Aug. 16, 2000
HAVING mastered the technique of rolling forward from side to side, crawling front and backward, pulling either arm from underneath the torso to get to a vantage point in a struggle to kneel, sit, or stand, is like watching a National Geographic Channel feature on quicksand. (Lesson number one, the only one: How to escape during the early stages of quicksand entrapment. Pull one leg, step on solid ground, then pull the other leg. Fall on your stomach, focus your weight on one side then crawl towards dry ground using your arms and knees.)
TV, yes, have had a lot of that recently. What else can you do when you’re practically bedridden? That or books, newspapers, magazines, comic books, unintended meditation, football/basketball-playing fantasies.
That’s how the problem started actually. Almost an hour of basketball on a parking lot under the unceasing heat of the summer (in this country there is no other) sun causes lumbago whispering to be noticed.
Ten days later, after just three hours of sleep, 10 minutes of stretching, an hour is spent football goalkeeping with two dozen youngsters, and a playing coach who was also born on The Year of the Tiger almost four decades ago. Shutting out the second team for about half an hour forces the coach to transfer the keeper to the other goal. The goalie manages to fend off attacks for a reasonable period before better offense, rusty reflexes, and 40 pounds of added weight take their toll. After goals are scored, two in succession, and lower back pain murmuring on the edge of a scream –- practice is called off. The coach asks the keeper: “Kaya pa?” Pride and delusion due to a lack of oxygen to the brain compel the goalie to blurt out: “Sige!”
SIMPLE DRILLS. The field players do stretching exercises while simple drills keep the goalie busy. So simple that any grade-schooler with faculties intact can do them. The two goalies pass two balls alternately high and low while stepping from side to side towards the goal posts, continuous jumping from post to post while reaching for the crossbar.
All that is needed are 10 jumps but at number eight a horned red demon stabs the lower back of the born-in-the-sixties goalie with a pitchfork. He falls in mid-leap and crumples to the ground. Flat on his back on the soggy pitch, the injured goalie looks up to the coach framed by the morning sky. He remembers a similar vision nine years ago when he went one-on-one against a 6-foot-6 striker playing with a bunch of visiting college soccer players from the Eastern United States in an early morning exhibition game against a Foreign Students Association team composed of undergraduates from a Negros Oriental university.
The American, who was with an NGO, had asked to play with his compatriots. He obviously had tried his hand and foot at football when he was younger and seemed to not have played the game in years. But that didn’t’ matter. He was tall and he was big. Almost 30 pounds heavy. So big that when the goalie lunged for the ball, he looked up to see the sky darken as the American fell on him.
He opened his eyes glad to see he was still on the mortal plane. The Filipino goalie, who pretended to be a Hong Kong national, was asked by his schoolmates to play with them only a day before.
STEELY DAN. He didn’t disappoint. He dived low right in the very first on-goal attempt by the Yanks to prevent them from scoring in the first 20 seconds of play. He would give away his Steely Dan record collection for a copy of the videotape the Americans took of the game. There are events in our lives that we cherish more than others.
Be it dramatic, funny, action-packed, glorious or even embarrassing –- we either keep them longer in our memory banks or prefer to stash them away in the darkest recesses of the subconscious. But bad, good, or middling, memories are just that, memories. We are better off living in the present.
Glorious heroic accomplishments in other fields cannot compare with the warm sensation of the proverbial hundred sets of arms embracing you for a goal made or a shot saved in sports competition (amateur or professional). But some things are better left to the young and capable. We all must grow old and grow up (the former is easier). We must make a living, and if brave and stupid enough, raise a family.
Injuries with exotic names like anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), PCL, and MCL or sciatic neuritis/sciatica are serious enough to be branded career-threatening or even career-ending. When that happens, the victim is incapacitated, has to undergo therapy, and in most cases cannot make a living.
Glory days are just that –- glorious. They don’t pay the bills.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
666: The Number of the Least
Aug. 9, 2000
OR BETTER still – The Number of the Bested.
Julio Cesar Chavez’s six-round loss to unforgiving Russian-Australian Konstantin Tszyu is a lesson all aging athletes should bear in mind: No amount of veteran savvy (even backed up by 103 wins in 109 matches) should go up against youth and its accompanying strength and enthusiasm. A Tszyu left hook to the cheek and right straight to the temple knocked down Chavez on his bare knees and gloved knuckles. He got up before the count of 10 only to get another couple of hard punches before his cornerman and the referee mercifully called a stop to the carnage.
Chavez’s stubborn pride and downfall should serve as a cautionary tale. Talented and not-so-talented athletes should realize that a lot more difficult than winning games is beating Mother Nature. She will not be denied. She will get her pound of black-and-blue beaten flesh, cracked bones and torn tendons.
If Chavez understands English or if someone could translate this into Spanish, all I (or maybe Señor Homer “Second Overtime” Sayson could get the message across the next time they meet) is that it shouldn’t have taken the great Mexican warrior all of six rounds to acknowledge defeat. The Willy Wise loss was as big and ominous a sign he deserved. If he lost to a forklift operator, how much more to a young but seasoned boxer like Tszyu?
MERCY. Tszyu, who looks like the end product of the dalliance of a Mongol maiden and a Russian rogue was more than wiling to teach his elder a lesson in pugilism. And he did say he wouldn’t show mercy. He was merciful enough though not to carry Chavez six more rounds and punish him for the maximum length of the championship bout. (Earlier, Roy Jones’ showboating got the better of him and he sweated 11 rounds to dispose of an otherwise overmatched journeyman whose name is too hard to remember.)
Speaking of the number 6, it occurred to me that the Sun.Star team that took part in last year and this year’s sidelight of the Adidas Streetball Challenge in the media category, was cursed (or blessed) with the very same number in every game the S.SD Blackened 3-on-3 squad played.
Last year we lost 6-9 in the elimination round. This year we won 6-4 in the eliminations but lost 6-7 in the Finals. Never been a big fan of numerology but three times in a row seems to be too much of a coincidence. Plus the two 3s in 3-on-3 added equal 6.
Bring on Armageddon!
With the MBA's first games on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday unceremoniously relegated to the no-man’s-land of post-primetime’s “delayed telecast” in favor of the not-really mobbed UAAP basketball, has ABS-CBN conceded failure to dislodge the PBA from its double-decade and a-half position as basketball provider to the masses? A monolithic, monopoly-loving entity like ABS-CBN (look at how its cable affiliate Sky Cable has swallowed Cebu’s market) of course has foremost on its mind...profit.
But consider its in-house: Karangalan...Kayamanan...Adhikain...Prinsipsyo...Hindi pera. Puso. Puso kabayan. Yeah, yeah. Ilara's lola nimo. The MBA will always have its audience/market. It will always be easier and more gratifying rooting for one’s hometown/city/province/region instead of a softdrink or hotdog brand. But can that market (no matter how captured) sustain a business?
It was predicted in many quarters, sometimes with self-serving agenda in mind (the PBA for one), that the MBA won’t last long. That would be a sad turn of events not only for ABS-CBN and the Metroball but also for “regional” basketball fans, players, coaches, color commentators, et al. After all, the MBA is the “passion of the nation.”
So all you provincianos y provincianas, rally around your MBA and let’s show those imperialists in the National Capital Region (what’s wrong with just plain Manila or Metro Manila?) that they’re no better than us. Of course it would help if the Metrostars fail to defend their crown. Pampanga did it first. Perhaps it’s the Southerner Cebu Gems’ turn this year. If you still can, keep the faith. Pass it on.
OR BETTER still – The Number of the Bested.
Julio Cesar Chavez’s six-round loss to unforgiving Russian-Australian Konstantin Tszyu is a lesson all aging athletes should bear in mind: No amount of veteran savvy (even backed up by 103 wins in 109 matches) should go up against youth and its accompanying strength and enthusiasm. A Tszyu left hook to the cheek and right straight to the temple knocked down Chavez on his bare knees and gloved knuckles. He got up before the count of 10 only to get another couple of hard punches before his cornerman and the referee mercifully called a stop to the carnage.
Chavez’s stubborn pride and downfall should serve as a cautionary tale. Talented and not-so-talented athletes should realize that a lot more difficult than winning games is beating Mother Nature. She will not be denied. She will get her pound of black-and-blue beaten flesh, cracked bones and torn tendons.
If Chavez understands English or if someone could translate this into Spanish, all I (or maybe Señor Homer “Second Overtime” Sayson could get the message across the next time they meet) is that it shouldn’t have taken the great Mexican warrior all of six rounds to acknowledge defeat. The Willy Wise loss was as big and ominous a sign he deserved. If he lost to a forklift operator, how much more to a young but seasoned boxer like Tszyu?
MERCY. Tszyu, who looks like the end product of the dalliance of a Mongol maiden and a Russian rogue was more than wiling to teach his elder a lesson in pugilism. And he did say he wouldn’t show mercy. He was merciful enough though not to carry Chavez six more rounds and punish him for the maximum length of the championship bout. (Earlier, Roy Jones’ showboating got the better of him and he sweated 11 rounds to dispose of an otherwise overmatched journeyman whose name is too hard to remember.)
Speaking of the number 6, it occurred to me that the Sun.Star team that took part in last year and this year’s sidelight of the Adidas Streetball Challenge in the media category, was cursed (or blessed) with the very same number in every game the S.SD Blackened 3-on-3 squad played.
