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: 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: Against the Ropes
SITTING inside one of the tower suites of the posh and elegant Wynn Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is a thrill in itself.
But sitting here, on a soft red sofa stretched out lazily in the middle of a living room while waiting for your turn to finally get to talk to Manny Pacquiao heightens the sensation. It’s like a scene straight out of a well-funded mafia B-movie.
For someone who has the EQ equivalent of a two-year-old, I am surprised that there is no wave of impatience coursing through my body, which would have had me convulsing and frothing at the mouth by this time, as I watch the endless stream of people taking their turns beside the Philippine boxing hero.
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