For decades, when there was no money to build soccer fields, swimming pools, or tennis courts, the only sport that could be played in the rural areas of Castilla was pelota (a traditional ball game). The frontón (pelota court) became the main social leisure and recreation activity in many of those villages and hamlets, where any wall of a certain height and flat surface could serve to play pelota for a while with the neighbors and get some exercise.

All the frontones were integrated within the locality, inside the village itself—for example, next to the church, in the plaza beside the town hall, on a street, or even on the outskirts of the village where the last houses stand—but always still close to its inhabitants. When looking at those built on the walls of churches, one wonders: why there? As if the sound of the ball bouncing against the facade wanted to compete with the ringing of the church bells, or simply both sounds felt united.

Some are simply brick walls attached to one of the village houses; others stand tall and majestic in the center of a street or plaza, sometimes with small battlements, showing their grandeur and highlighting the beauty of the game played there. There are humbler ones in appearance but equally proud of their meaning and what converges in them: the union of the village inhabitants who go there, ball in hand, sending it directly against the wall, producing that bounce: the ball goes back and forth, played with the hand, learned with the hand.
And unity is produced: something goes and comes back, as in life, something we send and something we receive. Perhaps therein lies the secret of the great passion that arose from that popular wisdom of our parents and grandparents, and before them; it is even said that it was the most important game of the Aztecs and Mayas, who conferred upon it a magical and mythical essence.