Klier doesn't dwell. He's playing a little better. The last time he finished in the money more than this season was 2001. His pride still showed in early December; he missed a ball, the crowd jeered, and he turned almost imperceptibly to the wall and delivered a tiny, frustrated kick.
"I think I would have been better being involved in high school sports and doing it that way," Klier says. "If I had a son, that's what I would have him do."
Dania Jai Alai
Colby Katz
A doctor put Klier under and, in lieu of cutting, spun the arm every which way.
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Would he teach his son to play jai alai?
"Hell, no," Klier says. He laughs. "Are you kidding me? I wouldn't let him go near it." He laughs again. "No, not a chance."
On a weeknight, before he takes on the ball, Klier is splayed on a heating pad in the training room. The Simpsons plays on a TV nearby. He folds his legs and rolls his back over the heat. It's nearly time.
The night begins unevenly for Scotty. In the first match, he snatches a shot and slings it low. The ball caroms off the wall and hops twice before his opponents can reach it, ending the point. Soon, though, Scotty's partner misses a return. The pair finishes third.
In the second game, a singles match, he seems lethargic. A shot comes low at him; he flips it back and loses an easy point. He later places a nice, long return that an opponent bobbles trying to chase down. Point Scotty -- but then he loses to Carvalho (who goes on to win the eight-man match) while someone on the side wall says, "Scotty not gonna do it."
The third match brings more of the same. Scotty makes a bad serve to an opponent, who knocks him out with one quick return. Game four, fourth place.
Then in the sixth game, Scotty's last of the night, something clicks. He and a partner are stuck in the seventh position. As the match unfolds, someone yells, "Come on, Scotty!" Quick as you please, Scotty's partner slings a hard shot that one adversary narrowly misses and the other has to duck to avoid. Then Scotty wings a slick return, and the fan's voice is back: "Come on, Scotty! Stay alive out there!" and for an instant, you can glimpse what this game once was. Klier may never have been a legitimate savior for the sport, but with enough players like him -- homegrown, affable, capable -- he could have slowed jai alai's slide into anonymity. If Amendment 4 can bring the slot hounds through the door and introduce them to an exotic pastime, perhaps there will be more money and recognition to inspire future Scottys.
At this point in Scotty's match, a remarkable string of luck arrives. First an opponent's return sails too high and nails the puffy red pad above the front wall with a thunderous THOOOM. Then the mistake is repeated. "All the way, Scotty!" comes the yell.
On the potential game point, Scotty digs out a return and wings it into the corner. It comes back over the head of his opponent, Larrea. Scotty and his partner complete the improbable sweep from the seventh post, a dynamic win.
If anyone claps, they don't do it audibly. As the players trot off to the locker room, though, someone in the middle rows shouts to Larrea: "You're the worst player on the floor!" Larrea turns, looks back, and says nothing. Just ahead of him, Scotty trots off, head down, a winner paying $16.40, $8 to show, $6.40 to place.
