By BILL ANDREWS

During the course of my reporting for a story on jai alai, a crazy sport sort of like handball that’s long been a part of Florida culture, I came across a place called American Amateur Jai Alai in North Miami Beach, Fla. It’s the last such facility in America, according to its Web site. (http://www.americanjaialai.com/) While there, I talked with a number of players, mostly amateurs but a few former professionals, about jai alai and how its popularity seems to be declining.

I should, perhaps, disclose that I’m no expert on jai alai, or even a fan. Before Tuesday, I’d never seen a game, live or otherwise. In fact, I’m not even what you might call a big sports fan, though of course I root for the requisite teams of my various residences (Go Heat! Go Red Sox! Go Packers!) and schools (Go Wildcats, Beavers and Badgers!). All I knew about jai alai was how to pronounce it (HI-Lie).

Anyway, I went to this amateur jai alai place and talked with a bunch of jai alai veterans. At one point, probably in the discussion of how they “need new blood” in the game, they talked about old injuries they’d sustained in the name of jai alai.

One amateur player, Cary Walowitz, talked about how he was once hit by a pelota (Spanish for ball) in the … well, imagine a really bad place. Consider that they need granite walls to play this game, because the pelota (often traveling around 188 mph) can go right through concrete. Apparently Walowitz needed surgery afterward, but is doing well enough now. These guys seem pretty tough, I thought.

As if reading my mind, Bruce Rawdin, a former pro, talked about the time he took a ball to the face. He lost all his teeth, and when he arrived at the hospital, the doctors immediately called the police, simply assuming that Rawdin had been shot in the face with a .38, he said.

Pretty tough, I thought to myself.

I talked to them for a while over the thunderous smacks of the pelota hitting the walls. They seemed thrilled that someone cared enough to want to write about jai alai at all.

Toward the end of the interviews, Rawdin asked if I wanted to go into the arena and try throwing the ball around myself. I like my teeth where they are, thank you very much, I said in my head. “Oh, um, I don’t think that’d be necessary, thanks,” I said aloud.

But, probably sensing my fear of surgery, Rawdin assured me it would be safe. He’d clear everyone out and promised that the ball would never go too fast. Well, in that case, what the heck

“Sure,” I said.

So, on a random Tuesday night in January, I found myself inside a real jai alai court with a professional cesta (the long wicker basket players use to catch and throw the pelota in one graceful movement) strapped to my right hand, trying to catch a little white ball. To be fair, it wasn’t a regulation pelota, since the amateur court wasn’t regulation size, but still, it was just a bit scary.

Rawdin wasn’t kidding, though, and the pelota stayed at nonlethal speeds. After teaching me how to catch it, he tried teaching me the basic front-hand throw. The advice sounded weird to me: “Keep your elbows locked and your wrist loose. Aim for the ceiling, and you might avoid hitting the floor.” With the front wall to my left, I tried the long arc from bottom right to top left, keeping my elbow straight and aiming at the ceiling; I hit the floor.

“I told you!” Rawdin said. “You thought I was kidding, but I’m absolutely serious — aim at the ceiling.” It was strangely unintuitive, and throwing the pelota felt truly weird; it just didn’t go where I wanted it to. Clearly, this was a much harder game than it looked. After all, even someone who’d never played basketball could generally throw the ball in the direction they wanted.

After a few more tries, I got a (very) little bit better. Now it was time for the backhand. This time the front wall was to my right, and I had to swing the cesta in a complicated little loop to give the ball some momentum: out, up, down and out. Remarkably, I was OK at that shot. In fact, my second try was “a very good shot,” according to Rawdin (may I gently remind you, this was the assessment of a professional jai alai player?).

“Do you want to keep trying, or quit while you’re ahead?” he asked. I went the way of Bobby Fischer and the Beatles, quitting at the height of my success.

As I left, the owner of the facility, Luis Daniel, invited me to return and bring any friends, no charge. So if any of this sounds appealing, feel free to go down to American Amateur Jai Alai.

Tell ’em Bill sent you.