Pacquiao mobbed in US capital

WASHINGTON D.C. – Manny Pacquiao, the world’s greatest boxer, felt right at home the moment he set foot at the nation’s capital Monday evening.

 “Welcome to my crib (home),” Pacquiao said as the train that carried him and his group from New York City arrived at the historic Union Station here at around 7 p.m.

Yes, it’s the first time that the fighting congressman from the Philippines set foot in Washington, a place he said he’d only heard of or seen on TV.

Yet, almost everybody knew him.

He was a walking magnet every step of the way, people calling his name, reaching out for his hand, and dying to have an autograph or a picture taken with him.

It’s been the same scene the past five days during the press tour for his May 7 fight with Shane Mosley, with previous stops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York.

Pacquiao was too easy to spot even if he was surrounded by people from Top Rank and from the media, who were given special passes, orange wristbands, for the three-hour ride from the Big Apple.

He wore a brown overcoat and a Bruce Lee hairdo, and had his lovely, cheerful wife holding on to him. There were cameras all over the couple who were celebrating Valentine’s Day.

They were to share an intimate dinner with the boxer’s chief adviser, Mike Koncz, and his wife, Racquel, in one fancy restaurant here.

“Manny Pacquiao! Manny Pacquiao! You’re the greatest boxer ever!” said a female fan, probably a Mexican, at the train station that looked like a cathedral from the inside, as she reached out for the boxer’s hand.

“Go Manny! Go knock him out!” hollered a male fan, who looked like an American, even if Pacquiao will soon be up against an American, Shane Mosley.

Among the media outfits that had reps on the great train ride were CNN, New York Times, NY Daily News, the National Public Radio or NPR, Wall Street, Playboy Magazine, The Examiner.com, AOL Fanhouse, Showtime and giant network giant CBS, GMA-7.

Pacquiao did make a lot of heads turn.

“We will have a picture taken with the President,” Pacquiao said as he looked forward to a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday.

Barring any last-minute changes, the highly awaited meeting takes place in the afternoon, after Pacquiao moves around town for a meeting with US Senate Majority Flood Leader Harry Reid.

Reid will take Pacquiao to the Senate floor. Also scheduled is a visit to the offices of USA Today. The weather is freezing here in Washington, with a high of eight, and a low of zero degrees Celsius up for today.

If he gets to meet the President, he becomes only the second Filipino athlete ever to do so at the White House, after legendary golfer Celestino Tugot who came to President Dwight Eisenhower’s office in 1954.

Pacquiao’s official entourage stayed at The Hay-Adams, the elegant hotel which is as close as you can get to the White House. It sits just across the President’s home.

Pacquiao flies back to Los Angeles by sundown Tuesday.

In New York, Pacquiao and Mosley staged a press conference at the Chelsea Pier, and parted ways at around 2 p.m. Pacquiao proceeded to the New York Daily News office for an interview and a quick photo shoot.

The Chelsea Pier gig was opened to the public, making it very difficult for Pacquiao to get out of the building, on to the covered parking lot and to a waiting SUV.

Pacquiao was mobbed on the way out, and was nearly pinned by the crowd against the van parked beside his service SUV. He had to shield his wife from the crowd.

Notes: Fred Sternburg, the Top Rank publicist, opened up the Chelsea Pier press conference with this statement: People, this is a professional media event. No pictures, no autographs with the boxers for the members of the media. Anybody getting caught will be escorted out, and his or her credential taken away. That’s how they do things here.... There are only 230 tickets left for the fight, still two and a half months away, according to Bob Halloran, president of MGM Mirage Inc. When the MGM opened its ticket booths to the public just a couple of weeks ago, 16,000 or the 17,000-plus seats were sold in three hours. On the Internet, tickets with a face value of $1,500 are now being sold for as much as $8,000....