Why Dante Quit - "To Preserve Honor, Purity of Basketball" (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

December 14-21, 1979

Dante Silverio

 

 

            For years, doubts had been cast on the integrity of our basketball games, particularly in the major leagues. My involvement in the sport over the last few seasons provided me with an intimate opportunity to confirm these doubts, which, in some ways, had led me to take certain actions against some of my players.

 

            For one, I did not renew the contract of Danilo Florencio because of suspicions that he purposely did not give his best in some games. Rather than entertain these doubts, I decided to cut off my ties with him.

 

            Now comes an identical situation. Only this time, not just one, but at least three players, are the ones at the other end.

 

            Ever since I refused to use Ramon Fernandez, Abe King and Ernesto Estrada at the start of the Third Conference, I had been constantly under pressure from all quarters. Everybody interested in basketball – the fans, my co-coaches, officials, the broadcast and print media, and even some of our management people – had wanted to know the reasons behind my move.

 

            I must say once again that my action against the three was based on my belief that they did not play their best on several occasions. So rather than worry about their possible action on the court, I deemed it better to keep them out of the team.

 

 

 

            I felt that by so doing, I helped preserve the purity and honor of the sport, which, I think, are more important than just winning.

 

            Without the three players, our team has reached the final, and in the process, has come close to proving my point. However, circumstances beyond my control have denied me the opportunity to continue my personal crusade. Our management has decided to give Fernandez, King and Estrada the chance to play again because it believes our club should not be left alone to carry the fight which other teams in the PBA should be waging collectively.

 

            Management may have other reasons for taking this action.

 

            I felt, however, that involvement in sport carries a duty to the public such as keeping it above reproach. Because of the difference in my belief and that of management, I feel it would be to the best interests of all parties concerned for me to relinquish the position of coach and manager of the Toyota basketball team effective immediately.

An Insider's Story: Why the "Absence" of Mon Fernandez, Abe King, Estoy Estrada (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

November 30-December 07, 1979

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

Ab’sent (ab-sent) adj. – not present; not in a certain way; away        

                                                                                                                        Webster’s Dictionary

 

            The official line is they’re absent, which means, according to Webster, they’re “not present,” not in a certain place; away….

 

            “Let’s just say they are absent,” said Coach Dante Silverio by way of explaining why, in Toyota’s first game in the third conference against the GIlbey’s Gin, three of the team’s key men. Toyota’s ace Filipino slotman Ramon Fernandez, 1979 All-Filipino most improved player Abe King and veteran forward Ernesto (Estoy) Estrada, Toyota’s 1978 acquisition from Royal – were missing from the Toyota bench.

 

            It was pretty much the same thing when the Tamaraws, after scoring their first win in the series with a crackling 125-120 decision over the upset-minded Gins, went on to their second victory two days later, this time, a 137-113 romp over the Great Taste Discoverers, third place finishers behind Toyota in the second conference.

 

            Pressed once again by the boys along press row why Fernandez, King and Estrada remained out of the Toyota bench, coach Silverio fell back on his previous explanation.

 

            “The official word,” said Dante, “is that they are absent.”

 

 

 

            Other than confining himself to this cryptic remark, the 38-year old Tamaraw coach declined to disclose the real or official reason for the continued absence of the three players from the Toyota bench.

 

            From sources close to the Toyota camp, however, this writer learned that one probable reason Silverio had all but opted not to use the three in the current PBA series where undoubtedly, they could further boost Toyota’s offensive and defensive power and add more depth to the team’s bench, is Dante’s apparent lack of confidence in Fernandez, King and Estrada.

 

            It all began, SWM’s sources said, during the best of five playoffs between Toyota and Royal for the second conference championship eventually won by the Orangemen by the count of three games to one.

           

            SWM’s sources said that a careful review by Silverio of the performances of the three during the series and immediately afterwards when he studied videotapes of the four RTO-Toyota title playoff games led him to conclude that the overall performances of Fernandez, King and Estrada “left a lot to be desired in so far as consistency is concerned.”

 

 

 

            “Osbok (the way Silverio is called by his players) has been in the game too long and is all too familiar with the playing styles, moods and idiosyncracies of his boys to know when any of them is not playing up to par deliberately,”said SWM’s informant.

 

            “Obviously,” he went on, “he discerned such a letdown in the performances of the three players during the playoffs.”

 

            Talking of Dante, the man and the coach, SWM’s informant pointed out that “one thing about Dante is he is the kind of guy who feels that because he has always gone all out to give his players everything they want, he expects nothing less than reciprocity and absolute loyalty from them.”

 

            “He is a very trusting man,” he said, “but once he loses his trust and confidence in you, that’s it, you’re out of his graces.

