Filed under: Against the Ropes
A sportswriter friend of mine invited me to try out boxing as a new sport.
She included this warning, though: It’s going to be tough. My body’s going to ache for days, so much that I won’t be able to raise my hand, yawn, laugh, twist my midsection, turn my head, scratch my back, do the split, perform cartwheels, breakdance and do back-flips at the edge of the top floor of high-rise buildings for a couple of weeks.
“You’d have to be crazy to try it,” she said.
Not the most inviting of propositions—one that made me want to ask her if she was really asking me to join or not—but heck, I said yes.
Filed under: Sportscenter
“So, what’s your favorite moment in sports?”
The willowy La Salle student, a mass communication major who moonlights as a varsity for her school’s volleyball squad, asked me.
Her friend, who was filming the interview, sat beside her, eyes round in anticipation for the answer.
I took a sip from a large cup containing iced white chocolate, leaned against one of those cushioned chairs in the corner coffee shop near my place and fell into a wonderful wave of reminiscing.
“Well,” I said. “There are a lot, I don’t know where to start, really. Are you sure you have enough memory space on your camcorder for this?”
The two students, who earlier sought this appointment to interview me for a school project, nodded in unison, almost hypnotically, as if they were expecting me to retell the time I rode a Space Shuttle and joined a NASA expedition to Mars.
But hey, there was nothing that spectacular about my job as a sportswriter.
Still, the moments that leave your hair bristling are a-plenty.
Filed under: Above the Rim
It isn’t wise to start the New Year on the wrong foot. But the Basketball Association of the Philippines apparently wants to do just that.
If you’re reading this on the 11th of January, then somewhere along today, the BAP is filing a libel suit against Inquirer columnist Recah Trinidad and sports editor Teddyvic Melendres.
I read a faxed advisory by the group’s lawyer, Bonifacio Alentajan (yes, him. Apparently the BAP believes that one controversy-riddled organization deserves a controvery-riddled lawyer) but failed to make a mental note as to where the case was to be filed.
They did not specify which of Ka Recah’s columns is the subject of their libel case but since my job entails copyreading, editing and closing sports pages for the country’s No. 1 paper, I pretty much have an idea as to which piece is under judicial fire right now.
It is the one where Ka Recah calls BAP sec-gen Graham Lim a bedbug. A surot.
Filed under: Above the Rim
(Because a lot of you bloggers will not be able to get a copy of the limited edition Sports Page, the yearend publication of the Philippine Sportswriters Association, I decided to post some of the articles featured in that magazine. It took a little cajoling plus a promise of a few bottles of beers when arm-twisting failed before Gerry Ramos, who collates the articles before handing them over to the editor who closes the magazine, furnished me with the hard copies of the articles.
It took cellphone airtime and a little bit more charm to convince those writers to have their articles posted on this blog. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this because the Sports Page usually offers these writers a chance to flex their creative muscles without the constraints of tight editorial newspaper space to restrain them.
To those who hope to become sportswriters in the future, here’s a look at what sportswriting should be.)
Filed under: Sportscenter
(Because a lot of you bloggers will not be able to get a copy of the limited edition Sports Page, the yearend publication of the Philippine Sportswriters Association, I decided to post some of the articles featured in that magazine. It took a little cajoling plus a promise of a few bottles of beers when arm-twisting failed before Gerry Ramos, who collates the articles before handing them over to the editor who closes the magazine, furnished me with the hard copies of the articles.
It took cellphone airtime and a little bit more charm to convince those writers to have their articles posted on this blog. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this because the Sports Page usually offers these writers a chance to flex their creative muscles without the constraints of tight editorial newspaper space to restrain them.
To those who hope to become sportswriters in the future, here’s a look at what sportswriting should be.)
Filed under: Sportscenter
(Because a lot of you bloggers will not be able to get a copy of the limited edition Sports Page, the yearend publication of the Philippine Sportswriters Association, I decided to post some of the articles featured in that magazine. It took a little cajoling plus a promise of a few bottles of beers when arm-twisting failed before Gerry Ramos, who collates the articles before handing them over to the editor who closes the magazine, furnished me with the hard copies of the articles.
