‘You can play petanque at 80 years old if you can bend over, pick up and throw the ball’

In America, baseball is the sport that captures the nation’s affection. But in France, it’s petanque, a vigorous sort of lawn bowling. The centuries-old sport has been slow to spread outside Europe, but this year, for the second time, the United States will send a team to compete in the World Petanque Championships. Frenchman Pierre Agnesse, the maitre d’ at La Costa Hotel’s posh Champagne Room, is one of the three Californians who will be heading to Barcelona, Spain, for this year’s contest. Times staff writer Leslie Wolf interviewed Agnesse at the La Costa resort, and Robert Faaborg photographed him.

The name of the game is petanque. It’s an old game, probably over 100 years old. My father played it, my grandfather played it. I watched them, and I started playing at the age of 6 in the south of France. That’s where it originated, around Marseilles.

Now, it has spread through Europe and most of the world. I understand they play it in Thailand, in Japan, and it’s very popular in French Canada. They’ve been playing it here in the United States about 25 years. The petanque club in San Diego has been here at least six years.

The game is played with a steel ball and a little wooden ball. You play on plain dirt; any kind of fairly level area will do. You make a circle and you throw this little ball from the circle, between 6 and 10 meters. The object is to try to roll the steel ball close to the little ball, the wooden one. If there are a lot of rocks or whatever, you must throw it in the air.

If your opponent gets his ball closer than yours, you try to hit and knock his ball out. It takes skill, it’s not easy. There’s a lot of strategy involved.

My team just won the West Coast qualification for the world championship. We’re going to Barcelona on Sept. 20. There will be three days of play. About 35 countries will be represented there. All of Western Europe is playing, and all the North African countries are playing.

It’s become very competitive. I’m 52 years old, and I’ll probably be one of the oldest players. You don’t have to be young or strong, though, to play this game; you have to be skilled. You can play at 80 years old if you can bend over, pick up and throw the ball.

The club in San Diego has about 70 members. We play in Balboa Park at Morley Field the first Sunday of every month. There are 400 registered players in the United States now and 20 clubs. That’s compared to about 2 million registered players in France. Probably 5 million people in France play recreationally.

The French have won most of the world championships, though last year it was Morocco. We’ll be lucky if we go halfway. There will be people there, that’s all they do seven days a week.

I was told in the 1992 Olympics they will introduce it as a spectator game. Apparently the World Petanque Championship is like a mini-Olympics. There are many countries participating, and they all wear uniforms. Our uniforms are being made now. I don’t know what they will be.

Here at La Costa, I’m the maitre d’, or the dining room manager. My job is to supervise, see that everything is done. I’ve been in this business 35 years.

The Champagne Room is a French restaurant, and I would rate is among the best in Southern California. The only problem is nobody knows about it. A lot of people think the restaurants at La Costa are private, so we’re trying to get the word out to the local people that it’s public.