The majority of jai alai players are Basque.

Basques. Who are they? Where did they come from? Was their language spoken in the garden of Eden? Did Adam play jai alai?

Some Basque scholars of an earlier age seem convinced that Adam and Eve spoke Basque and that Basque was the only language to escape the Tower of Babel. One early chronicler suggests that the First Man invented jai alai. “The Basques remain one anthropological enigma despite centuries of speculation and study” says William A. Douglas, Director of the Basque Studies Program at the University of Nevada. The Basques refer to themselves as Euskaldunak, or “Speakers of the Euzkara”. The Basque language is totally isolated from other European linguistic families and has no written system of its own. The language and unusual blood-type frequencies constitute their chief claims to ethnic individuality. (Basques have a high frequency of O blood, a low frequency of B blood and the world’s highest level of RH negative factor).

Were their ancestors the Hebrews, the Etruscans or the Egyptians, Finns or survivors of the Lost Continent of Atlantis? Proponents argue fiercely on all sides. Theories based more on research than fantasy suggest that Basques may have descended from the first Iberian tribes. These were the Bronze Age settlers who lived before recorded history on the rugged west ridge of the Pyrenees Mountains and on the rocky coasts below in what are now France and Spain. Perhaps three million Basques live today in what they call "Eskual Herria," the Land of the Basques. The Basque Homeland straddles the border of France and Spain, with three provinces in France and four in Spain.

In every Basque village in France and Spain are a church, a cemetery and a Jai Alai court. Some historians call these the symbols of the Basque people. The church stands for faith, the cemetery for tradition and the Jai Alai court for a rousing sporting life.