Last year we lost 6-9 in the elimination round. This year we won 6-4 in the eliminations but lost 6-7 in the Finals. Never been a big fan of numerology but three times in a row seems to be too much of a coincidence. Plus the two 3s in 3-on-3 added equal 6.
Bring on Armageddon!
With the MBA's first games on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday unceremoniously relegated to the no-man’s-land of post-primetime’s “delayed telecast” in favor of the not-really mobbed UAAP basketball, has ABS-CBN conceded failure to dislodge the PBA from its double-decade and a-half position as basketball provider to the masses? A monolithic, monopoly-loving entity like ABS-CBN (look at how its cable affiliate Sky Cable has swallowed Cebu’s market) of course has foremost on its mind...profit.
But consider its in-house: Karangalan...Kayamanan...Adhikain...Prinsipsyo...Hindi pera. Puso. Puso kabayan. Yeah, yeah. Ilara's lola nimo. The MBA will always have its audience/market. It will always be easier and more gratifying rooting for one’s hometown/city/province/region instead of a softdrink or hotdog brand. But can that market (no matter how captured) sustain a business?
It was predicted in many quarters, sometimes with self-serving agenda in mind (the PBA for one), that the MBA won’t last long. That would be a sad turn of events not only for ABS-CBN and the Metroball but also for “regional” basketball fans, players, coaches, color commentators, et al. After all, the MBA is the “passion of the nation.”
So all you provincianos y provincianas, rally around your MBA and let’s show those imperialists in the National Capital Region (what’s wrong with just plain Manila or Metro Manila?) that they’re no better than us. Of course it would help if the Metrostars fail to defend their crown. Pampanga did it first. Perhaps it’s the Southerner Cebu Gems’ turn this year. If you still can, keep the faith. Pass it on.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Live And Let Die: The MBA and PBA’s Dondons
Aug. 8, 2009
THE PBA, which found itself with a problem of possible extinction when it was about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, unearthed a gem (pun intended) of a solution with a batch of flashy and charismatic Filipino-Americans. Alleged. After the Asi Taulava and Sonny Earl Alvarado clashed with the Bureau of Immigration over questions of their Pinoy heritage, the PBA ironically encountered a dilemma – a direct product of the solution.
But that won’t stop the exodus of talented MBA crowd draws to the PBA. The MBA raids the CAAA, CBL and MICAA for players. Then the PBA, without so much as a by-your-leave, plunders the MBA of its superstars. Mercenaries in a mercenary world abound. Some are called agents, middlemen or managers. In a war of high stakes (as if there is another kind), big business and the military hire soldiers of fortune when the regular army does not suffice. In the economics of the professional Philippine basketball’s cannibalistic fraternity, it’s “dog eat dog” and “love me love my dog.”
LAME EXCUSES. So Donaldo Hontiveros goes to Tanduay for, we assume, big bucks. Damn lame excuses of wanting to finish an Engineering course, which is not possible in the traveling-circus format of the MBA. Last time we checked, Hontiveros was not an ID-carrying student of the University of the East. Wainwright signed up with Sta. Lucia to rejoin another ex-Gem Cris Tan. Rudy Hatfield from the Laguna Lakers also signed a deal with Tanduay.
Ronald Magtulis inked a deal with Ginebra San Miguel. His Iloilo teammate, Dale Singson, another prized Cebuano player, now plays for Shell. Bong Ravena and Gido Babilonia, two ex-PBA players, hitched with Mobiline and are now again active PBA players. The way things are going, the MBA might as well officially become a farm team of the PBA. The peso league is, after all, more financially stable than the regional-based Metropolitan Basketball League. Even the term is not very apt. As of last count, only Visayas archrivals Cebu Gems and Negros Slashers were based in the places their monikers are attached to.
The others languish in the invigorating urban decadence of “imperial” Manila. But a place that can produce the literary magic of Quijano de (Metro) Manila and the sexy fascination of nubile Patricia Javier should be able to stir the senses. And material longings. The bigger money the Manila-based Philippine Basketball Association (as their PR would love to remind us to death: “Asia’s first professional basketball league”) can offer, will eventually bleed the MBA of its superstars and the public’s interest.
The first season of the MBA was phenomenal. Usually sold-out venues and a “sound-o-meter” more dynamic than a radiation monitor in post-meltdown Three-Mile Island.
BASKETBALL COURTSHIP. But then it’s kill or be killed. The MBA supposedly came into being because the ego of media conglomerate ABS-CBN got hurt after it was jilted by the PBA in favor of Vintage Inc. and some other interested humongous financial entities. In a way, the MBA is a case of basketball courtship gone sour. And if “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” basketball has no fury like a spiteful basketball league born.
The players make professional basketball exciting, but it’s the financial wizardry and multi-million (billion?) investments that bring free fastbreaking, slam-dunking, three-point shooting, elbowing, slap-happy rebounding basketball games to your TV. With the UAAP games now snugly in the bosom of ABS-CBN, how long can we keep on spelling out in full this four-letter acronym the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines and pretend that it abides with the spirit of amateur competition? The NCAA (National Colleges Athletic Association) is just as smart and carries not the dirty (amateur) word. The CAAA (Cebu Amateur Athletic Association) may be honest or did not foresee the financial rewards of TV coverage and gate receipts when it was founded decades ago.
If there’s any conflict with semantics, it won’t last. The UAAP and NCAA’s basketball shining stars may not even get to finish their courses before they make the big jump to the professional ranks. The PBA and MBA don’t pretend to be amateur organizations, although some plays and executive decisions owe more to kindergarten than business school. Still, it’s the scorched-earth intention that counts. In a cutthroat world, the guy with the sharpest blade cuts best. May best cutthroat win.
THE PBA, which found itself with a problem of possible extinction when it was about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, unearthed a gem (pun intended) of a solution with a batch of flashy and charismatic Filipino-Americans. Alleged. After the Asi Taulava and Sonny Earl Alvarado clashed with the Bureau of Immigration over questions of their Pinoy heritage, the PBA ironically encountered a dilemma – a direct product of the solution.
But that won’t stop the exodus of talented MBA crowd draws to the PBA. The MBA raids the CAAA, CBL and MICAA for players. Then the PBA, without so much as a by-your-leave, plunders the MBA of its superstars. Mercenaries in a mercenary world abound. Some are called agents, middlemen or managers. In a war of high stakes (as if there is another kind), big business and the military hire soldiers of fortune when the regular army does not suffice. In the economics of the professional Philippine basketball’s cannibalistic fraternity, it’s “dog eat dog” and “love me love my dog.”
LAME EXCUSES. So Donaldo Hontiveros goes to Tanduay for, we assume, big bucks. Damn lame excuses of wanting to finish an Engineering course, which is not possible in the traveling-circus format of the MBA. Last time we checked, Hontiveros was not an ID-carrying student of the University of the East. Wainwright signed up with Sta. Lucia to rejoin another ex-Gem Cris Tan. Rudy Hatfield from the Laguna Lakers also signed a deal with Tanduay.
Ronald Magtulis inked a deal with Ginebra San Miguel. His Iloilo teammate, Dale Singson, another prized Cebuano player, now plays for Shell. Bong Ravena and Gido Babilonia, two ex-PBA players, hitched with Mobiline and are now again active PBA players. The way things are going, the MBA might as well officially become a farm team of the PBA. The peso league is, after all, more financially stable than the regional-based Metropolitan Basketball League. Even the term is not very apt. As of last count, only Visayas archrivals Cebu Gems and Negros Slashers were based in the places their monikers are attached to.
The others languish in the invigorating urban decadence of “imperial” Manila. But a place that can produce the literary magic of Quijano de (Metro) Manila and the sexy fascination of nubile Patricia Javier should be able to stir the senses. And material longings. The bigger money the Manila-based Philippine Basketball Association (as their PR would love to remind us to death: “Asia’s first professional basketball league”) can offer, will eventually bleed the MBA of its superstars and the public’s interest.
The first season of the MBA was phenomenal. Usually sold-out venues and a “sound-o-meter” more dynamic than a radiation monitor in post-meltdown Three-Mile Island.
BASKETBALL COURTSHIP. But then it’s kill or be killed. The MBA supposedly came into being because the ego of media conglomerate ABS-CBN got hurt after it was jilted by the PBA in favor of Vintage Inc. and some other interested humongous financial entities. In a way, the MBA is a case of basketball courtship gone sour. And if “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” basketball has no fury like a spiteful basketball league born.
The players make professional basketball exciting, but it’s the financial wizardry and multi-million (billion?) investments that bring free fastbreaking, slam-dunking, three-point shooting, elbowing, slap-happy rebounding basketball games to your TV. With the UAAP games now snugly in the bosom of ABS-CBN, how long can we keep on spelling out in full this four-letter acronym the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines and pretend that it abides with the spirit of amateur competition? The NCAA (National Colleges Athletic Association) is just as smart and carries not the dirty (amateur) word. The CAAA (Cebu Amateur Athletic Association) may be honest or did not foresee the financial rewards of TV coverage and gate receipts when it was founded decades ago.
If there’s any conflict with semantics, it won’t last. The UAAP and NCAA’s basketball shining stars may not even get to finish their courses before they make the big jump to the professional ranks. The PBA and MBA don’t pretend to be amateur organizations, although some plays and executive decisions owe more to kindergarten than business school. Still, it’s the scorched-earth intention that counts. In a cutthroat world, the guy with the sharpest blade cuts best. May best cutthroat win.
