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.
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