Thursday, December 01, 2011

My Historic First Live PBA Game

In the movie Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns, Billy crystal narrated how he saw his first Yankee game. He shared how he had goosebumps as he entered the tunnel leading out to the stands and seeing the glorious green expanse of the baseball field...finally getting to see his idols Mantle, Berra, and Ford.
I reminds me of a similar feeling when my dad brought me to my first professional sports game. It was November 23, 1980. The PBA ALL FILIPINO CONFERENCE was on at the Araneta coliseum. The lights are not as bright as it is now. They only focused on the court such that you could not see the crowd much. A player I can't recall was warming up by shooting hoops. but that was enough for me. As soon as I entered the door into upper box B, I knew I was in Mecca. I had goosebumps all over. The thought of seeing my heroes in the flesh had finally come.
I was as excited to watch the first game: U-Tex versus San Miguel because it featured my idol Bogs Adornado, who in my opinion is the greatest scorer of all time. San Miguel was a decent team. I can only recall a handful of players from that team: Rudy Lalota, Torrente, Yoyong Martirez and Biboy Ravanes. A guy behind us must have been a big fan (or maybe a relative) of Ravanes because he kept shouting "ala biboy" whenever he had the ball.
Adornado was scoring like mad the whole game. Before that, he held the league scoring record of 54 points in a game. When the night was over , he would finish with 64. A new record and what would be his career best.
Unbelievable. It was my first time to see a game and my idol played the game of his career.
...and oh. The next game wasn't bad at all. It was Crispa and Toyota. 'nuff said.

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