WPH Press
The WPH has proudly presented the WPH Sunday Stats since the start of 2020, highlighting the Race 4 Eight’s and Icebreaker’s greatest champions and stats, longest winning streaks, greatest accomplishments, tournament directors, nicknames, obscure stats, handball’s origins and history, handball champions featured in national publications, and so much more. This Sunday we’ll revisit another article from the Sports Illustrated vault (1982), featuring the incomparable Naty Alvarado, Sr.
Read the fascinating Sports Illustrated Here’s a Cat Who’s An Unrepentant Killer article HERE
The Sports Illustrated vault has allowed handball fanatics to relive handball’s past with fascinating articles on Naty Alvarado, that also highlight the other greats from the bygone era and life on the fledgling pro handball tour.
Here’s a Cat Who’s An Unrepentant Killer, written by Franz Lidz for Sports Illustrated on July 26, 1982, details the difficulty of playing handball at the professional level, the financial struggles of playing professional handball, the strategy and characters of the game, and the 1982 national championship run of Naty “El Gato” Alvarado.
“I like to think of myself as a puma or panther,” says Alvarado. “I’m just ready to jump on the ball, ready to kill it. I’m hungry. They say a hungry lion hunts better.”
“Naty is the greatest four-wall player I’ve ever seen,” says Jimmy Jacobs.
Read the fascinating Sports Illustrated Here’s a Cat Who’s An Unrepentant Killer article HERE
David Fink
WPH Historian