Patriot games

I was going to write about the New England Patriots this week — my hometown (Massachusetts) NFL team that just made history with a “perfect” regular season of 16 wins, zero losses. One for the books, as they say.

But I realized, yet again, that nobody around these parts gives a fried banana about American football. At least nobody I come into contact with.

Football — American-style, that is — is just another item where my alien-ness leaves me lost in translation. It’s the same with the Boston Red Sox. My home team won its second World Series in a decade a few months back, and most people I mentioned this to just nodded at me like I was a mental patient. Like, who cares, pare? Pipe down, Deal Or No Deal is on. Maybe I should start a Red Sox Anonymous chapter here.

But to be fair, I don’t particularly understand a lot of things about local culture, so I shouldn’t expect Filipinos to get excited about something as remote and meaningless as the NFL. (Hey, they hardly even show the games on cable here.)

For my part, I don’t really understand the local college basketball rivalries. All those chants just seem a little crazed to me. Maybe that’s because, in the past, we New England fans didn’t chant for the Patriots, the Red Sox and the Celtics (who are also experiencing a renaissance). We prayed. Silently.

Now we have something to crow about, but no one to crow to. The Patriots go into the Super Bowl with the best NLF regular season record in 35 years, edging out the New York Giants 38-35 last week. A perfect season. And nobody cares.

But, like I said, it’s not like I’m truly conversant in local cultural phenomena myself. I don’t understand all those local TV shows with superheroes, for instance, or the ones with people wearing tons of deforming makeup. No one has been able to explain it to me.

And I never really understood why “It’s all up to Batman.” (“Bahala na si Batman.”) Seriously. Batman? Anybody care to enlighten me on this?

And I could never really fathom why the phrase “Merry Christmas,” when spoken with a smile during the holiday season here, is understood to mean “Give me money, please.”

And I don’t really get how some people can think a former military man who leads a failed coup, then gets elected senator, then proceeds to take over yet another posh Makati location, should be considered a “hero.” But maybe I lack a crucial hero-identifying gene.

Nor do I understand the endless gyrating that takes place on TV shows like Wowowee or Eat Bulaga, even though I have stared at them in baffled wonder every time I’m on the gym treadmill. Watching such noontime fare, aliens from another world would have to conclude that they’ve landed on the Planet of the People With Tiny Motors In Their Derrieres.

Of course, Filipinos have their own sports heroes to root for, and rightfully so. In boxing, billiards, and in golf. Yet, perversely, what do they gravitate toward the most? Basketball. A game for which, one could argue, they might be somewhat vertically challenged.

On the other hand, I can understand why Filipinos might not think NFL teams are all that great. First, there’s all that Transformers gear, like some bad Filipino sci-fi movie. I mean, each NFL player wears about 60 pounds of equipment — shoulder pads, kneepads, helmets and the like — and this might strike the average Pinoy as a bit “sissy,” needing so much protection. But as George Plimpton noted in his book about playing with the Detroit Lions (Paper Lion), if a 350-pound dude is about to run right over you, you’d better be wearing crash gear, if you want to live to play a second game.

But so far, American football has failed to extend its reach beyond US shores or ignite worldwide fan worship as the other “futbol” has. Few Patriot fans are likely to proliferate on these shores. Maybe it’s all about marketing. It’s probably a lot easier to sell phrases like “Bend it like Beckham” than “Pass it like Brady.” Anyway, the only “passing” that Filipinos are concerned about this time of year is passing the lechon.

The other Filipino disconnect with American football comes from the simple fact that there are no flat, grassy fields in Metro Manila. Basketball courts are pretty portable; you can throw one up in an abandoned lot anywhere. But football fields are hard to come by. In fact, if you ever do see a flat, grassy field in Makati, make sure you don’t blink; by the time you’ve opened your eyes, someone will have sold it and thrown up a mall in its place.

But of course, this doesn’t explain the overabundance of golf courses in the Philippines. All that land needing to be landscaped, watered and cleaned every day, and they can’t leave a few football fields lying around? Anyway, most golf courses are built on hilly terrain, which is not so good for football. Though it might make games more interesting.

I guess it comes down to this: there are certain things that remain, for me, as an American living here, personal, private victories. I don’t really need to share them with everybody. I grew up in New England, so this somehow keeps me linked to those home teams on a crude cellular level — even if I’m only a casual fan, someone who only perks up mid-season, when the winning patterns are already in place. After all, who wants to hang around watching a train wreck?

And because I’m a foreigner, this might be one of the few remaining things that still connects me back to home. American news seems very remote, when viewed on television. So they just completed the “Big Dig,” the most expensive tunnel project in US history, at a cost to Bostonians of $14.8 billion? Whoop-de-doo. No new American TV shows because the writers are on strike? Boo-hoo. The Iowa primaries are over and Obama and Huckabee are in the lead? Whoo-hoo. But as long as the home teams keep on playing every year, there will be a certain continuity to my life. Unless there’s a strike, of course.

And maybe it’s okay if Filipinos don’t give a sizzling plate of sisig which NFL team comes out in front this year. There’s a lot of things I truly don’t comprehend about Filipino culture, either. But that doesn’t mean I can’t accept such things. And nod my head like the person telling me is a mental patient.

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