Re(1): Porker Posted on October 27, 2023 at 01:25:24 PM by 40yrfan
Thanks Tiger. It was sad to see frontons around the state of Florida shut down: Big Bend,
Daytona, Melborne, Palm Beach, and Tampa. Ocala, on the other hand, was particularly galling. Poker rooms became legal at paramutuel venues, in part, to keep jai alai afloat. In fact 4% of the poker profits at frontons were earmarked to go to the players. Ocala Poker and Jai Alai, under the management of Brian Matthews, started the 2 man sham in 2014 after hiring Chris Doering and Judd Davis, both of whom were ex-Florida Gator football players, to begin playing jai alai. I went behind the curtains to watch them one afternoon and it was apparent that neither had the training or skills to be considered professional or even amateur, for that matter. Needless to say one of them saw me watching and security escorted me out of the building soon afterwards.
I participated in the informational picket when a number of Dania players came up on a bus after the 2 man sham was instituded. We stood next to hwy 318 several hundred yards from the building. Brian Matthews, came out and looked at us. Within 5 minutes deputies from the sheriffs department arrived and appeared to be agitated when they ordered us to leave the property. Yes, it was on OJA property but no one was disruptive in any way. It could have been handled better. So no, after those things I was not a fan of the poker room.
An article from the Gainesville Sun dated May 12, 2014
OCALA -- The recently concluded jai alai season at the fronton in Marion County came and went with little notice.
Gone were the well-dressed men and women who once thrilled at the sight of players who whipped a little ball at well over 100 mph against a marble wall with a long, curved, lobster-claw like basket, called a cesta, on their hand.
The hand-wound, hard rubber ball covered in goat skin, known as a pelota, would bounce off the wall with a crack and another cesta-clad player would catch the whizzing ball out of the air and send it back in a blur.
The name of the sport is Spanish, from Basque, combining jai, or festival, with alai, or merry. And, for many seasons, visiting the fronton was indeed a festive, mirthful occasion.
For the past three seasons, however, Ocala Poker and Jai Alai has put the performances, which once routinely attracted 2,000 people, behind curtains so as not to disturb the players at the front-room poker tables, which are the money makers today.
While still holding on in other parts of the state, jai alai in Ocala is materially, if not technically, dead.
The fronton puts on performances with the same two players. In the past, 10 to 12 players participated.
In the past three seasons, $80 was wagered on the jai alai performances. In 2010, it was more than $100,000, according to the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering.
But even that meager amount of money is enough for the fronton to continue operating poker tables, which have brought in about $3.7 million in gross receipts for each of the past three years.
With the changing tastes and expanded choices in gambling, jai alai has taken a beating. It's a far cry from when the Ocala fronton opened just more than 40 years ago.
The building near Orange Lake once drew hundreds of people from Marion, Alachua and surrounding counties for a rare, legal chance to wager.
Gambling, including the state lottery, was not available in much of Florida at that time.
CHASING JAI ALAI DREAMS
While the chance to win a few dollars drew many, the sport itself mesmerized a group of young men from Ocala who had jai alai dreams.
Jay Musleh, a current Ocala city councilman and area banker, was one of the biggest champions of the sport locally. As an 18-year-old in 1976, he petitioned the local fronton to allow amateur players on the court, and eventually succeeded.
"We really fell in love with the game. Most people never got past the gambling part of it," said Musleh, who still has personal memorabilia of his jai alai days.
With more than two dozen young men in the area clamoring for a chance to play, some would travel to Tampa, Daytona and Orlando when those frontons opened amateur programs.
"We'd drive two hours to get the chance to play for maybe a couple of minutes," Musleh said.
Otherwise, the aspiring jai alai players practiced on racquetball courts in the area.
Mark Pinson was one of those local players who became a professional. He played as a pro for 15 years.
"We'd practice on the CFCC racquetball court. We started with lacrosse balls and graduated to golf balls. But the balls would crack the concrete. It took the coach a while to figure out why there was concrete falling off the wall," Pinson said.
Pinson was drawn to the speed of the game. Some players can serve the ball nearly 180 mph. But you couldn't just buy a jai alai cesta at any sporting goods store.
"I bought my first cesta in the parking lot of Ocala Jai Alai for $20, off a player. I just waited in the parking lot for one of the players to come out," Pinson said.
It was the same for Musleh and others.
"My friend Dan Hendley bought his first cesta from a bartender at the fronton," Musleh said.
Professional players go through numerous cestas and pelotas during a season.
"There was this whole group of us that were attracted to the sport. Friends from high school and college were playing, and when they finally developed the amateur program we got even more into it," Pinson said.
