Our boys of American summer

Last April I wrote about deja-vu-ing to enjoy a sport that doesn’t quite attract Pinoys as much as it did when we were co-lords in the region half a century ago, with Japan as our only rivals in the American passion that is baseball.

Clark Field was the venue for the Little League Philippines’ tourney where the MLL (Muntinlupa Little League) Big League division of 17-18-year-olds (the highest division of Little Leaguers) copped the championship, earning then the right to represent the country in the Asia-Pacific championship in Guam.

Well, that tourney, held on July 4 to 9 at the Paseo Stadium in Guam, eventually involved only three teams: Guam as the host, CNMI or Commonwealth Northern Mariana Island, a.k.a. Saipan, and Pilipinas (after Thailand and Hong Kong had backed out). And our boys emerged as the champs again!

This means they’ll represent Asia-Pacific in the Little League World Series to be held in Easley, South Carolina on July 25 to Aug. 1. Hooray! Er, Mabuhay!

Pilipinas beat out contenders Guam and Saipan after a double round-robin series. All three teams wound up beating one another once, thus settling for 2-2 win-loss tallies. The Philippines won the championship by virtue of the tiebreak criterion of least total number of runs allowed.

Both Saipan and Guam allowed many more runs than the Philippines, which scored 13 runs in the four games played, but only gave up the same number of runs with its strong battery of pitchers, namely Carlos Muñoz, Paco Tantuico, Miguel Salud and Tsuyoshi Horibata.

The rest of the team included captain and catcher Dio Remollo, Francisco Hashimoto, Ado Iñigo, Tuwi Park, Johnny Altomonte, Justin Mathay, Quito Castro, Johndel Tolosa, Ferdinand Liguayan and Alfa Ian Turaray. This MLL team is composed of players from Ateneo, La Salle, National University, Rizal Technological University, and from the Cebu Dolphins, Manila Sharks, Alabang Tigers and Dumaguete Unibikers of Baseball Philippines. 

Team manager Felipe “Ping” Remollo (former Dumaguete City Mayor) — backstopped by coaches Ricardo Jimenez, Marlon Caspillo and Lolito Pulgo — exulted in the victory and promised to have his boys compete well against tall odds in the World Series, where they will go up against Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Canada and the African-European champs (likely the Netherlands) in the international bracket. The top two teams from this group will then enter the knockout semifinals against the top two American teams.

It’ll be a tough go, especially the first two games, as the best youngsters from Puerto Rico and Venezuela are usually scouted for the US pro leagues, and in fact often graduate straight from the Little League to pro baseball farm teams. 

Per veteran Little League coach Pepe Muñoz, the best that our Big League teams have done in the World Series is place third or fourth, which means missing out on the crossover semis.

But with sports, one never knows, as tough odds have been overcome time and again. The way the MLL team representing Pilipinas won the regional championship last week may be said to be one more example of nothing being over until the fat lady sings all the way out of the building, make that stadium.

Our team lost its first game, against the host, 1-4. They just couldn’t put hits together, recounted Ping Remollo at a celebratory welcome dinner hosted by “baseball mom” Carlyn Trota Salud the night the team got back last Tuesday. 

Our boys got their bearings against CNMI, which they led 3 to 1 when rain forced a discontinuation by the 5th inning. The suspended game was resumed on Pilipinas’ third game date, with our boys finally winning it, 3 to 2, before facing the same Saipan team anew for the scheduled regular game that day. It was a tight game, but Saipan got even also at 3-2 to send our hopes crashing. Seemingly.

If we could get back at Guam the next day, and if Guam also lost to Saipan on the final game day, then it would be a triple tie. As it stood with two games left, it appeared that the hosts had the inside track on Asia-Pacific representation, with their 2-0 tally, while both Saipan and Pilipinas had 1-2 slates. 

By the time Pilipinas faced Guam a second time, the kids’ parents here in Manila had already developed a system of getting to follow the game in real time, through texting. A TV sports anchor in Guam, Janella Carrera, would SMS brief reports on the game’s progress, keeping the parents here, mostly moms, in tenterhooks as they discussed possibilities and permutations, while often relying on Coach Pepe to issue clarifications.

I got into that circuit with the game well under way. “Top of the 6th, PHL 5, Guam 4.” Hey. We were up. Go, boys, make it a bigger margin. Then came long-drawn suspense. Guam’s manager had filed a protest. Came the following details by e-mail: 

“Right now the ‘experts’ are trying to figure how many pitches a pitcher can pitch. They’ve been at it for an hour now. Isn’t there a rulebook somewhere?”