The Sick (er...Sixth) Man
July 26, 2000
ONE can only take so much.
It’s easy riding the gravy train. You love the chug-chugging sounds of the locomotive as it makes its way on the tracks unimpeded. And of course there’s the gravy. It was easy, no...exhilarating taking the Cebu Gems ride last season (4-0 at the start) and watching Donaldo Hontiveros do his best Reggie-Miller imitation, Robert Wainwright slash and shoot from the wings, and Matthew Mitchell lay waste to the defense down low.
Star trekking to the Southern Conference Finals against the Iloilo Megavoltz in a best-of-three affair (Gems, 3-1) and the National Finals versus the not-necessarily-stronger-just-better Manila Metrostars (Metrostars, 4-2); the only constant was the undying support of the Cebuano crowd.
The “sixth man” they called it. Call is the operative word. Hardly anyone calls forth the MBA mantra of the Gems. Not after losing two of the aforementioned superstars. Not after losing the first three games of the season and the first two games of this conference. The blowout wins over the Surigao Warriors nee Miners and Cagayan de Oro Amigos/Nuggets were just what the doctor ordered – some hot salabat for chills. Chills in the otherwise warm and humid Cebu Coliseum.
Even after the relative dumping of the Warriors last July 12 and the record-setting blowout of the Amigos the following Wednesday, the Cebu Coliseum floor hardly got humid with a scraggly audience (around). But those two successive lavish victories might just revive interest on the Cebu team. If Cebu were Jerusalem, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine a distraught Jesus Christ on a hill weeping over his beloved city gone to seed.
From Ce-boom to bust. That’s how many of the followers of this team see it. Even Danny Francisco, who holds not a little say over the affairs of this team, while commentating a Gems-Slashers game took to task the inconsistency of the lineup rotation. So the illness is recognized, diagnosed. What is lacking is the remedy. To paraphrase Stallone’s Cobra: “Inconsistency is the disease, change is the cure.”
Don’t be deluded into thinking all is well again with the Gems. A 36 and 58-point victory margin over the “lowly” Warriors and “cellar-dweller” Amigos, with or without Eugene “Kidlat” Quilban, respectively, is not the real test. The Slashers, Davao Eagles and Megavoltz will be more daunting. To beat them would be more of a challenge.
(Belated news flash: Amigos humiliate Megavoltz, 89-77; Warrriors scalp Slashers, 82-73. The gods of irony are the best pranksters. The Eagles must be molting right now.) If Cebu can do in these three, especially on the road, they’ve got it made. Management won’t even have to come up with free-tickets radio pakulo and print discounted-ticket-prices gimmicks, open the gates of a cavernous Coliseum for free to the waiting public after the third quarter or produce slick nostalgic TV advertisements.
“I you build it they will come.”
Build up the home crowd’s gusto with a win after win after win. A loss in between wouldn’t be so bad unless it doesn’t look half as stupid like building up a huge lead and watch it vanish like an ice cube in the sun. Although, the only way to find out if the vaunted and infamous Gems “sixth man” – the noisy, rowdy, jingoist, regionalistic, violent even, crowd – has forgiven the home team for losing and embarrassing them for quite an interminable period, is to wait for the next game in Cebu. That will be on Aug. 23 against the Socsargen Marlins.
If your hear “THE PLLLACE ISSS ROCKIIING” on the TV, then all is forgiven.
ONE can only take so much.
It’s easy riding the gravy train. You love the chug-chugging sounds of the locomotive as it makes its way on the tracks unimpeded. And of course there’s the gravy. It was easy, no...exhilarating taking the Cebu Gems ride last season (4-0 at the start) and watching Donaldo Hontiveros do his best Reggie-Miller imitation, Robert Wainwright slash and shoot from the wings, and Matthew Mitchell lay waste to the defense down low.
Star trekking to the Southern Conference Finals against the Iloilo Megavoltz in a best-of-three affair (Gems, 3-1) and the National Finals versus the not-necessarily-stronger-just-better Manila Metrostars (Metrostars, 4-2); the only constant was the undying support of the Cebuano crowd.
The “sixth man” they called it. Call is the operative word. Hardly anyone calls forth the MBA mantra of the Gems. Not after losing two of the aforementioned superstars. Not after losing the first three games of the season and the first two games of this conference. The blowout wins over the Surigao Warriors nee Miners and Cagayan de Oro Amigos/Nuggets were just what the doctor ordered – some hot salabat for chills. Chills in the otherwise warm and humid Cebu Coliseum.
Even after the relative dumping of the Warriors last July 12 and the record-setting blowout of the Amigos the following Wednesday, the Cebu Coliseum floor hardly got humid with a scraggly audience (around). But those two successive lavish victories might just revive interest on the Cebu team. If Cebu were Jerusalem, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine a distraught Jesus Christ on a hill weeping over his beloved city gone to seed.
From Ce-boom to bust. That’s how many of the followers of this team see it. Even Danny Francisco, who holds not a little say over the affairs of this team, while commentating a Gems-Slashers game took to task the inconsistency of the lineup rotation. So the illness is recognized, diagnosed. What is lacking is the remedy. To paraphrase Stallone’s Cobra: “Inconsistency is the disease, change is the cure.”
Don’t be deluded into thinking all is well again with the Gems. A 36 and 58-point victory margin over the “lowly” Warriors and “cellar-dweller” Amigos, with or without Eugene “Kidlat” Quilban, respectively, is not the real test. The Slashers, Davao Eagles and Megavoltz will be more daunting. To beat them would be more of a challenge.
(Belated news flash: Amigos humiliate Megavoltz, 89-77; Warrriors scalp Slashers, 82-73. The gods of irony are the best pranksters. The Eagles must be molting right now.) If Cebu can do in these three, especially on the road, they’ve got it made. Management won’t even have to come up with free-tickets radio pakulo and print discounted-ticket-prices gimmicks, open the gates of a cavernous Coliseum for free to the waiting public after the third quarter or produce slick nostalgic TV advertisements.
“I you build it they will come.”
Build up the home crowd’s gusto with a win after win after win. A loss in between wouldn’t be so bad unless it doesn’t look half as stupid like building up a huge lead and watch it vanish like an ice cube in the sun. Although, the only way to find out if the vaunted and infamous Gems “sixth man” – the noisy, rowdy, jingoist, regionalistic, violent even, crowd – has forgiven the home team for losing and embarrassing them for quite an interminable period, is to wait for the next game in Cebu. That will be on Aug. 23 against the Socsargen Marlins.
If your hear “THE PLLLACE ISSS ROCKIIING” on the TV, then all is forgiven.
No Euro, No Ole! Ole!
July 19, 2000
IF WE insist on playing basketball with the subconscious hope of getting the Olympic gold, we are better off planting kamote. Moturok pa. You can’t teach height. And height being a pre-requisite in basketball might, no amount of dreaming and holding hundreds of thousands of hoop tournaments a year will make the us standouts in the international (that is, outside Southeast Asia) arena. Basketball will always have a place in the collective heart of Filipinos, “as sure as the sun shines”...as sure as Robert Jaworski will be elected senator if he runs again.
Concerned countrymen have been harping on our need to wean ourselves from basketball and try or re-try other sports like baseball, softball, and football. But we have to break our love affair with basketball. Easier said than done. There are product endorsements for all things related to “caging” and cage superstars and very little, practically nothing, for less popular games.
How can we break the basketball habit if TV and radio stations highlight basketball games all the time, giving little if any attention to football and other sports like badminton, chess, table tennis, and the martial disciplines, among others, where height is not necessarily an advantage. Boxing is popular enough not to need more stress.
COVERAGE. Which brings to mind the recent European Football Finals 2000. Not even Star Sports or ESPN – the perceived mecca of world sports coverage – showed the event. Not one measly game, not even the championship between mighty Les Bleus of France and overachieving Squadra Azzurra of Italy was shown. Many football enthusiasts were reduced to scouring cable television for CNN, BBC, and European channels for sports news and video clips of the game results.
The lucky ones turned to the Spanish channel to see live the French-Italian Final won by the defending World Cup champions, 2-1, on a golden goal. France thus became the first defending European WC champs to get the Euro title. I remember spending sleepless nights and days taping the 1994 World Cup shown on ESPN, CFI of France, CCTV of China, and PTV of Pakistan. The European Finals were then still too Continental for my taste. Although a Euro tournament is sometimes tougher than the World Cup Finals, what with teams like Czechoslovakia, Poland, Spain, Romania, Sweden, Denmark included and ironically not qualifying for the World Cup. Any of these teams will run roughshod over Asia/Oceania perennial qualifiers South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and even Australia, which has some excellent European players in its lineup.
GLOBAL. But as football really goes global, the World Cup having more member teams than the United Nations has member countries, FIFA seeks truly universal acceptance by spreading the tournament qualifying gravy. So we find World Cup minnows like Nepal, Cambodia and dear old Pilipinas getting slaughtered and humiliated by World War II invaders South Korea and Japan, 10-0 or 15-1. The one point most likely a case of compassion.
Baseball and softball and football were once adequately popular in the Philippines to warrant six-column spreads in the national papers. These sports even had their heroes. But now, who remembers star striker Tonio Gutierrez, who got to play in the lower divisions of a Brazilian professional league? Gutierrez was actually the closest we had to a Filipino football hero, with the possible exception of Bert “Mr. Football” Honasan.
