I`m glad to see someone else sharing their memories of that roster.
I asked Luis last week about Zola because he was an awesome player
to watch and it was too bad he never came back after the strike
because he had all the tools to be a big star!
Ibar was awesome as well and I was glad management gave him another
chance at a Jai Alai career and it payed off because he played
quite a few years and was a big star at Newport before moving
on to Milford.
Fermin was another player they brought back in 87-88 that had
played a few years earlier and Augie I agree that he had such
a powerful serve who always played hard or should I say balls
to the wall. He was just plain crazy out on the cancha.
Here`s a funny story about Fermin, when they came back from the
strike management brought in Urbi to play for a month or so before
sending him to Pbeach. Now I`m sure you remember what Urbi was
known for? Yes indeed it was catching that serve and putting you
away in so many different ways. Urbi was one of my all time favorite
players who wasn`t a superstar but just a solid player. If your
team was serving for game point to Urbi then you might as well
throw your ticket away because he would steal that serve and you
were done. He wasn`t much of a singles player that was his weakness,
but back to the Fermin story. This one night Urbi kept taking
serve after serve on Fermin and if you knew Fermin it was so funny.
He must have taken at least 3 or 4 serves from him and every time
Fermin would throw it harder and harder. So after this abuse all
night Fermin had another chance at Urbi and I swear you could
see the steam coming from under Fermin helmet and he was determined
to rocket a serve by him so just as he reared back to let it go
that sneaky little bastard Urbi moved back to the over serve line
jumped up and caught the overserve and threw a winner off it as
if he knew fermin was going to over throw it. Fermin got so pissed
he literally smashed his cesta to pieces against the wall.
Talk about a classic moment that was priceless to watch. Man do
I miss Jai alai at Newport.
That`s all I have for now!!!!
