The finer points of street handball, unlike other youth sports, are not learned from camps and coaches and clinics, but from pickup games on hot concrete courts around the city. There is no professional league to aspire to; college scholarships are rare.

What amounts to a crowning event for New York’s high school players, the individual championship tournament, will be held this weekend at the Lafayette Educational Complex’s schoolyard in Brooklyn. But two students widely considered the best young male and female players in the city — 17-year-old twins from Brooklyn — will not be competing.

In an era of corruption in big-time sports like international soccer, college football and cycling, the twins, Josh and Raquel Garcia, were caught up in a handball-size scandal.

Tipped off by a rival coach, the Public Schools Athletic League disqualified them for the season because they had entered a tournament that awarded cash prizes, which is against league rules. Josh took home $100; Raquel won nothing. It cost the two of them $290 to enter.