Connecticut fronton shuts down after quarter century

Diane Scarponi

Thursday, Dec. 13, 2001 | 9:14 a.m.

MILFORD, Conn. -- Willie Northern had one last chance Wednesday to win her money back from Milford Jai Alai.

It was the final day of play at Connecticut's last fronton, marking the end of a business that once dominated the state's gambling industry.

Northern, who celebrated her 86th birthday at the fronton this year, traveled by tour bus one last time from her home in Newark, N.J., to see the last pelota balls ricochet off the glossy green walls.

"They have torn up my playhouse," Northern said with a dejected wave of her hand. "I enjoy this. I have nothing now."

Jai alai, a fast-paced game with roots in Spain, was eclipsed years ago as a gambling favorite by the slot machines and blackjack tables of the Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun.

As the game dwindled from its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, the fronton in Hartford closed and the Bridgeport fronton was converted to a dog track, leaving only Milford.

Many of the best jai alai players left for Florida or other places where the game still thrived.

Attendance this year was about 200,000 visitors -- a quarter of the action the fronton saw in 1978.

Visitors packed the place Wednesday, however, to buy souvenirs and place one last bet on the fast-moving, athletic young men in white pants and colorful shirts.

Most regular spectators said it was the camaraderie and the thrill of the game -- not the gambling -- that drew them.

"I'm very disappointed. I don't know what I'm going to do with my free time," said Walter McQuillan of Norwalk, who comes once a week to meet his friends and watch the games.

David Brown of Stratford recalled how he brought his future wife to the fronton years ago, when they were dating.

"She won about $300," Brown recalled. "She thought it was going to be like that all the time."

Brown caught jai alai fever, playing himself for a while in an amateur league, until he needed to turn his attention to marriage and children.

"You get hooked on the game," he explained.

Regular players estimated that Wednesday's matinee crowd was four or five times the usual group. Some people said they took the day off from work to see the final games.

"Where have they been all year?" asked Jean Edgeworth, as she sold $1.25 programs to the spectators. "If it was like this all year, we wouldn't be closing."

With the advent of the casinos, Milford Jai Alai sought to offer simulcast horse racing, slot machines and other attractions to prop up sales. The legislature and the courts kept that from happening.

The fronton did offer off-track betting, which helped keep business alive when jai alai's appeal faded.

Die-hard fans can still travel to Newport, R.I., to watch games. They can also view simulcast jai alai on screens at Sports Haven in New Haven

Sonny Jones, a New Jersey bus operator who ran buses to Milford since 1975, said his passengers ranged from retirees to a group of hairdressers who made regular visits to the fronton.

Jones said he would now look into the possibility of making trips in Newport.

"I think the casinos killed them. Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods knocked them out," Jones said.