Then there were the Blue Boys and Blue Girls. No foreign teams took them lightly. Well, a big blot in Philippine sports history was the Little League team who beat their American counterparts in American soil in their national sport and later were stripped of the title for violating some qualification rules. Well, at least we made them nervous for awhile. A fine fantasy is if we beat Brazil in a World Cup Final in Estádio do Maracanã and later lose the title for cheating. We can dream, can’t we?
IF WE insist on playing basketball with the subconscious hope of getting the Olympic gold, we are better off planting kamote. Moturok pa. You can’t teach height. And height being a pre-requisite in basketball might, no amount of dreaming and holding hundreds of thousands of hoop tournaments a year will make the us standouts in the international (that is, outside Southeast Asia) arena. Basketball will always have a place in the collective heart of Filipinos, “as sure as the sun shines”...as sure as Robert Jaworski will be elected senator if he runs again.
Concerned countrymen have been harping on our need to wean ourselves from basketball and try or re-try other sports like baseball, softball, and football. But we have to break our love affair with basketball. Easier said than done. There are product endorsements for all things related to “caging” and cage superstars and very little, practically nothing, for less popular games.
How can we break the basketball habit if TV and radio stations highlight basketball games all the time, giving little if any attention to football and other sports like badminton, chess, table tennis, and the martial disciplines, among others, where height is not necessarily an advantage. Boxing is popular enough not to need more stress.
COVERAGE. Which brings to mind the recent European Football Finals 2000. Not even Star Sports or ESPN – the perceived mecca of world sports coverage – showed the event. Not one measly game, not even the championship between mighty Les Bleus of France and overachieving Squadra Azzurra of Italy was shown. Many football enthusiasts were reduced to scouring cable television for CNN, BBC, and European channels for sports news and video clips of the game results.
The lucky ones turned to the Spanish channel to see live the French-Italian Final won by the defending World Cup champions, 2-1, on a golden goal. France thus became the first defending European WC champs to get the Euro title. I remember spending sleepless nights and days taping the 1994 World Cup shown on ESPN, CFI of France, CCTV of China, and PTV of Pakistan. The European Finals were then still too Continental for my taste. Although a Euro tournament is sometimes tougher than the World Cup Finals, what with teams like Czechoslovakia, Poland, Spain, Romania, Sweden, Denmark included and ironically not qualifying for the World Cup. Any of these teams will run roughshod over Asia/Oceania perennial qualifiers South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and even Australia, which has some excellent European players in its lineup.
GLOBAL. But as football really goes global, the World Cup having more member teams than the United Nations has member countries, FIFA seeks truly universal acceptance by spreading the tournament qualifying gravy. So we find World Cup minnows like Nepal, Cambodia and dear old Pilipinas getting slaughtered and humiliated by World War II invaders South Korea and Japan, 10-0 or 15-1. The one point most likely a case of compassion.
Baseball and softball and football were once adequately popular in the Philippines to warrant six-column spreads in the national papers. These sports even had their heroes. But now, who remembers star striker Tonio Gutierrez, who got to play in the lower divisions of a Brazilian professional league? Gutierrez was actually the closest we had to a Filipino football hero, with the possible exception of Bert “Mr. Football” Honasan.
Then there were the Blue Boys and Blue Girls. No foreign teams took them lightly. Well, a big blot in Philippine sports history was the Little League team who beat their American counterparts in American soil in their national sport and later were stripped of the title for violating some qualification rules. Well, at least we made them nervous for awhile. A fine fantasy is if we beat Brazil in a World Cup Final in Estádio do Maracanã and later lose the title for cheating. We can dream, can’t we?
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Sticks and Stones (Ivory Actually)
July 12, 2000
IT MUST be the water. Or is it the weather? For an archipelago of several thousands of islands, more notorious than famous for a thousand more reasons (2,000 pairs of shoes included) the Philippines can at least take great exclusive pride on its arnisadors (eskrima or kali fighters, take your pick) and billiards players (artists or geniuses, more accurately).
The great sword/stickfighters: Cebuanos Anciong Bacon, Angel Cabales, Jose Caballero, Ciriaco and Filemon Cañete, Antonio Ilustrisimo, Teodoro Saavedra (surely I missed many great eskrimadores); and from other regions: Felicisimo Dizon, Leo Gaje, Islao Romo and Remy Presas, have carved their names in the annals of legend and some even on the bodies of their opponents. They have spread the fame of arnis worldwide and have added the indigenous Filipino style into the pantheon of great martial arts, which includes kung fu, judo, karate, pentjak silat, taekwando and muay Thai.
Now come the less violent stick wizards: Efren “Bata” Reyes, Amang Parica, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Leonardo “Dodong” Andam, Rodolfo “Boy Samson” Luat, Pasil boy Warren Kiamco and Filipino-Canadian Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan. Cebuano ace Victor “Paklay” Quijano, in semi-retirement, has been largely unrecognized and reportedly wasted on alcohol.
Our pool players may have lost out in the World Pool Championship in Cardiff, Wales, but you can bet your last inflation-ridden peso that won’t happen in the other stick games of the World Eskrima Kali Federation (Wekaf) Championships next month in Cebu and Mandaue.
Filipinos (Cebuanos in particular) are not known to be maru/marama for nothing. The talent is not incompatible with fighting skills. The constant need to fight throughout our country’s history has created the penchant for upmanship, thus the maru culture. Smaller in stature than most invaders, especially the European variety, the Pinoy as a result has found a way to level the playing field. Shrewd has paid dividends. Sundang and pinuti-wielding World War II veterans have bragged that the Japanese officers and their katana (samurai sword, to the uninitiated) were no match for them. Perhaps they should have challenged the Imperial Army to a bladed weapon contest – winner take all the Philippine islands – and then our parents and grandparents wouldn’t have suffered under the yoke of the Nipponese invaders.
The Filipino has a talent for things involved with sticks. That’s an understatement of course. Stickfighting and cues are only the most obvious. Now Cebu and Mandaue will host still another “world” arnis tournament. At the risk of opening old wounds associated with allegations of ass-kissing and game fixing, you can bet your last matchstick that the Philippine team will again retain the overall title, no sweat.
If another country (the United States, perhaps, whose denizens also have a love affair with sticks: baseball, golf and baton twirling) takes RP’s title, it will only prove that we are gracious, if not, badly-prepared hosts.
‘RIGGED.’ Efren “Bata” Reyes losing despite being “safely” ahead by six racks (8-2) over Steve “The Nugget” Davis in a race-to-9 match, have made some fans suspect something fishy. How do you spell g-a-m-e-f-i-x-i-n-g? Baligya. Hard to prove but billiards in the dingy pool halls of the Philippines like professional boxing in the smoke-filled arenas in the era of the American mafiosis have been associated with the sinister.
With last year’s Cardiff tournament triumph, billiards now gets the attention of the Pinoy politicos. Cash incentive this and cash incentive that. “Everybody loves a winner.” The Cebu Gems should understand that. The Puyat team to Cardiff may have lost out on the big money and the honor. But this shouldn’t stop Filipinos from loving the “sport.” If chess and ballroom dancing qualify as sport, there’s no reason billiards shouldn’t. It’s on ESPN, right?
In the early to mid-80s, the traditional/routinary gang rumbles among teenagers at the Fuente Osmeña oval ended because of the sudden popularity of ersatz billiard games that used marbles and tables measuring 2’x1’ ¾” to 3’ ¾”'x2”. Mini cue sticks thus replaced Indian pana and knives.
If only for this reason, parents shouldn’t be so hard on their truant children who spend more time in the pool halls than the classroom. If Bata Reyes and Erap Estrada could make it big, so can you.
IT MUST be the water. Or is it the weather? For an archipelago of several thousands of islands, more notorious than famous for a thousand more reasons (2,000 pairs of shoes included) the Philippines can at least take great exclusive pride on its arnisadors (eskrima or kali fighters, take your pick) and billiards players (artists or geniuses, more accurately).
The great sword/stickfighters: Cebuanos Anciong Bacon, Angel Cabales, Jose Caballero, Ciriaco and Filemon Cañete, Antonio Ilustrisimo, Teodoro Saavedra (surely I missed many great eskrimadores); and from other regions: Felicisimo Dizon, Leo Gaje, Islao Romo and Remy Presas, have carved their names in the annals of legend and some even on the bodies of their opponents. They have spread the fame of arnis worldwide and have added the indigenous Filipino style into the pantheon of great martial arts, which includes kung fu, judo, karate, pentjak silat, taekwando and muay Thai.
Now come the less violent stick wizards: Efren “Bata” Reyes, Amang Parica, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Leonardo “Dodong” Andam, Rodolfo “Boy Samson” Luat, Pasil boy Warren Kiamco and Filipino-Canadian Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan. Cebuano ace Victor “Paklay” Quijano, in semi-retirement, has been largely unrecognized and reportedly wasted on alcohol.
Our pool players may have lost out in the World Pool Championship in Cardiff, Wales, but you can bet your last inflation-ridden peso that won’t happen in the other stick games of the World Eskrima Kali Federation (Wekaf) Championships next month in Cebu and Mandaue.
Filipinos (Cebuanos in particular) are not known to be maru/marama for nothing. The talent is not incompatible with fighting skills. The constant need to fight throughout our country’s history has created the penchant for upmanship, thus the maru culture. Smaller in stature than most invaders, especially the European variety, the Pinoy as a result has found a way to level the playing field. Shrewd has paid dividends. Sundang and pinuti-wielding World War II veterans have bragged that the Japanese officers and their katana (samurai sword, to the uninitiated) were no match for them. Perhaps they should have challenged the Imperial Army to a bladed weapon contest – winner take all the Philippine islands – and then our parents and grandparents wouldn’t have suffered under the yoke of the Nipponese invaders.
