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.