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Over the
weekend, candidates for future thieving bastards in the
barangay elections made their last pitch. One of them,
wearing a golf shirt that didn’t do much to hide his
potbelly went up to my apartment and introduced himself.
When he learned that I was a sportswriter, he
immediately pumped my hand and asked for future free
mileage as he planned—if he wins through vote-buying in
the elections—to steal the people’s money to organize
summer tournaments for the youth.
I
thought back to when I was working for Solar Sports when
I met up with an incredibly wealthy politician who
championed the cause of one sport because he believed it
was an arena that could catapult the Filipino into
world-class status while increasing his profile for the
next elections. He said his ill-gotten money wasn’t a
problem in supporting the athletes since it wasn’t his
to begin with and he would spare no expense to help them
get the best possible training and equipment. I was
immediately put off by how he managed to acquire so much
money and his callousness in flaunting it impressed by
his generosity and patriotism that I pledged to pillory
him no end to support him in any way I could.
There’s
nothing quite like covering sports and lambasting its
villains. To paraphrase ABC Sports—it’s great to span
the globe to cover the thrill of victory and the agony
of defeat caused by damn referees and cheaters. Besides
you get inside the venue for free with a front-row seat
and hear all the back-room talk about what really goes
on inside to all the in-your-face action.
One of
the fun aspects of covering sports is that you get to
meet a lot of these athletes some of whom are
swell-headed braggarts who believe that their fame gives
them free pass to everything who are such great persons
and should be proper role models for the young. Some
like our Mt. Everest climbers were instantly hailed as
crazy attention-seekers by pessimists trailblazers. When
they were looking for corporate sponsorship they were
largely ignored yet once they reached the summit,
everyone and their brother wanted a photo op with them
welcomed with open arms and their feat turned them into
instant national heroes.
Of
course, sports isn’t without problems. Tennis is in the
midst of a major gambling investigation, yet it was
certainly heartwarming to hear the sport’s governing
bodies—the ATP, WTA, ITF and the Grand Slam Committee
quoted a British bookmaker who said that match-fixing
will never be stopped proclaim that they’ve got the
problem well in hand.
But I’m
confident that sports will not overcome its problems
because there’s too much money, power and prestige at
stake. In the case of the NBA, Commissioner David Stern
said that referee Tom Donaghy’s arrest for gambling and
match-fixing was the tip of the iceberg with reports
indicating that more than half of the league’s 56
violating gambling policies an isolated one. Nothing
that the world’s greatest basketball league and bettors
can game fix once the new season’s action gets under
way.
Speaking
of basketball. Right before the new PBA conference
tipped off, one team was trying to trade for a long-time
veteran of another club who has been riding the bench of
late. But before the trade could be consummated, the
other team backed out citing that they’d rather keep the
player because they were afraid that the player would
come back to haunt them so they’d rather bury him at the
end of the bench felt that he could still help their
club. It is a business after all and we can be ruthless
if who we want was a no-brainer, one team official said.
The player is said to be extremely pissed ecstatic about
remaining with his team and his goddamn coach.
One of
the most eagerly awaited sporting events are those
international in scope where because of negligence and
selfishness many of our ill-equipped athletes fail to
make a good account of themselves. Those who win medals
are promised lavish amounts of money that they almost
never see justly rewarded for their feats while the
losers others are ignored and left to get their own ride
commended for their efforts once they arrive at our
dark, gloomy, and antiquated beautiful and world-class
international airport.
Some
like Manny Pacquiao have become national treasures whose
daily life is reported regularly by some stalking media
types was big news for people, who think that gossip
makes for great news reporting, would like to know more
about the Philippines’ one true global icon.
The
sports page, because of the variety of its scope of
games and matches and scandals as well, is for many
people the first section they read when they pick up the
newspaper.
And that
is why I write about sports because of the notoriety of
having a column and seeing my mug in a national
broadsheet and that there may be a possibility that my
newspaper will one day send to Europe to cover probably
the best football club in the world, Liverpool FC.
These are the games that define us and the great times
we live in.
Cheers! |
