Sport: Jai Alai

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In Chicago. In Chicago's Fronton are signs "No betting allowed.'' Near them is where bets (called "contributions"' to make them legal) are placed. Alarmed by the rumor that 27 penniless bettors had committed suicide in one week in Havana, the State's Attorney of Cook County once tried with no success to have jai alai banned. Usual odds-on favorite for individual bets is Domingo Ugalde, called "The Fox" because of the sly cuts, curves, angles, backspins he knows how to use. He began playing when he was nine in Marianao, Cuba. He speaks broken, almost unintelligible English. Asked what makes him so good, he points to his head. He is temperamental, histrionic: after losing a close match he has been known to put his fist through a windowpane. Aramendi, Vincente, Garate, Teodoro are other able players, can make Ugalde hump himself. In some Latin countries there are no nets in front of the stands because the spectators feel it would be unsportsmanlike not to risk injury by the ball which can break noses, fracture bones. The Chicago stands are protected. Sometimes the players, running for a hard get and unable to stop, climb up the wire nets like monkeys. Sometimes a fast-running foot goes through a net, annoys box-holding spectators. Unlike players in Havana. those in Chicago are all young: the oldest is 23, the youngest 17. Besides sleeping all in one room, they eat together, go to the theatre together twice a week, jabber constantly in their native tongues, seldom consort with other than their fellow jai alai players.