It took cellphone airtime and a little bit more charm to convince those writers to have their articles posted on this blog. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this because the Sports Page usually offers these writers a chance to flex their creative muscles without the constraints of tight editorial newspaper space to restrain them.
To those who hope to become sportswriters in the future, here’s a look at what sportswriting should be.)
Filed under: Above the Rim
(Because a lot of you bloggers will not be able to get a copy of the limited edition Sports Page, the yearend publication of the Philippine Sportswriters Association, I decided to post some of the articles featured in that magazine. It took a little cajoling plus a promise of a few bottles of beers when arm-twisting failed before Gerry Ramos, who collates the articles before handing them over to the editor who closes the magazine, furnished me with the hard copies of the articles.
It took cellphone airtime and a little bit more charm to convince those writers to have their articles posted on this blog. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this because the Sports Page usually offers these writers a chance to flex their creative muscles without the constraints of tight editorial newspaper space to restrain them.
To those who hope to become sportswriters in the future, here’s a look at what sportswriting should be.)
Filed under: Sportscenter
(Because a lot of you bloggers will not be able to get a copy of the limited edition Sports Page, the yearend publication of the Philippine Sportswriters Association, I decided to post some of the articles featured in that magazine. It took a little cajoling plus a promise of a few bottles of beers when arm-twisting failed before Gerry Ramos, who collates the articles before handing them over to the editor who closes the magazine, furnished me with the hard copies of the articles.
It took cellphone airtime and a little bit more charm to convince those writers to have their articles posted on this blog. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this because the Sports Page usually offers these writers a chance to flex their creative muscles without the constraints of tight editorial newspaper space to restrain them.
To those who hope to become sportswriters in the future, here’s a look at what sportswriting should be.)
Filed under: Against the Ropes
I will forever remember this year as the one where I finally took that plane ride halfway around the world to the country I swore I would never set foot on when I was a dumb and ignorant 12-year-old still filled with utmost love for my country and thoroughly puzzled over why people would want to leave this tiny patch of paradise for that place called the United States of America.
And that, kids, is how not to write an opening sports sentence, never mind if this IS MY FRIGGING BLOG and I am free to impose the literary rules by which entries here will be judged against.
Anyway, yes. As the curtains fall on 2006, every true-blue sports fan in the country will have to remember this year as the year Manny Pacquiao awoke that long-dead feeling of patriotism in all of us.
I was invited to write an article on Manny Pacquiao for the Sports Page, the annual publication of the Philippine Sportswriters Association. The invitation took me by surprise because I am usually invited to write basketball features for that magazine. Manny Pacquiao? He used to be the exclusive domain of Manila Bulletin’s Nick Giongco, known hereabouts as the Encyclopedia of Boxing and Boxing Writing.
It took about two seconds for the surprise to fade and for flattery to settle in. A few more seconds that faded and hubris set in. Hey, I am only human.
Right after pounding out the first line, though, pressure crept in, along with a text message that said that the venerable Ding Marcelo, the Manila Bulletin sports editor who was closing the magazine, was getting antsy as I had broken the deadline, the deadline extension and the please-give-me-one-more-chance-to-finish-the-article extension for my piece.
Anyway, since the Sports Page is a limited edition magazine and it has no website, I decided to post the story here. Hopefully, when I get the hard copies of the other stories in that magazine, I will be able to post them here, too.
For now, just read about Manny Pacquiao and why, as the year comes to a close, his name stands out as the one that made sports memorable for 2006.
Filed under: Above the Rim
If I were Isaiah Thomas, I’d buy out the contracts of half of my roster, don a grass skirt and start dancing the hula.
If I were Pat Riley, I’d curl my hair, sport an afro ‘do and trade my sleek Armanis for a track suit.
If I were Kevin Garnett, I’d start sulking in one corner and refuse to play until I have my little request completed.
Allen Iverson is on the trading block and I would do everything to make sure his next uniform will be that of my team.
Forget the tattoos. Look past the corn rows. Never mind that he has dueled with coaches before. He hates practice? Who cares?
Allen Iverson is the one player who checks into every NBA game with one thing in mind. Win.
