That question has been asked for a long time. I can only speculate
that Bolivar was the drawing card in Tampa. Tampa frontcourters
were excellent, but definitely were not of the Miami caliber.
Joey was the number 1 front courter in Doubles, he did win a couple
of single championships, but Asis was the king of singles. When
Joey took most wins or Doubles Champion, it wasnt usually by a
whole lot. Point being his competition was Asis, Remen, Juaristi,
Uriarte, Alberdi, Zulaica, Mendi, Arriaga etc. Bolivar took all
titles in Tampa, he won the Triple crown, against Pablo, Echeva,
Aramayo II, Elorrio, Ruffino, so you have to draw your own conclusions.
Here are some facts though....
All of these top players did play on the same roster in Hartford.
It's very interesting when you look at the stats for those seasons.
Bolivar won the inaugural Tournament of Champions beating Alberdi
and Javier.
The following year, Joey and Marcoida beat Bolivar and Arambarri
pretty easily in 3 straight partidos
Bolivar did go on to win several NAJF Tournamants, sadly though,
those tournamants never featured the all of the games top players
as each fronton had 1-2 teams that would represent their and the
sister fronton. During those NAJF days, Miami's late games were
better overall caliber than the field of those tournamants with
up and coming superstars on the horizon, However, Hartford was
hands the best roster in those days and although they did not
have Bolivar or Joey on their roster, they overall roster was
still top banana in the US.