 

            SWM’s informant believes that more than anything else, it was Dante’s feeling that he can no longer depend on Fernandez, King and Estrada to play every game in the third conference as he believes they should, that primarily led him to shelve all three men if such a move may well mean an uphill struggle by Toyota to go into the finals of a PBA conference which it had won two years in a row – in 1977 and 1978.

 

            “And I can’t blame him,” he said. “After all, what’s the use of having players on the bench whom you can’t trust to deliver or play as they should?”

 

            “It’s hard to say,” said SWM’s informant. “But right now, what best describes their standing in so far as Coach Silverio is concerned is that all three are in the cooler.”

 

            As to how long they’ll be “in the cooler,” he wouldn’t venture a guess. “It all depends on Osbok (Coach Silverio),” he said. “Only he can decide how long the three will remain absent or when they’ll finally be present.”

 

            As things stand, there are thus far no signs that Silverio has relented in his decision to can the three, all of whom hold new three-year playing contracts with Toyota.

 

            A review of Toyota’s rocky performance in its title playoff series with Royal showed that on at least two occasions, Silverio all but blew his top over the performances of several of his key players, notably Fernandez and King.

 

            At one point, he castigated them publicly, airing his ire over their “strange” behavior, especially when in Game 2 of the series the Tamaraws blew a 21-point lead to lose by five points at the windup.

 

            “You saw the first half?” Dante asked a sportswriter after the game. “Beautiful, no? The real Toyota game. And then came that terrible third quarter in six minutes, what we earned we threw away by errors, loose defense and overconfidence.”

 

            In the fourth game of the series, Toyota also led by as much as 21 points before leaving the match and the title, and one notable feature of this encounter was Dante’s decision to put Fernandez on a leash almost all throughout.

 

            It may not have been too apparent then, but the decision that was to stir a lot of speculations in the third conference may have been borne right then and there.

 

 

 

 

            Here’s a chronological account of how Toyota’s Ramon Fernandez, Abe King and Estoy Estrada found themselves in the “cooler.”

 

-       A week after the second conference title playoffs where Toyota lost, three game to one to Royal Tru Orange, the members of the team, including Fernandez, King and Estrada, were called to a practice session at the San Agustin gymnasium.

 

-       After the practice, team trainer “Legs” Legaspi, obviously under instructions from Coach Dante Silverio, informs Fernandez, King and Estrada that they are no longer to report to future practices and games of the team until further notice.

 

-       The following day, the three requested for a meeting with Coach Silverio, apparently to seek an explanation as to why they have been more or less canned. Silverio was busy that day but agrees to meet them the following day.

 

-       At the first face-to-face meeting between Silverio and the three, Dante confronts them with his grave findings regarding the letdown in their performances during their title series with RTO and some key games of Toyota in the past.

 

-       On November 20, the opening of the third conference where Toyota played and won over Gilbey’s Gin, Coach Silverio informs sportswriters who asked him why Fernandez, King and Estrada were not in the Toyota bench that “the official word is that they’re absent.”

 

-       And “absent” the three have been since, although they remain on the team’s payroll and continue to receive their salaries.

What Really Happened to Florencio and Toyota? (Sports Weekly, 1979)

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?

SWM Selection: Dante Silverio, Coach of the Year (Sports Weekly, 1978)

Sports Weekly Magazine

December 29, 1978 to January 05, 1979 issue

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

To each his own title – Dante Silverio and the All-Filipino, Tommy Manotoc the second conference and Fort Acuña the third conference. Thus, all that was left was to determine whose accomplishment carried greater weight and from there, the selection of SWM’s choice as pro basketball coach of the year ought to be easy enough.

 

There were two other candidates for this honor, Caloy Loyzaga of Tanduay and Lauro Mumar of Filmanbank, but it was the feeling of the men who sat through the whole of the last PBA season that although their feats merited their consideration, these paled in comparison with what Silverio, Manotoc and Acuña accomplished.

 

The SWM group felt though that with the way they piloted their respective teams to the finals despite the tall odds against them, Loyzaga and Mumar deserved at least honorable mention. But as to their being nominated as coach of the year is something else.

 

Thus, the race narrowed down to the coaches of the champion teams in the ’78 PBA series.

 

At the beginning, long before the third conference came around, the 29-year old Tommy Manotoc, an amateur golf standout who first made waves in the PBA last year when he coached the U/Tex Wranglers to the finals of the second conference, looked like he would be “it” for ’78 when he steered U/Tex to its first-ever PBA championship.

 

With the feat, which came as the Wranglers took on the Crispa 400s in the title playoffs of this year’s second conference, Manotoc was hailed as the man who finally brought it about – the end of the dynastic hold of Crispa and Toyota on first place in the league, which over the past three years had seen Crispa and Toyota alternating as conference champions.

