Pelota.
To the ball-playing English, the introduction to their notice of the ball-game of some other nation appears but in the light of a fulfilment of its natural destiny. Sooner or later all games come to England, on approval, as it were. In this way the vigorous Italian game of pallone was many years since exhibited in London, without any expectation of its being adopted by the English; whilst in 1875 lacrosse, the rough-and-tumble game of the Red Indian, put into playable shape by the Canadian, made its appearance to take up a permanent residence. It was inevitable that Pelota, the game of the Basques, should some day be brought to England, and the event duly took place in January last. I should have regarded it as little short of a calamity had I been deprived of a sight of the spectacle, but, although at the very time that the imported players were exhibiting their skill at Olympia I was travelling out of England, I was, strange to say, on my way to the Basque country and Northern Spain, where the game is assiduously played, though not more so than in those countries of the American continent which have been peopled by the Spaniards.
The derivation of the name of the game is the simplest. “Pelota” merely means “ball,” and the ball game of the Basques became “pelota,” just as the Canadian Indians, in the language of one of their tribes, designated what we now call lacrosse, “bagattaway,” i.e., the ball-game. The French Basques call the ball pelote, and the game pelota. Goya, in one of his many delightful pictures to be seen in Madrid, depicts a game of pelota in which the players, in the open, are using battledores. Goya (1746–1828) depicted the scenes of his own day. If he lived at the present time he would have to be satisfied with a couple of errand boys snatching a furtive game at hand-ball against a back wall or gateway. That is called “pelota” nowadays, just as was Goya’s picnic game, and on the walls of public buildings in Spain we read that the playing of pelota against them is forbidden. It is as well to insist upon the universality of the meaning of the word “pelota,” for quite recent visitors to Spain have recorded it as evidence of the avidity with which the game, meaning the scientific one of the courts, is played throughout Spain, that even the walls of churches would not be sacred to players but for these prohibitory notices. The error reminds one of the man who, seeing on the front at Hove, Brighton, a notice prohibiting hawking, took it to refer to some bygone practice of illegal falconry. If he was a foreigner, then he would be in precisely the same position as the flitting Englishman taking “pelota” to mean the court game, not being aware of its wide application.
The statement has been made more than once that pelota is the national game of Spain, numbers of Spaniards themselves being of this opinion. Pelota is the national game of the Basques, and it appears in Castilian and Catalonian towns, through their paid agency, as a spectacle, much after the manner of bull-fighting, although, in places where courts are established, the amateur is to be met with. Better informed Spaniards call the game the “Sport Vasco,”[[13]] giving a Spanish rendering of the word “Basque,” but “El juego de pelota” (the game of pelota) is of universal application. The game is played in three ways—with the bare hand, with the pala (battledore) and with the chistera, the long, curved, wicker implement, strapped to the hand, wherein the ball is caught, and wherewith it is propelled against the wall. The tactics bear the usual family likeness belonging to all ball games that include the use of a wall or walls. With certain restrictions, the wall struck, the ball must be taken and returned on or before the first bound; failure to do so, or to keep it within the limits of the court, losing a stroke. The scoring at present adopted is the simple one of points, so many up, and everything that goes wrong scores against the wrong-doer. It was not always played thus, for a quarter of a century since tennis scoring was in vogue in places, the game itself being also more intricate than that at present adopted. The pace at which the game is played is sufficient to preclude all else beyond mere service and return. The extreme resilience of the ball, whose solid rubber core supplies about three-fourths of the weight of the whole, is probably largely responsible for the pace, without which the game would not count for much. No definite dimensions are laid down for the court, and it is tolerably safe to say that no two will be found exactly alike. The Basque game of the Pyrenees is played in the open air against a single wall, and this was the original game, bearing much the same resemblance to the indoor game with three walls that the old-fashioned single wall racket-court, common enough around London a generation since, does to the indoor court with four walls. The Basques are fond of declaring that the old single wall game is the best, but in this I venture to join issue. Physically, outdoor play at any game is superior to indoor, but the addition of a side-wall, or walls, entirely changes a game by reason of the variety introduced. The front wall, called frontis, has, or should have, a face of smooth stone, cement being sometimes substituted. The height will vary, from the Pyrenean village court with seven or eight metres, to the indoor court with eleven metres or more. The floor will vary also, some open-air courts sufficing with cement in front for a few metres, the rest being gravel. But whatever the characteristic of the court may be, one feature belongs to all, and that is the pace at which the ball travels. In the case of the open court it will be understood that the ball is kept going until one player fails to secure it in his chistera on its return, or returns it out of court, which may be below the line, in pelota taking the form of a metal strip that rings on being struck.
