Do you know how popular basketball is in the Philippines? We’ve had blogposts about three Dream League tournament MVPs ending up on the same roster in the PBA, but aside from references like that, do you really know how popular basketball is in “the PI”? Someone very qualified is here to give you the proper context.
His name is Rafe Bartholomew and he’s coming out with a book next month that talks about this very thing: “Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball”.
Through my homies at GSoM, I’m happy to say that I’m getting an advanced copy of the book to review. I’ll be in talks with the publicist on how to get the book pushed through the Dream League community (10,000 Asian-American rec ballers strong!).
Inspiration for this blogpost goes to HoopsHype, which tweeted they were shocked to find Manila ranking 5th in total number of hits in the world on their site, after mega-metros NY, LA, Chicago, and Toronto of North America.
Here’s a blogpost on Free Darko by Bartholomew, where you can find the awesome photo of a Filipino kid dunking on a wooden backboard in a rural area in the Philippines: http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2010/02/fd-guest-lecture-where-magaling-happens.html
Here’s a recent interview with Bartholomew: In the Bullpen
Here’s the full text of the press release, as forwarded to me by GSoM…
IN THE PHILIPPINES, AUTHOR RAFE BARTHOLOMEW WAS IN SEARCH OF
A CULTURAL PHENOMENON…
A NATION’S FIERCE DEVOTION TO THE GAME OF BASKETBALL.
HE FOUND THE SOUL OF THE GAME.
PACIFIC RIMS
BEERMEN BALLIN’ IN FLIP-FLOPS
AND THE PHILIPPINES’ UNLIKELY LOVE AFFAIR WITH BASKETBALL
They play on earthen courts. Hoops are nailed to coconut trees. Backboards are made out of the rusted hoods of old cars. Rims sport hand-woven nets. But on these often primitive courts there is an elevated level of skill and artistry. Here, body-twisting, triple-clutching hang-time is used for sublime “circus” shots that nearly every player seems capable of.
This is basketball in the Philippines.
The Philippines. A politically unhinged land with no international reputation for basketball. Somehow the sport is a cultural force. It’s not only a pastime, it’s a passion. Hoops are everywhere. The game is a part of everyday life and brings joy to almost everyone. There simply is no other game.
The ball doesn’t bounce high off the dirt, but the Filipino version of the sport is a fast-paced, brutal ballet in flip-flops. When Rafe Bartholomew read about the fierce Filipino infatuation with basketball he needed to witness it for himself. Bartholomew—a Fulbright scholar, full-court fanatic and self-proclaimed hoops savant—left for the Philippines as a trailblazing basketball anthropologist.
The result of his journey is an intriguing cross-cultural study of an improbable hoops nation, “PACIFIC RIMS: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball” (New American Library). Stretching a Fulbright stipend meant for one year to three, Bartholomew blends into the culture as much as a relatively tall Caucasian man can in the Philippines. He splits his time between pick-up games and documenting the modest, but inspiring hoop dreams occurring around him.
Could forty million undeniably short men with an average height five-foot-five be so obsessed with the big man’s game that is basketball? Absolutely. Basketball has been the country’s dominant team game since the 1930s and somewhere along the line Filipinos developed a strong emotional bond. From day one, it was obvious to Bartholomew that the Filipino fanaticism for the sport was deeply ingrained.
In PACIFIC RIMS, Bartholomew also follows the nation’s exceedingly popular professional league. Playing from night to night in sweltering heat and in front of truly frothy fans, the players in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) are the icons of the country. In the old days, basketball in the Philippines was the equivalent of a street fight in shorts. But today, the pro game is an echo of the American game with imported superstars, contract negotiations, advertising revenue, playoff runs and a desire for good team chemistry. And with teams like the Talk-N-Text Phone Pals, the Purefoods Chunkee Giants, the San Miguel Beermen, Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants, and the Great Taste Coffeemakers, there is no denying the sport’s marketability. In the arenas, nuns share aisles with television starlets. At home, families end their evenings with PBA doubleheaders. Everyone watches.
PACIFIC RIMS also chronicles
* The ascent of basketball as Filipinos learned to play before the rest of the world.
* How basketball in the postwar years became a way for the Philippines’ to reassert their worthiness as a nation.
* Why basketball is more popular than soccer in the Philippines.
* How longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos used his sponsorship of the game as a basketball-for-votes quid pro quo.
* The life and trials of expat international ball.
* The Filipino career of NBA washout Billy Ray Bates—one of the greatest doomed tragic heroes in the history of the sport.
* The ballplayers—homegrown and imported—who have become legends.
* The “circus” shots used in Filipino roundball (e.g. the yo-yo shot, armpit shot, etc.)
* The basketball court’s all-purpose role in rural life in the Philippines.
* The newest Filipino basketball sensation: midgets vs. transvestites. Colloquially called “skirts vs. squirts”. Seriously.
* How Rafe—a head taller than most Filipinos—immersed himself into Filipino culture.
With an odd and oddly appealing cast of characters, PACIFIC RIMS is a swashbuckling tale of ferocious fandom, fast-paced action, sprain-defying leaps in flip-flops, beloved rituals of mass humiliation, and transcendent moments with generous helpings of derring-do.
PACIFIC RIMS is basketball poetry and a chronicle of one of the sincerest expressions of the love of sport that you have ever read. In the Philippines, Rafe Bartholomew seems to have found the very soul of the game.
PACIFIC RIMS: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball
Author: Rafe Bartholomew
Publisher: New American Library
Format: Hardcover; 352 pages; Retail Price: $24.95
ISBN-13: 978-0-4512-2999-1
Publication Date: June 2010
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