The Filipino has a talent for things involved with sticks. That’s an understatement of course. Stickfighting and cues are only the most obvious. Now Cebu and Mandaue will host still another “world” arnis tournament. At the risk of opening old wounds associated with allegations of ass-kissing and game fixing, you can bet your last matchstick that the Philippine team will again retain the overall title, no sweat.
If another country (the United States, perhaps, whose denizens also have a love affair with sticks: baseball, golf and baton twirling) takes RP’s title, it will only prove that we are gracious, if not, badly-prepared hosts.
‘RIGGED.’ Efren “Bata” Reyes losing despite being “safely” ahead by six racks (8-2) over Steve “The Nugget” Davis in a race-to-9 match, have made some fans suspect something fishy. How do you spell g-a-m-e-f-i-x-i-n-g? Baligya. Hard to prove but billiards in the dingy pool halls of the Philippines like professional boxing in the smoke-filled arenas in the era of the American mafiosis have been associated with the sinister.
With last year’s Cardiff tournament triumph, billiards now gets the attention of the Pinoy politicos. Cash incentive this and cash incentive that. “Everybody loves a winner.” The Cebu Gems should understand that. The Puyat team to Cardiff may have lost out on the big money and the honor. But this shouldn’t stop Filipinos from loving the “sport.” If chess and ballroom dancing qualify as sport, there’s no reason billiards shouldn’t. It’s on ESPN, right?
In the early to mid-80s, the traditional/routinary gang rumbles among teenagers at the Fuente Osmeña oval ended because of the sudden popularity of ersatz billiard games that used marbles and tables measuring 2’x1’ ¾” to 3’ ¾”'x2”. Mini cue sticks thus replaced Indian pana and knives.
If only for this reason, parents shouldn’t be so hard on their truant children who spend more time in the pool halls than the classroom. If Bata Reyes and Erap Estrada could make it big, so can you.
Messrs. Bee and Gee, Part II (Enter the Mind of the Dragon Wannabe)
July 5, 2000
THEN Lee died and on the third frame he rose again. And he has been resurrected every time a Lee movie festival or Beta, VHS, laser disc, VCD, and DVD of his movies are played. Van Damme has expressed his gratitude to Lee for giving him a career in the movies, giving the genre a full leg-split and palm-strike spin of his own. The hedonistic Lamaist Seagal is more self-centered and has never laid a josh stick before the Altar of Lee.
Stories have circulated in Hollywood and US martial arts circles of Seagal bragging of his ability to get out of any hold or evade any attempt of grabbing him. Mouthing off before a bunch of veteran stuntmen in the set of his movie (must have been Hard to Kill), Seagal challenged those present to test him. A fiftyish 250-pound white guy volunteered to find out if Seagal could walk his talk. He got Seagal in a standing rear-naked chokehold and in about four seconds, Nico the Glimmer Man passed out. End of lesson.
After Mr. Seagal came to, the crew had packed up. He stood up and silently went back to his trailer to sulk and re-examine his skills. Many years after Bruce Lee died, reports alleged that the venerable Lee lost an abbreviated fight in similar circumstances that Seagal had embarrassed himself. Another venerable martial artist, “Judo” Gene LeBelle, did the honor of making Lee realize he was mortal.
There were no challenges made, just professional disagreement on how the stunts should be performed and how the stuntmen should earn their pay during the shooting of an episode of the Green Hornet. Le Belle, being stunt coordinator, told Lee, playing Kato in the TV series, that the stunts he had in mind were too dangerous and he wouldn’t allow his fall guys to be put at more risk than necessary. One strong word after another and the bulky LeBelle had Lee in a vise-like ju-ji-gatame (cross arm-lock). End of argument.
Lee was obsessed with that humiliation and he looked for ways to counter the technique. That obsession extended to his movies: in The Chinese Connection, he bites Mike Stone’s leg to free himself from a stomach-down cross-arm lock; while in the opening sequence of Enter the Dragon, it is Lee’s turn to get Samo Hung in an armlock and Hung doesn’t have the luxury of biting any of Lee’s legs as Lee performs the submission hold from behind.
Lee got over his initial reservations and fears by practicing and expanding on his martial arts knowledge. Mr. Bee, on the other hand, is not Seagal. Was not and never will be. In the first place, he doesn’t know aikido. But he is like Seagal because he had gotten a resounding defeat by being knocked out reportedly by an elbow to the chin from a muay Thai stylist, whom Mr. Bee challenged to a fight after he learned that the muay Thai guy wasn’t impressed by his loud-mouth ways. That abbreviated encounter was supposedly recorded for posterity on a hand-held video camera by the minions of Mr. Bee.
His troubles really started when he decided to go on his own and teach what he had learned. He has the agility and crowd-pleasing moves, the propensity for self-serving myth making and not much of anything else.
Chinese martial arts teachers have a time-honored tradition of “protecting the (rice) bowl,” of not teaching everything to their students, an insurance that if their students go open schools of their own, the original teacher still has more in his course curriculum. Or if any of the students get too confident and challenges the teacher, the latter still has an advantage in knowledge and technique.
Mr. Bee obviously has not learned this and he has no right to teach before he learns what he needs to learn first.
THEN Lee died and on the third frame he rose again. And he has been resurrected every time a Lee movie festival or Beta, VHS, laser disc, VCD, and DVD of his movies are played. Van Damme has expressed his gratitude to Lee for giving him a career in the movies, giving the genre a full leg-split and palm-strike spin of his own. The hedonistic Lamaist Seagal is more self-centered and has never laid a josh stick before the Altar of Lee.
Stories have circulated in Hollywood and US martial arts circles of Seagal bragging of his ability to get out of any hold or evade any attempt of grabbing him. Mouthing off before a bunch of veteran stuntmen in the set of his movie (must have been Hard to Kill), Seagal challenged those present to test him. A fiftyish 250-pound white guy volunteered to find out if Seagal could walk his talk. He got Seagal in a standing rear-naked chokehold and in about four seconds, Nico the Glimmer Man passed out. End of lesson.
After Mr. Seagal came to, the crew had packed up. He stood up and silently went back to his trailer to sulk and re-examine his skills. Many years after Bruce Lee died, reports alleged that the venerable Lee lost an abbreviated fight in similar circumstances that Seagal had embarrassed himself. Another venerable martial artist, “Judo” Gene LeBelle, did the honor of making Lee realize he was mortal.
There were no challenges made, just professional disagreement on how the stunts should be performed and how the stuntmen should earn their pay during the shooting of an episode of the Green Hornet. Le Belle, being stunt coordinator, told Lee, playing Kato in the TV series, that the stunts he had in mind were too dangerous and he wouldn’t allow his fall guys to be put at more risk than necessary. One strong word after another and the bulky LeBelle had Lee in a vise-like ju-ji-gatame (cross arm-lock). End of argument.
Lee was obsessed with that humiliation and he looked for ways to counter the technique. That obsession extended to his movies: in The Chinese Connection, he bites Mike Stone’s leg to free himself from a stomach-down cross-arm lock; while in the opening sequence of Enter the Dragon, it is Lee’s turn to get Samo Hung in an armlock and Hung doesn’t have the luxury of biting any of Lee’s legs as Lee performs the submission hold from behind.
Lee got over his initial reservations and fears by practicing and expanding on his martial arts knowledge. Mr. Bee, on the other hand, is not Seagal. Was not and never will be. In the first place, he doesn’t know aikido. But he is like Seagal because he had gotten a resounding defeat by being knocked out reportedly by an elbow to the chin from a muay Thai stylist, whom Mr. Bee challenged to a fight after he learned that the muay Thai guy wasn’t impressed by his loud-mouth ways. That abbreviated encounter was supposedly recorded for posterity on a hand-held video camera by the minions of Mr. Bee.
His troubles really started when he decided to go on his own and teach what he had learned. He has the agility and crowd-pleasing moves, the propensity for self-serving myth making and not much of anything else.
Chinese martial arts teachers have a time-honored tradition of “protecting the (rice) bowl,” of not teaching everything to their students, an insurance that if their students go open schools of their own, the original teacher still has more in his course curriculum. Or if any of the students get too confident and challenges the teacher, the latter still has an advantage in knowledge and technique.
Mr. Bee obviously has not learned this and he has no right to teach before he learns what he needs to learn first.
Dancing with Mr. Bee and Mister Gee
June 28, 2000
MISTER Gee is as soft-spoken chinky-eyed middle-aged man with a friendly smile and a youthful chuckle that makes you forget his age and thinning hair. More than five years ago, he was a somewhat awkward man not quite confident of his physical power.
That was before he studied tai-chi-chuan and Dragon Fist.
Mr. Bee is a loquacious showoff who can make a believer of the infidel – a kinder way of saying makabuhi og patay (the English translation is not flattering). That was many years after he studied tai-chi-chuan and Dragon Fist.
Spot the difference between the two monsieurs. Never mind the similarities. Then quote that Roman Catholic priest demonphobe: “That’s the work of the devil.” Then that Cebu Daily News report on “meditation in motion.”