The large enclosed courts, such as one sees at Madrid and Barcelona, are commercial affairs and admirably arranged for spectators. The best is probably at Barcelona. The length of the cement floor there is sixty-eight metres, with a width of eleven metres. The front wall is the same width as the court and eleven and a half metres high. On the left, extending the whole length of the court, is a wall of the same height, and there is an end wall the full width of the court, nine metres high. Statements to the effect that the front wall should be sixty feet high, must be made on a misconception. The wall of the building may approach that height, but the playing wall is as stated; and surely about thirty-six feet is high enough for anything. Let any one look at a wall sixty feet high and wonder what a ball could be doing at the top of it. The end wall is called the rebote (hence jeu de rebote), and it is probably this feature to which the Basques refer as being inferior, since it does away with fine length strokes played to keep an opponent on the back line; with the end wall he can take his time, waiting for the ball to come back. Such is the power put into the stroke that the ball frequently bounds from front to back wall, without touching the floor, and rebounds half way back again, although the end wall is not a quick one like the frontis. The ball for the game with the chistera must weigh between 118 and 122 grammes, and of this the rubber core must weigh between 90 and 94 grammes. The pace at which this missile can be propelled out of the chistera is terrific, it being greater than the hardest “force” ever seen at tennis, which is only reasonable, the one being the result of percussion, the other of a centrifugal motion, so to speak. The side wall introduces difficulties into the catching and also some very attractive corner play, necessarily absent from the single wall game. Appreciation of this fact is shown in the case of some open air courts to the front wall of which a short side wall has been added. Balls secured at short range, and fired into the corner just over the line (at Barcelona one metre twenty centimetres from the floor) are nearly always fatal, so sharp is the angle at which they come off, but if the ball be gathered—and to see this done on the rise at the pace the ball is travelling is a fine thing—then the boot is on the other leg. It is by the corner shot that most “won” points are secured, many more points being “lost” by failure to catch, or by returning out of court. In this direction rackets makes a far superior game; and although not cheap in the matter of balls, pelota would not have any advantage here. A split ball is useless, and a considerable number are required in each match. Balls are divided into “extra fina,” “fina,” and “renovado,” i.e., renovated, and a player must name which he is using and also the maker before commencing. The ball is bounced behind the service line decided upon and the server, dashing forward, “swishes” it, with one movement, against the frontis. It must rebound so as to touch the floor, if it is allowed to do so by the striker-out, between the fourth and sixth chase lines, called cuadros, of which there are seventeen at Barcelona, each four metres apart from the other. The indoor game is nearly always four-handed—a game at singles being a poor affair—two playing back and two forward. The back play is really very fine, for the ball has to be kept out of the reach of the forwards ready to pounce upon a short one.
JACK SHEPHERD ON WHITETHORN.
From the painting by A. F. Lucas Lucas.]
In the extreme unlikelihood of pelota being introduced into England, seeing that the much more economical open air rackets has been allowed to die, it may hardly be worth while to consider its suitability. But the suggestion has been put forward, so it may be mentioned that all with whom I came into contact who had knowledge of the game spoke of its extreme severity. A game of fifty or sixty points can last along while, and a ball is commonly returned twenty or thirty times in deciding a single point. The keynote to the game is severity, and from this there is no rest from start to finish, the opportunity for finessing with a slow one coming perhaps only once in a game, or not even once. The effect of the stroke with the chistera is very different from that effected with the racket, and exceedingly trying to the player.