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.

Classic PBA Game : U-Tex and Toyota (1980 First Conference)

I was crazy about the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) when I was growing up. The first game that I really paid attention to turned out to be one of the greatest PBA games ever...That was Game 5 of the 1980 First Conference featuring U-tex and Toyota.

Playing for U-Tex were Bogs Adornado, Lim Eng Beng, Fritz Gaston (a rookie that year from Ateneo), Jimmy Noblezada, and Dave Regullano. There were others whose names I cannot recall at the moment. Their reinforcements (or "imports") were the 6'8" Aaron James and Glenn McDonald. The coach was Tommy Manotoc who, at that time, was also one of the nation's best golfers.

Toyota had Jaworski, Fernandez, Arnaiz, Florencio, Segura, Abe King, Arnie Tuadles, Elmer Legaspi (a crowd favorite), Elmer Bulaong (a bigger crowd favorite), and Rino Salazar. They also had two imports but I can only remember Andy Fields. Their coach was Fort Acuna who was a former teammate of Jawo at Meralco.

This was one of the few championship series, in the early year of the PBA, which was not a Crispa-Toyota affair. Bogs Adornado had just moved from Crispa (where he had won two MVP awards) and was just beginning a comeback after missing almost two years with a serious injury.

The game will be remembered for its final 16 seconds. Toyota was up by four. Although U-Tex was inbounding the ball, it seemed like Toyota had already clinched the series. In fact, I remember the Toyota crowd celebrating already. A streamer had already been unfurled in the gallery section saying "Congratulations to the Toyota Tamaraws! 1980 First Conference Champions". I remember Jaworski waving to the crowd during that final timeout while putting his arm over his wife's shoulder.

U-tex scored a quick two on a layup from Aaron James. Toyota inbounded the ball and took it to the frontcourt. I think the ball was in Tuadles' hands when two U-tex players ganged up on him. He made a bad pass to the other side of the court, and U-tex was able to steal the ball. U-tex was able to tie the game on two free throws and they went into Overtime where U-tex took control and held on to win its first championship. It was a great game and it was amazing to see a crowd go crazy for 48 minutes.

What I found remarkable about that game is how the local players led the scoring. Both Adornado and Lim Eng Beng scored more than 30 points in that game. That would change a few years later when when it became normal for imports to score more than half of the team's points.

I wish the PBA will find a way to show us these classic games. I would subscribe to such a service. Maybe they can sell the games over I-tunes. That would really be cool. For the moment, PBA legends like Ricardo Brown, are posting these games on Youtube for us to remember.