More SMS and e-mail details came. “They contend that Paco (Tantuico) threw a total of 36 pitches for the 2 games yesterday. We contend that the 1st game was a continued game (di ba nga!?? They got rained out last Thursday kaya di tinapos???!!). The rule on combining pitches thrown in a day applied to double headers. We did NOT have a double header. It WAS a continued game. And besides, Steve Guerrero (the tournament director) cleared it before the game. Coach Ping is arguing it now.”

In Little League baseball, the kids’ throwing arms are protected by a regulation limiting a pitcher to 30 pitches in a game, unless a coach is willing to “burn” him beyond that, in which case he can’t pitch until after resting for a day or two, depending on how many pitches he had thrown.

After a wait of nearly 90 minutes, there came no explanation on how the impasse had been resolved, only a heartening text: “Top of 7th — we’re up 7-4!” Oh wow, so the game had continued. And soon, the official word was that the score had held in our win against Guam.

As it turned out, as detailed by Ping over that welcome dinner, the protest was held to be valid: that Paco had pitched the maximum the day before, and that the minute he was brought in as replacement pitcher in the middle of the game against Guam, his first pitch became questionable. What took so long to resolve was whether that constituted a game forfeiture, in which case Pilipinas’ lead over Guam would stand for naught — as Guam’s feisty manager kept insisting.

It took a call to Little League’s top honchos in the USA to come up with the verdict: just change the pitcher and continue the game. Which we then won.

Guam still had the inside track on the championship the next day, in the final game against Saipan, which had nothing to play for but pride. Because even if they beat Guam and tied everything up at 2-2 slates, the championship would go to Pilipinas, which had allowed the least number of runs at 13, whereas Guam’s first-game victory against Saipan, at 8-7, had worked against both teams with its high-scoring outcome.

Big worry on the part of the Muntinlupa Moms. Came an assuring text from Janela Carrera: “I think CNMI will try hard to win for Phils. The whole Saipan team was there cheering for Phils players today. It was quite cute and encouraging to watch. They really helped rally the boys.”

Came another input: “YES! Saipan and Guam (for Little League at least) have this bitter, bitter rivalry that goes waaaay back. We also think they will fight hard to ‘gift’ the Phils with a win! The Saipan boys are very nice and friendly... I can’t say as much about the Guam boys... Shhh...”

Ha-ha. Guam had scored 17 runs and given up 16. CNMI was at 13-14, PHL at 13-13. The only way Saipan could both win and gain the championship (this explained to me by Coach Pepe, anent the matter of what are called “defensive innings” or the ratio of runs allowed for total innings) would be to take the game to a 0-0 tie for the regular 7 innings, extend the game to a 9th inning, and win by a run. Highly improbable, then.

Well, the Muntinlupa prayer brigade went to work. “Saipan...please please win!!!”

Janella’s broken reports had everybody biting their prayerful lips. “At the game now. 5th inning, tied 4-4. … 6-4 CNMI … Bottom of 6th inning now. Guam is at bat. Sorry... Now it’s bottom. Saipan is up at bat score still 4-6 Saipan … 2 more outs and Saipan wins! … Bases loaded. But only cause Saipan pitcher keeps hitting batter with balls. Score 5-9 Saipan.1 more out. Crowd now standing in Saipan favor. Hit another batter. …”

Uh-oh, was it all pre-arranged? The cynical males of MetroManila who knew their baseball had the moms turning edgy. A grandslam homer by Guam would make that 8-9. If the Saipan pitcher keeps on filling the bases by hitting the batters, why can’t their coach replace him?

Well, it turns out that they had run out of regular pitchers, and the Saipan players were taking turns just to try to end the game. But at 6 p.m. in Guam, 8 p.m. in Manila, the good word! “Saipan wins!!!”

That was exactly a week ago, last Monday. Tears of relief and joy seemed palpable in texts, e-mail, and on Facebook. The Muntinlupa Moms’ prayers had worked. The following evening they welcomed their triumphant boys home.

And next week most of them won’t miss the chance of a lifetime in accompanying their kids, Asia-Pacific Little League champs, to Easley, South Carolina, where the best boys of summer throughout the world compete for the supreme title.

Win or lose, indeed it should be an experience only a few mothers and fathers can lay claim to in their memory of eternal summers played and replayed in the mind, involving a so-called pastime that is really more of a passion.