In its article called "Ex-player now in jai-alai ball room", the Miami Herald gives us a recount of the sunset in the life of a Basque pelota player who chose the kantxas of Miami a long time ago.
Is a bitter-sweet story of a sport that once drew large crowds into the Jai Alai courses all over the world.
This story is about Julio Anchia, an average player then, a ball maker today:
Long, long before Julio Anchia came to the yellow cinderblock room in the back of the Dania Beach fronton, he learned jai-alai in a town called Marquina in the Basque country.
All the boys in that town did. The best went to a school to refine their skills, and when they left, they went to Mexico or Cuba or the United States to play professionally.
Anchia left because he did not want to grow vegetables like his parents did. When he was 16 he went to Italy, where he made $1,000 a month, then Tijuana for more money, then Miami, where he made more than $2,000 a month and finished his career. He was not a very good player. Nor was he bad, and in those days that was enough, because the sport was healthy. Twelve thousand people showed up some nights in Miami.
I strongly recommend you read the entire article, like the shepherds portrayed in the excellent documentary "The Last Link", this may be another part of the Basque influence in the American continent about to fade away.
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