alai when a couple of friends from one of my bowling
leagues invited me to go to Bridgeport with them in 1976. I was
hooked immediately.
While at a jai-alai performance in 1980 (I'm not sure if it was
at Bridgeport or Milford), I saw an ad in the program for American
Amateur Jai-Alai, which was still under construction at the time.
I checked it out, and signed up as a charter member. I was in
the first beginner's class taught there by Rosie Hernandez. (Some
people say I should STILL be in that class!)
Back in the early 80s, you could reserve court 1 at AAJA for $25
an hour. A couple of friends and I used to do that for two hours
on Saturday or Sunday morning just about every weekend. We'd play
singles for two hours, then shower up, have lunch, and go watch
the matinee at either Bridgeport or Milford, whichever was open
at the time. A couple of times, the person who took our reservation
didn't enter it on the schedule, and we got up there to find that
the court had been reserved by someone else. On those occasions,
we ventured out onto court 2 and played doubles against a bunch
of guys who were way better than we were, and got our butts whipped.
It was a moral victory to win two points in a row against those
guys, but it was fun being out there.
