Sports Weekly Magazine
March 30 – April 6, 1979
With the release last Tuesday of the official lineups of the nine teams competing in this year’s PBA All-Filipino which showed Danny Florencio’s name out of the Toyota slate, what has long been an open secret has finally been confirmed. It’s all over between Danny and the ballclub he helped last year to its first of its two championships in PBA ’78.
But as to the “why” of the Florencio-Toyota breakup, the reason will perhaps never be known although officially, what has been made to appear is that Danny won’t be seeing action anew with the Tamaraws because Toyota didn’t opt to renew his playing contract which expires Sunday, April 1, the date of the PBA ’79 All-Filipino series opening.
When asked why he didn’t opt anew for Florencio’s services, Toyota coach Dante Silverio chose to keep mum. It was the same thing with Toyota team officials who could have shed light on the “real” reason Florencio has been dropped from the Tamaraw lineup but who, like Silverio, had also chosen to remain silent.
Obviously, only one person – Florencio himself – could take the wraps off what had long been a PBA mystery. But Danny, for reasons known only to himself, had also chosen to stay tight-lipped.
Seen once by a Sports Weekly magazine reporter while having lunch at a Quezon City eatery, Danny quickly slipped out of the restaurant when he caught sight of the SWM staffer. This led the writer to conclude that “perhaps, Danny doesn’t want to be interviewed or even to talk with any member of the press.”
But why?
To this question, several possible reasons have been advanced.
The first is that “nahihiya si Danny.”
If this is so, if Danny is really embarrassed, why?
Another reason is that Danny doesn’t
want to say something to any sportswriter that could further aggravate his
situation. But then, if this is true, what is the “situation?
When he was placed on the inactive list following Toyota’s last game in the first round of the double round qualifying series of the 1978 PBA second conference, the reason given by Toyota coach Silverio was that Danny had developed a “recurrent pulled muscle.”
Florencio never got to see action in that game which Toyota lost by three points to the Great Taste Discoverers and not too long after, Silverio left for the south to coach an all-star team in a mid-season exhibition series of the league.
When Silverio returned to Manila following the series and the second round started, the general expectation was that, by then, Florencio must have recovered from his “recurrent pulled muscle” trouble and would be seeing action again with the Tamaraws.
But no such thing happened as the Tams opened their second round campaign with a reversal of their first round loss to GTD. In Toyota’s next game in the round against U/Tex, Florencio remained nowhere on the Toyota bench.
He remained out all throughout the second conference which saw Toyota miss a finals berth and even in the third conference which the Tamaraws won.
All throughout his period of inactivity, Florencio remained on the Toyota payroll because his contract remained effect up to April 1, 1979. But for all intents and purposes, he may as well have been out of the team.
For since he last saw action with Toyota in the Toyota-U/Tex game where he only made three points after earlier averaging 22.5 points per game, he has not been to any Toyota practice. Neither has the Toyota team management shown any enthusiasm about seeing to it that he recovers fast from whatever is ailing him.
Sunday, as a new PBA season opens with Florencio out of Toyota’s lineup or any of the lineups of the eight other teams in the PBA, it seems likely that the old question about the Florencio puzzle will be asked.
Mainly, why didn’t Toyota renew Florencio’s playing contract?
If it’s true that Toyota no longer wants him, how come none of the teams in the league never made any move to seek his services?
Is it true that Florencio is through in the PBA? If so, why?
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