Having spent a good (or was it bad) part of my teens in a Catholic seminary, I know enough to recognize meditation and having moved from there to here...motion. And also having dabbled in tai chi and a few other Asian martial arts, it’s not difficult to distinguish between contemplation and unarmed combat and to spot a fraud 1.2 kilometers away.
Mr. Bee is one such fraud. He even ran away with the money of the company he once worked for. And in this very paper he had his photograph complete with name pasted on one-fourth of a page in the classified ads section, with the warning: _____________ has ceased to be connected with _________ (name of pilfered company). Any transaction with _________ will not be honored.
That’s the word. Honor. No honor, actually. How can one be honorable after challenging one’s longtime martial-arts teacher to a fight, and denied the opportunity to be pummeled to a pulp, resorts to badmouthing that teacher and calling him unprintables in his presence and behind his back.
Now here comes that very same dishonorable mention of a man trying to show off before hundreds of people who know practically nil of “meditation in motion” “work of the devil.”
Once a con man, always a con man. It wouldn’t be half as bad if only Mr. Bee hadn’t dragged the whole martial-arts community with him into the mud he still loves to wallow in. The impression that martial artists are saints without halos should not be encouraged. The movie images of the serene Shaolin monk mouthing: “Buddha bless you” at every turn has added to their mystique and reverence. (To be concluded)
MISTER Gee is as soft-spoken chinky-eyed middle-aged man with a friendly smile and a youthful chuckle that makes you forget his age and thinning hair. More than five years ago, he was a somewhat awkward man not quite confident of his physical power.
That was before he studied tai-chi-chuan and Dragon Fist.
Mr. Bee is a loquacious showoff who can make a believer of the infidel – a kinder way of saying makabuhi og patay (the English translation is not flattering). That was many years after he studied tai-chi-chuan and Dragon Fist.
Spot the difference between the two monsieurs. Never mind the similarities. Then quote that Roman Catholic priest demonphobe: “That’s the work of the devil.” Then that Cebu Daily News report on “meditation in motion.”
Having spent a good (or was it bad) part of my teens in a Catholic seminary, I know enough to recognize meditation and having moved from there to here...motion. And also having dabbled in tai chi and a few other Asian martial arts, it’s not difficult to distinguish between contemplation and unarmed combat and to spot a fraud 1.2 kilometers away.
Mr. Bee is one such fraud. He even ran away with the money of the company he once worked for. And in this very paper he had his photograph complete with name pasted on one-fourth of a page in the classified ads section, with the warning: _____________ has ceased to be connected with _________ (name of pilfered company). Any transaction with _________ will not be honored.
That’s the word. Honor. No honor, actually. How can one be honorable after challenging one’s longtime martial-arts teacher to a fight, and denied the opportunity to be pummeled to a pulp, resorts to badmouthing that teacher and calling him unprintables in his presence and behind his back.
Now here comes that very same dishonorable mention of a man trying to show off before hundreds of people who know practically nil of “meditation in motion” “work of the devil.”
Once a con man, always a con man. It wouldn’t be half as bad if only Mr. Bee hadn’t dragged the whole martial-arts community with him into the mud he still loves to wallow in. The impression that martial artists are saints without halos should not be encouraged. The movie images of the serene Shaolin monk mouthing: “Buddha bless you” at every turn has added to their mystique and reverence. (To be concluded)
Beef with the Refs
June 21, 2000
SHAQ. “The Big Baby.” Add bully to that. He’s very big, very tall, very intimidating. O’Neal once admitted he was a bully in school. Judging by the way he plays in the NBA, particularly the NBA Finals where he averaged about 40 points and at least 10 rebounds per game, he has taken to heart the lessons he learned as a child: if you can push and shove ’em, keep at it. His physical gifts though make his domination less impressive. He makes sense of what he has – effectively. But take the now brittle Hakeem Olajuwon, for instance. When the Houston Rockets matched up against the now beefier O’Neal's former team Orlando Magic, the 7-0 Olajuwon, who realistically is no taller than 6-10, ran rings around the taller and even then heftier Magic center. Rockets for the title, 4-0. Olajuwon made use of the fewer physical attributes he had, and that’s not just impressive but praiseworthy. But there’s no denying O’Neal's present strengths – points, rebounds and blocks. Okay, okay...he passes better, too. So add assists to the list.
ZEN MASTER? How can you call a coach who trash talks one of his former star players, orders his bruisers to rough up and possibly maim the former; divorces his wife of 25 years after bedding a 20-something ex-Playboy playmate who also happens to be his boss’ daughter – a “Zen master”? Quoting Zen and Taoist philosophers doesn’t make Lakers coach Phil Jackson a Lao-tzu. Well, the American media have to have their sound byte.
Kobe Bryant rushes upcourt with the ball and wards off a defender with his left arm. Whistle. Offensive foul. “A couple more years... they won’t call that,” TV analyst Mark Brown said. American sports persons know the NBA referees give the superstars a lot of slack. They coddled Michael Jordan. Bryant was once touted as Jordan’s heir apparent, but not if Vince Carter has something to say about it. Despite Bryant’s popularity and multi-million endorsement contracts, he hasn’t reached the heights Jordan had. A championship ring gets him on the right path, though.
REFEREES’ PETS. All thanks to the referees for giving Game 6 to the team expected to win the NBA Finals anyway. Dale Davis is called for a very, very dubious loose-ball foul after cleanly blocking Glen Rice’s shot and getting the offensive rebound. Jordan-wannabe Bryant forces a sideline shot and is blocked by Austin Croshere, who is called for a copycat questionable foul. “Bailed out,” as NBA analyst Brown said. He’s the honest one. Bryant gets two foul shots and makes two just like what Rice did earlier, padding LA’s lead and preventing the Pacers from getting any closer.
In the land of the blind, the in-the-pocket referees are kings. Still the Indiana Pacers only have themselves to blame for losing. They failed to put the Lakers away in Game 2 after Bryant got injured and Bird blundered in Game 4 by ordering Miller to take a 3-point shot with 5.9 seconds left despite Rik Smits having no one to defend him down below with O’Neal having fouled out. All the Pacers needed were a two to tie the game and go into second overtime with the advantage in manpower.
Larry Bird takes the consoling worlds of Rick Fox and former archrival Earvin “Magic” Johnson after the final buzzer. If there are any sarcastic remarks against Bird’s composure and class, shelve that for the moment. Enjoy the Lakers’ championship title. If the core of both teams stay together next season (which is unlikely for Indiana), perhaps, just perhaps...same time next year.
SHAQ. “The Big Baby.” Add bully to that. He’s very big, very tall, very intimidating. O’Neal once admitted he was a bully in school. Judging by the way he plays in the NBA, particularly the NBA Finals where he averaged about 40 points and at least 10 rebounds per game, he has taken to heart the lessons he learned as a child: if you can push and shove ’em, keep at it. His physical gifts though make his domination less impressive. He makes sense of what he has – effectively. But take the now brittle Hakeem Olajuwon, for instance. When the Houston Rockets matched up against the now beefier O’Neal's former team Orlando Magic, the 7-0 Olajuwon, who realistically is no taller than 6-10, ran rings around the taller and even then heftier Magic center. Rockets for the title, 4-0. Olajuwon made use of the fewer physical attributes he had, and that’s not just impressive but praiseworthy. But there’s no denying O’Neal's present strengths – points, rebounds and blocks. Okay, okay...he passes better, too. So add assists to the list.
ZEN MASTER? How can you call a coach who trash talks one of his former star players, orders his bruisers to rough up and possibly maim the former; divorces his wife of 25 years after bedding a 20-something ex-Playboy playmate who also happens to be his boss’ daughter – a “Zen master”? Quoting Zen and Taoist philosophers doesn’t make Lakers coach Phil Jackson a Lao-tzu. Well, the American media have to have their sound byte.
Kobe Bryant rushes upcourt with the ball and wards off a defender with his left arm. Whistle. Offensive foul. “A couple more years... they won’t call that,” TV analyst Mark Brown said. American sports persons know the NBA referees give the superstars a lot of slack. They coddled Michael Jordan. Bryant was once touted as Jordan’s heir apparent, but not if Vince Carter has something to say about it. Despite Bryant’s popularity and multi-million endorsement contracts, he hasn’t reached the heights Jordan had. A championship ring gets him on the right path, though.
REFEREES’ PETS. All thanks to the referees for giving Game 6 to the team expected to win the NBA Finals anyway. Dale Davis is called for a very, very dubious loose-ball foul after cleanly blocking Glen Rice’s shot and getting the offensive rebound. Jordan-wannabe Bryant forces a sideline shot and is blocked by Austin Croshere, who is called for a copycat questionable foul. “Bailed out,” as NBA analyst Brown said. He’s the honest one. Bryant gets two foul shots and makes two just like what Rice did earlier, padding LA’s lead and preventing the Pacers from getting any closer.
In the land of the blind, the in-the-pocket referees are kings. Still the Indiana Pacers only have themselves to blame for losing. They failed to put the Lakers away in Game 2 after Bryant got injured and Bird blundered in Game 4 by ordering Miller to take a 3-point shot with 5.9 seconds left despite Rik Smits having no one to defend him down below with O’Neal having fouled out. All the Pacers needed were a two to tie the game and go into second overtime with the advantage in manpower.
Larry Bird takes the consoling worlds of Rick Fox and former archrival Earvin “Magic” Johnson after the final buzzer. If there are any sarcastic remarks against Bird’s composure and class, shelve that for the moment. Enjoy the Lakers’ championship title. If the core of both teams stay together next season (which is unlikely for Indiana), perhaps, just perhaps...same time next year.