Musleh worked his way into managing the amateur program at Ocala. He said he would do anything to be close to the action. He was a ball boy and announcer, and even learned to sew replacement goat skin covers on the pelotas. The skins were only good for about 15 minutes of play at the professional level. "I was like a kid in a candy store. We'd play after the performances were over. It was just a great time," he said.
The fronton attracted some of the best players in the world to Ocala.
"There was tons of excitement over the sport. It was probably 1976 and they had a match partido (game) at the end of the night in Ocala. It was Bolivar and Laca and Joey and Gorrono. They were premiere players at the time. There was no betting, but everybody stayed. It was standing room only," Musleh said.
The match game lasted well over an hour, an eternity in jai alai, and a tribute to the skill of the four players.
"There were points that lasted five to seven minutes," Musleh said.
But the ride couldn't last forever.
Musleh graduated college and went into banking. He kept active in jai alai at first, but his career responsibilities took more of his time. He is now an officer at Gateway Bank.
Pinson played professionally until 1995. His career effectively ended in Ocala. He was in a car accident after a performance at Ocala Jai Alai and suffered nerve damage to his arm. He tried a comeback, but the injury did not allow him to play competitively anymore.
He went on to become a sportswriter and works for Highlands Today, an edition of the Tampa Tribune.
The two men bemoan the fall of jai alai.
"It's just sad. I think lotteries have killed it. Most people saw the sport as a means to gamble. A few people were aficionados that saw the game for what it was: A true game with skilled players," Musleh said.
Pinson agrees the lottery cut deeply into jai alai, but an extended strike by players also hurt the sport.
"I go back to 1988, a month after they go on strike, (the state) brings in the biggest competition: the lottery," Pinson said. "If you're going to spend four or five dollars, wouldn't you rather try for millions instead of a few dollars back?"
The players' strike lasted for two years. When they came back, many of the fans had moved on.
OF FIVE FRONTONS, NO PROS IN OCALA
Frontons at Tampa Bay, Daytona, Quincy, West Palm and Melbourne closed. Five remain today: One in Ocala, two in South Florida, one in Orlando and one in Jasper. Ocala is the only fronton that does not use professional players.
Former University of Florida football players Chris Doering and Judd Davis are the only two players who perform at Ocala Jai Alai.
Doering said they do 40 performances of eight games each, in February, with 20 matinee performances and 20 night performances to satisfy the law.
"I grew up in Ocala and I remember my parents coming home and talking about the games. Later on, I went and the play impressed me. I participated in the ‘hit the wall' promotions," Doering said.
"There are a few people that are upset with how things have gone in Orange Lake. But if there were enough people that came out, then there would not have been a need for what they did. It's just the free market," he said.
He said he and Davis keep working to improve their games.
"There are some that come who know Judd and I, and are impressed. There are some that have seen jai alai in Miami and are not so impressed. We try hard, and work on improving all the time," Doering said.
The state mandates that 4 percent from poker income must go to jai alai players, but it is not clear if Doering and Davis split such funds.
Brian Matthews, president of Ocala Jai Alai, did not respond to several requests for an interview, but in the past had said that the two players are licensed and that Ocala Jai Alai's practices are approved by the state.
But to some, including current professional player Lewis "Sebio" Williams, the Ocala fronton is not abiding by the spirit of the law.
In 2003, with the obvious decline of pari-mutuel sports like jai alai, dog racing and horse racing, the state threw the industry what it hoped would be a lifeline and allowed those venues to open card rooms. The increasing popularity in poker was seen a way to subsidize the other sports.
"They (Ocala Jai Alai) want to find loopholes in the law so they can spend as little as they can on jai alai and focus on poker. The card room was supposed to help jai alai," Williams said.
Williams, who started playing as a rookie in Ocala in 1997, said the fronton still attracted decent crowds at that time, but in the past several years there hasn't been an attempt to attract attention to the game in Ocala.
"They discourage attendance by putting it behind a curtain and having two non-professionals playing. They want to wipe it out. It's just not right," said Williams, who has filed a lawsuit against the fronton over the issue.
Under Gov. Rick Scott's administration, the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering has given greater leeway to interpretation of gaming laws. The division allowed for pari-mutuel barrel racing in North Florida and gave the go-ahead to quarter horse racing at Marion County's Oxford Downs, at facilities members of several horsemen's groups say are substandard and potentially dangerous.
A judge ruled this year that the division overstepped its bounds when approving barrel racing, which was deemed a new form of racing. The Oxford Downs decision may be challenged as well.
But the horsemen's groups are better funded and have more lobbying power than jai alai players.
"I don't know what the future is for jai alai," Williams said, "but it doesn't look good."
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Re(2): Porker - By WilliamOctober 27, 2023 at 07:17:23 PM
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