Remembering friends

The Philippine Sportswriters Association remembers its friends in tonight’s glamorous PSA-Milo Annual Awards Night, as it honors honors pillars of sports who have made their mark but sadly passed away due to illness and other unforeseen circumstances. There are times in our lives when you think that some people will always be there, and you don’t appreciate their presence until you feel the void of their absence.

Butch Maniego and I have covered all of the country’s most important basketball leagues together. Nobody else can say that, and nobody else will be able to replicate that. We flew all over the country doing games for the PBA, PABL (and later PBL), MBA, UAAP and NCAA. I had the great fortune of working with Butch for 22 years, and as uptight and serious as I was for a long time, he was always relaxed and easygoing. 

Butch and I always traded barbs and fenced with our wits off camera, and backed each other up on camera. Unlike some broadcast partners who shied away from correcting your mistakes on the air, Butch would point it out humorously, and you couldn’t help but laugh. He was our resident human calculator, always ready with probabilities and arithmetically gifted to give you shooting percentages and other stats computed in his head. 

Butch was also a gifted writer and loved games, whether they were role-playing games, card games or board games. He was a scrabble prodigy. On many road trips, the conversation never got boring as he was a repository of surprising knowledge, ranging from musical artists of the past 50 years to sexy actresses from the 1960s to today. His appetites were varied and large, and it was painful to watch him slowly deteriorate. He made our work fun and challenging, and there will never be anyone as colorful as him.

Ajay Pathak always reminds me of the Biblical teaching “the first shall be the last.” The long-time tennis official and enthusiast was one of the very first sports people I had met when I started working as a reporter 27 years ago, and he became a close friend over the last two years. A respected member of the Filipino-Indian community, Ajay was always giving, especially in his role as an ITF official for junior tennis in Asia, where he pioneered significant training camps and tournaments, helping young players travel abroad to compete.

For Ajay, his life was guided simply by God, family and tennis. While my mother was dying in 2011, he was one of very few friends who visited my family in the hospital, offering his own heartfelt prayers. A proud Catholic, he talked about how God would always be there, and offered to help in any way. And he meant it.

After Mom’s passing, he invited me to spend a weekend as his guest in Subic, where the export company he named after his daughter, former national swimmer Em-Em Velasco, was thriving. Ajay was always looking for ways to support his tennis addiction, and was starting up a small academy to develop Filipino kids for international competitions before he got ill. Many of us never got to say goodbye to Ajay, because he kept his illness a secret until it was too late. But his kindness and generosity is something I will always pass on.

Joey Lim was always fun to be around. He was one of the first people to pick through my armor and be friends with the real me. The proud brother of badminton Olympian and former PSC commissioner Weena Lim, Joey was everyone’s buddy. He loved basketball and San Beda so much he became a valuable contributor to both. The Fr. Martin Cup would not be where it is today without his consistent work.

In the late 1990s, we would hang out for weeks on end, probably the last time I remember being able to relax that much and that consistently. Joey was always ready with a joke, a kind word, a consoling thought. He always wanted to help out. And he could never say no to a gathering of friends. That little man waddled his way into many people’s hearts, and he will never be forgotten.

I really don’t have any memories of the Philippine Sports Commission without Bless del Rosario. The institution was formed by law in 1990, and chairman and board members came and went, but Bless was the one constant, always accommodating, always smiling, always ready to assist to the limits of her ability. She was like the Office of the Chairman itself, you always knew she would be there.

Consider how much work needed to be done, and all the secrets that had to be kept. The schedules alone were a nightmare, the revolving door of appointees dizzying. The political currents ever changing. But Bless was always pleasant, never cross, always helpful, even if it was just a place to wait or have a cup of coffee. It will always be a little strange coming up to the chairman’s office and not seeing her there.

Oftentimes, we wait until it is too late before expressing our gratitude to people who made a difference. Let’s make it a habit not to wait.

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This writer would like to congratulate the underdog Asian Eye Institute (AEI) team that won the Senior/ Big League Division of the International Little League Association of Manila (ILLAM), a non-profit sports organization that promotes softball and baseball for kids aged 5-18 yrs old through community based tournaments.

Organized in 1978 by a group of American expats, ILLAM is one of the oldest Little League charters in the country. It has evolved and expanded and is now run and managed by a group of Filipinos and some expats. ILLAM has won the most number of baseball and softball Philippine series tournaments in the last 13 years and has sent the most number of teams in the Little League World Series tournaments held in the various cities in the US every year. My sons played in ILLAM when they were kids.

AEI finished fourth after the triple round robin elimination round against Toyota, Herma and Hotel 101. They then defeated top-seeded Toyota, 11-2 in the knockout semifinal, and were ranged against veteran team Herma in the championship game. AEI won by a massive upset, 15-5, having never previously beaten Herma or Toyota, for that matter.

The stats line revealed an astonishing transformation. In the semifinals and finals, AEI had more hits than in all their elimination games combined. And from having more errors than hits in the elims, the squad registered 20 hits and only two errors in the championship game.

It’s amazing what sheer determination can accomplish. You’re only an underdog if you think you are.