Format tomfoolery
June 14, 2000
Players and teams all dream of immaculate win streaks, of single, double or even triple-digit numbers followed by zero. Mexican boxing great Julio Cezar Chavez had his 98-0 before he ignominiously lost to Oscar dela Hoya; the Cebu Gems of last season were 3-0 before they were brought down to earth by the Manila Metrostars; even World Championship Wrestling’s Bill Goldberg had his rigged 111 (or something)-0 before the Ted Turner organization decided to have Kevin Nash nee “Diesel” now “Big Sexy” end the charade and start another.
Just this week, closer to home, another team bearing the proper noun “Cebu” erected a 13-0 win-loss record after emerging victorious in all four stages of the 1st M.Lhuillier Visayas Cup under-14 football tournament. Then a potential spoiler came out of the dark to threaten to rain on the parade of the “Carmen Boys.” Iloilo (9-4), playing in their turf of Barotac Nuevo before an expectedly large and rabid home crowd, only needed to beat Cebu once to emerge the tournament champions. No best-of-three, no twice-to-beat conditions in Cebu’s favor.
Mediocre Ginebra San Miguel, ranked No.8, needed to defeat No.1 Mobiline (which once led the eliminations with a 7-0 record) twice to proceed to the semifinals as opposed to Mobiline needing to win just once. Barangay Ginebra, playing their crowd-pleasing role to the hilt, beat the Phone Pals twice, making the hulking Asi Taulava cry and streak his golden-dyed hair. There is always an eager envious hand to pick up a rock to try to hit the ripe mango (to loosely translate the Cebuano adage), the dark entity to pluck a shining star and squeeze it into a dark hole. “Crab mentality,” “tall daisies” or “downward mobility,” call it what you will.
Iloilo, probably the first and last place in the Philippines to love, nay, worship football, was the pre-tournament favorites. But the small-town boys of Carmen and some San Carlos City reinforcements shook up preconceptions by bagging the first leg-title in Cebu. Credit to the home field? But with the small crowd out to watch the games here, it wasn’t much of a home support. Take out the comfort-zone edge and give credit to the players’ abilities and good coaching.
DF-Carmen made a run. They started in Cebu and didn’t stop until they soundly beat Iloilo, 2-0, in Barotac Nuevo. But what if they had faltered? What if the Ilonggos beat the Cebuanos y Negrenses? The dark horse has an uncanny way of beating the odds.
A single knockout semifinal or final may add to the thrill and immediacy with everything on the line. And you can add disgust to that. What incentive does a team have to amass an unblemished record in the early part of the tournament, if all that can be rendered moot after a single or double loss (in the twice-to-beat format)? There may be no reason for an unbeaten team not to defeat another with an inferior record. There is, actually. A Brazilian national football coach said that his team may beat Italy 19 out of 20 times they play, but on the occasion they lose, they’re playing for the championship and statistics go out the window.
It’s win or lose. Nothing else matters. Fairness is only taken into account when the unexpected happens. In Cebu MLSDF-Carmen’s case, fortunately, the expected happened. Hopefully, lessons were learned.
Players and teams all dream of immaculate win streaks, of single, double or even triple-digit numbers followed by zero. Mexican boxing great Julio Cezar Chavez had his 98-0 before he ignominiously lost to Oscar dela Hoya; the Cebu Gems of last season were 3-0 before they were brought down to earth by the Manila Metrostars; even World Championship Wrestling’s Bill Goldberg had his rigged 111 (or something)-0 before the Ted Turner organization decided to have Kevin Nash nee “Diesel” now “Big Sexy” end the charade and start another.
Just this week, closer to home, another team bearing the proper noun “Cebu” erected a 13-0 win-loss record after emerging victorious in all four stages of the 1st M.Lhuillier Visayas Cup under-14 football tournament. Then a potential spoiler came out of the dark to threaten to rain on the parade of the “Carmen Boys.” Iloilo (9-4), playing in their turf of Barotac Nuevo before an expectedly large and rabid home crowd, only needed to beat Cebu once to emerge the tournament champions. No best-of-three, no twice-to-beat conditions in Cebu’s favor.
Mediocre Ginebra San Miguel, ranked No.8, needed to defeat No.1 Mobiline (which once led the eliminations with a 7-0 record) twice to proceed to the semifinals as opposed to Mobiline needing to win just once. Barangay Ginebra, playing their crowd-pleasing role to the hilt, beat the Phone Pals twice, making the hulking Asi Taulava cry and streak his golden-dyed hair. There is always an eager envious hand to pick up a rock to try to hit the ripe mango (to loosely translate the Cebuano adage), the dark entity to pluck a shining star and squeeze it into a dark hole. “Crab mentality,” “tall daisies” or “downward mobility,” call it what you will.
Iloilo, probably the first and last place in the Philippines to love, nay, worship football, was the pre-tournament favorites. But the small-town boys of Carmen and some San Carlos City reinforcements shook up preconceptions by bagging the first leg-title in Cebu. Credit to the home field? But with the small crowd out to watch the games here, it wasn’t much of a home support. Take out the comfort-zone edge and give credit to the players’ abilities and good coaching.
DF-Carmen made a run. They started in Cebu and didn’t stop until they soundly beat Iloilo, 2-0, in Barotac Nuevo. But what if they had faltered? What if the Ilonggos beat the Cebuanos y Negrenses? The dark horse has an uncanny way of beating the odds.
A single knockout semifinal or final may add to the thrill and immediacy with everything on the line. And you can add disgust to that. What incentive does a team have to amass an unblemished record in the early part of the tournament, if all that can be rendered moot after a single or double loss (in the twice-to-beat format)? There may be no reason for an unbeaten team not to defeat another with an inferior record. There is, actually. A Brazilian national football coach said that his team may beat Italy 19 out of 20 times they play, but on the occasion they lose, they’re playing for the championship and statistics go out the window.
It’s win or lose. Nothing else matters. Fairness is only taken into account when the unexpected happens. In Cebu MLSDF-Carmen’s case, fortunately, the expected happened. Hopefully, lessons were learned.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Looking For Mr. Goodcoach (Great will do)
June 8, 2000
When one team is better on paper than the other (i.e. Nueva Ecija), has more games won (6-6 against 4-9), is playing on its homecourt (second homecourt, at least), comes off a blowout win over the number-one team in the conference, has been to the conference finals once and the national finals; leads by 25 points in the third quarter then loses by six points in the end – there must be something wrong.
When the home crowd resorts to throwing things at the visiting team, venting its frustration (read: disgust) for the loss on the eventual winner instead of the expected winner on whom the anger really is…definitely, there’s something terribly wrong.
So, if it’s not the lineup, not the court advantage, in what direction should we look for the blame? Without saying choke, which is synonymous with the Gems anyway, can we say coach? Jose Maria Antonio “Tonichi” Yturri’s sour honey attracts flies.
You can’t ask from workhorses Matthew Mitchell, Stephen Padilla, Michael Manigo, Arnold Gamboa, et al. more than they have been giving out.
Can’t help that with creative coaches like Francis Rodriguez and Louie Alas as the helm of the Gems ship, this team could have been champions in the first two seasons with the departed talents like Donaldo Hontiveros, Robert Wainwright, and Chris Mendoza. It’s not that Yturri doesn’t know his basketball. He does. He is a former national and Philippine Basketball Association player. And he did revive the Gems after a sorry 0-3 start in the Metropolitan Basketball Association’s debut season.
DON’T UNDERSTAND. But also last season, Yturri said something like, “I don’t understand this team,” after the Gems won a scrambling victory, erecting a substantial lead then almost losing it to give the game away. Again. Maybe that’s the problem, and Yturri, in his heart of hearts, knows it.
Now, let’s look across a very big pond to search for parallelisms. The Los Angeles Lakers. The Cebu Gems. Both have talent written all over their names. In the latter’s case, at least in last year’s lineup.
Last Monday’s Lakers win over the Portland Trail Blazers was a classic case of composure, after getting back from a big fourth-quarter deficit. Phil Jackson’s admonition to his team when they were behind by 15 points: “Don’t let Shaq carry you. Just play your game.” And the Lakers did, eventually winning by five.
The Lakers have the 7-foot giant Shaquille O’Neal. The Gems have Mitchell, who at 6-6 is no midget himself. Both are the low-post pillars of their teams. Now, if only Yturri could say to the rest of the Gems: “Don’t let Matt carry you.”
Yturri has effectively taken away Manigo’s skill of making points on his own, turning him from a very resourceful individualistic off-guard to point guard and back to off guard. One Cebuano coach has commented on the confusion Yturri has crated in the team by constantly changing his starting lineup. The players in effect don’t know their roles. At least, Mitchell always knows he has to amass most of his point-production in the post. He leads the Gems in points, rebounds, and blocks. He carries the Gems.
‘EXPERIMENTS.’ The local coach also harped on Yturri’s “experiments” – making Manigo, even Giovanni Pineda, the point guard. No fixed roles. No fixed goals. The starters’ confusion rubs off on the relievers.
For the Cebu Gems’ sake, Yturri ether goes or someone comes in to help him coach a misused, misguided, talented team. Someone like former Gems assistant coach Luigi Trillo – an assistant in the truest sense of the word. Be his figurative third eye, to prevent him from being blindsided. To make him see what he can’t. Even Phil Jackson has a Tex Winter.
Looking across a much smaller pond. The Negros Slashers. Pre-Jun Noel (with a little help from Wainwright’s groin injury) guided the Slashers to the first-ever MBA National Finals against the Pampanga Dragons. Cancelling out a classic confrontation between the traditional basketball powerhouses of the north (Manila) and south (Cebu).
The Slashers organization is grateful to Noel for that trip to the finals. But after the woeful state Negros found itself at the tail end of this year’ first conference, they dropped Noel and turned to Slashers assistant coach Robert Sison. Under him, Negros zoomed to five straight wins. A change for the better, obviously.
The Gems need a level-headed mentor, a steady rudder on its boat. And that’s not even mentioning management.
Am I allowed to say bad words? Something like – constructive criticism?
The Gems’ win over the Pasig-Rizal Pirates yesterday was just a glitch. With the organization unchanged, this team won’t fail to disappoint this basketball-crazy island later. The Gems have been consistent in their inconsistency.
OF ADDENDA AND NO-CALLS. Blazers-Lakers Game 7. Shaquille O’Neal did not have to carry the Lakers, the referees did. Fouls: a left elbow by Shaq to Arvydas Sabonis (uncalled) and a very dubious 6th foul on the Lithuanian when Shaq tried to lay up on him. Steve Smith slashing to the goal through two Lakers before running smack into a wall of a body block named Shaq. No foul called. That makes it three. There’s more. Lakers Robert Horry gets an inbound pass with about three seconds left, Detlef Schrempf fouls him, then the Lakers forward delivers an elbow after the whistle on Schrempf. No second motion or technical assessed on Horry. I rest my case.
Referees blinded by the Big Lights of Big City LA? Or official sanction from NBA Commissioner David Stern? The Glamor Boys of LA will certainly be a bigger draw than the less popular albeit just as gifted Blazers. The league will earn a fewer millions with the elimination of New York, the other big City on the eastern seaboard. The “hick” team Indiana Pacers made sure of that in six games.
O’Neal’s joy after the Lakers pulled through in Game 7 against the Blazers. Rewind to O’Neal’s joy after the first-seed Orlando Magic pulled through for a slot in the National Finals against the West sixth-seed Houston Rockets and his gargantuan disappointment after Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Cassell humiliated O’Neal and Anfernee Hardaway in four straight games. Go underdogs!
Note: This is not the very first sports column I did for a Cebu daily. There were a few others (which I could not find yet). There was no newsroom Internet archiving at the time I started doing a sports column, so Googling won’t do. I will post those lost masterpieces (ahem!) as soon as I get a hold of them (and type them down).
P.S. Pssst! Can you keep a secret? I didn’t get paid for the first four sports columns I ever did, because, as the top-dog editor later told me, “We didn’t agree on it.” As if I needed to tell him that I wasn’t doing it for the money but purely for the pleasure of writing and not getting paid, thus preserving my amateur status. Maybe that’s the reason Olympic athletes in some events are prohibited from endorsing commercial products with the tacit threat that they will lose their valuable amateur status and be unable to play in the Games. It makes for logic in his deviously unethical mind. He also thinks he is a legend.
When one team is better on paper than the other (i.e. Nueva Ecija), has more games won (6-6 against 4-9), is playing on its homecourt (second homecourt, at least), comes off a blowout win over the number-one team in the conference, has been to the conference finals once and the national finals; leads by 25 points in the third quarter then loses by six points in the end – there must be something wrong.
When the home crowd resorts to throwing things at the visiting team, venting its frustration (read: disgust) for the loss on the eventual winner instead of the expected winner on whom the anger really is…definitely, there’s something terribly wrong.
So, if it’s not the lineup, not the court advantage, in what direction should we look for the blame? Without saying choke, which is synonymous with the Gems anyway, can we say coach? Jose Maria Antonio “Tonichi” Yturri’s sour honey attracts flies.
You can’t ask from workhorses Matthew Mitchell, Stephen Padilla, Michael Manigo, Arnold Gamboa, et al. more than they have been giving out.
Can’t help that with creative coaches like Francis Rodriguez and Louie Alas as the helm of the Gems ship, this team could have been champions in the first two seasons with the departed talents like Donaldo Hontiveros, Robert Wainwright, and Chris Mendoza. It’s not that Yturri doesn’t know his basketball. He does. He is a former national and Philippine Basketball Association player. And he did revive the Gems after a sorry 0-3 start in the Metropolitan Basketball Association’s debut season.
DON’T UNDERSTAND. But also last season, Yturri said something like, “I don’t understand this team,” after the Gems won a scrambling victory, erecting a substantial lead then almost losing it to give the game away. Again. Maybe that’s the problem, and Yturri, in his heart of hearts, knows it.
Now, let’s look across a very big pond to search for parallelisms. The Los Angeles Lakers. The Cebu Gems. Both have talent written all over their names. In the latter’s case, at least in last year’s lineup.
Last Monday’s Lakers win over the Portland Trail Blazers was a classic case of composure, after getting back from a big fourth-quarter deficit. Phil Jackson’s admonition to his team when they were behind by 15 points: “Don’t let Shaq carry you. Just play your game.” And the Lakers did, eventually winning by five.
The Lakers have the 7-foot giant Shaquille O’Neal. The Gems have Mitchell, who at 6-6 is no midget himself. Both are the low-post pillars of their teams. Now, if only Yturri could say to the rest of the Gems: “Don’t let Matt carry you.”
Yturri has effectively taken away Manigo’s skill of making points on his own, turning him from a very resourceful individualistic off-guard to point guard and back to off guard. One Cebuano coach has commented on the confusion Yturri has crated in the team by constantly changing his starting lineup. The players in effect don’t know their roles. At least, Mitchell always knows he has to amass most of his point-production in the post. He leads the Gems in points, rebounds, and blocks. He carries the Gems.
‘EXPERIMENTS.’ The local coach also harped on Yturri’s “experiments” – making Manigo, even Giovanni Pineda, the point guard. No fixed roles. No fixed goals. The starters’ confusion rubs off on the relievers.
For the Cebu Gems’ sake, Yturri ether goes or someone comes in to help him coach a misused, misguided, talented team. Someone like former Gems assistant coach Luigi Trillo – an assistant in the truest sense of the word. Be his figurative third eye, to prevent him from being blindsided. To make him see what he can’t. Even Phil Jackson has a Tex Winter.
Looking across a much smaller pond. The Negros Slashers. Pre-Jun Noel (with a little help from Wainwright’s groin injury) guided the Slashers to the first-ever MBA National Finals against the Pampanga Dragons. Cancelling out a classic confrontation between the traditional basketball powerhouses of the north (Manila) and south (Cebu).
The Slashers organization is grateful to Noel for that trip to the finals. But after the woeful state Negros found itself at the tail end of this year’ first conference, they dropped Noel and turned to Slashers assistant coach Robert Sison. Under him, Negros zoomed to five straight wins. A change for the better, obviously.
The Gems need a level-headed mentor, a steady rudder on its boat. And that’s not even mentioning management.
Am I allowed to say bad words? Something like – constructive criticism?
The Gems’ win over the Pasig-Rizal Pirates yesterday was just a glitch. With the organization unchanged, this team won’t fail to disappoint this basketball-crazy island later. The Gems have been consistent in their inconsistency.
OF ADDENDA AND NO-CALLS. Blazers-Lakers Game 7. Shaquille O’Neal did not have to carry the Lakers, the referees did. Fouls: a left elbow by Shaq to Arvydas Sabonis (uncalled) and a very dubious 6th foul on the Lithuanian when Shaq tried to lay up on him. Steve Smith slashing to the goal through two Lakers before running smack into a wall of a body block named Shaq. No foul called. That makes it three. There’s more. Lakers Robert Horry gets an inbound pass with about three seconds left, Detlef Schrempf fouls him, then the Lakers forward delivers an elbow after the whistle on Schrempf. No second motion or technical assessed on Horry. I rest my case.
Referees blinded by the Big Lights of Big City LA? Or official sanction from NBA Commissioner David Stern? The Glamor Boys of LA will certainly be a bigger draw than the less popular albeit just as gifted Blazers. The league will earn a fewer millions with the elimination of New York, the other big City on the eastern seaboard. The “hick” team Indiana Pacers made sure of that in six games.
O’Neal’s joy after the Lakers pulled through in Game 7 against the Blazers. Rewind to O’Neal’s joy after the first-seed Orlando Magic pulled through for a slot in the National Finals against the West sixth-seed Houston Rockets and his gargantuan disappointment after Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Cassell humiliated O’Neal and Anfernee Hardaway in four straight games. Go underdogs!
Note: This is not the very first sports column I did for a Cebu daily. There were a few others (which I could not find yet). There was no newsroom Internet archiving at the time I started doing a sports column, so Googling won’t do. I will post those lost masterpieces (ahem!) as soon as I get a hold of them (and type them down).
P.S. Pssst! Can you keep a secret? I didn’t get paid for the first four sports columns I ever did, because, as the top-dog editor later told me, “We didn’t agree on it.” As if I needed to tell him that I wasn’t doing it for the money but purely for the pleasure of writing and not getting paid, thus preserving my amateur status. Maybe that’s the reason Olympic athletes in some events are prohibited from endorsing commercial products with the tacit threat that they will lose their valuable amateur status and be unable to play in the Games. It makes for logic in his deviously unethical mind. He also thinks he is a legend.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)