 

Indeed, It was a masterful performance under pressure which Manotoc showed as he led the Wranglers to a devastating 3-0 sweep over Crispa in the second conference playoffs.

 

But then came that awful tumble which the Wranglers took in their third conference campaign, a tumble that saw them miss a finals berth by losing to the Tanduay Esquires in sudden death, and then their 3- shutout by Crispa in the third place playoffs, and all of a sudden, there was this rash of ifs and buts about the magic that Manotoc wove in winning the second conference.

 

Tommy himself added something to the downgrading of his chances to make coach of the year honors when he admitted, when asked why the Wranglers missed the finals, that what had been their advantage in the second conference became their “disadvantage” in the third, where U/Tex limped home fourth in a field of five.

 

 

 

Manotoc was referring to the way his two imports, Snake Jones and Glenn McDonald, whom he was able to use simultaneously in the second conference came up short of expectations in a league where the other ballclubs also had the option to field their imports at the same time.

 

Manotoc thus inferred that more than anything else, what enabled the Wranglers to reign supreme in the second conference, was their advantage in having two devastating imports in Jones and McDonald and their being blessed with the option to use both simultaneously against the semifinalists who could only field one import at a time.

 

When both flunked the test in a situation where all teams were even, that was it – pfft went the glamour previously attached to Manotoc’s second conference coup.

 

As for rookie coach Fort Acuña, who, from the time he took over the coaching chores from Silverio, led the Tamaraws to a 7-1 won-loss record that culminated in the Tams’ retention of their third conference title, the feeling was that by the time Acuña took over, he already had a team on the go.

 

“The feat,” said a SWM writer, “made Acuña as a coach of the future but one wonders whether Acuña could have made it without the support of Dante and if he had the team from the start of the season.”

 

Set against the accomplishments of Manotoc and Acuña, Silverio’s sparkled more because he pulled it off in a league often called the PBA’s “most prestigious” and where the competition is generally tougher and keener.

 

It was Mumar who made it as the most outstanding coach of the all-Filipino and not Silverio. But many of the boys who covered that tournament felt this could easily have been Silverio if Dante had not figured in that incident with taunting spectators behind the Toyota bench and which cost him a one-day suspension.

 

But that suspension, SWM feels, hardly detracts from the fact that Silverio did the more notable work from the sidelines in leading the Tamaraws to their first title in the ’78 season and thus makes him the rightful claimant of local pro basketball’s “coach of the year” honors for ’78, the Year of the Tamaraws.

The Night Toyota Made It 2 for '78 (Sports Weekly, 1978)

Sports Weekly Magazine

December 29, 1978 to January 05, 1979 issue

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

(Editor’s note: This game took place two days after Sports Weekly Magazine went to press last week for its Christmas week issue. Thus, our inability ot feature it – despite its significance – as our Game of the Week the last time around.)

 

The banner, the only one, first flustered in the stands when Toyota’s Big 3 – Francis Arnaiz, Ramon Fernandez and Sonny Jaworski – strung up an eight-point cluster to give the Tamaraws an 8-0 lead two minutes after the first quarter began.

 

But other than that solitary flag, there was nothing in the Toyota camp’s posture in game 4 of the best of five playoffs for the PBA’s third and last conference title of the year that would indicate that the Tamaraws’ fans felt this was “it”: the night when the Tams would finally make it back to the top of the conference they ruled last year.

 

As Toyota’s pinch-hitting coach, Fort Acuña, himself said: “Sure, we’re up, 2-1, but in a series like this, nothing is sure until the final whistle had blown and the scoreboard shows we’ve got it made.”

 

Old friends of Toyota who had earlier called the office of Toyota coach on vacation Dante Silverio to inquire where the victory party will be held were advised: “No plans yet. Anyway, it’s easy to stage a bash once we’re there.”

 

Toyota’s feeling of uncertainty despite its having won two games of the best of five playoffs to move a win away from the title figured.

 

For although the Tams won game 3 by 10 points after dropping the second game to the tough Tanduay Esquires, it was by no means a look-me-no-hands triumph.

 

Tough as nails since they came out swinging in their first-ever fling in a PBA title showdown, the Esquires had made the Tams work hard for the two wins posted by Toyota and now with their backs against the wall, they were expected to make it doubly tougher for Toyota.

 

But right off, when they got caught with their pistols in their pockets by an all-out Toyota barrage that sent them down by 8-0 after two minutes in the first quarter and then by 15 points, 30 to 15 at the end of the period, the Esquires were on the ropes.

 

 

 

Their problem was further compounded by the awful plight of their key import, Gene Moore, who, although he managed to play in game 4, just wasn’t his old aggressive self in both the defense and the battles for the rebound as a result of his still sprained right ankle.

 

With Moore in such dire straits, Carlos (Primero) Terry had a ball for the whole night, pumping in a game-high 36 points, hauling down 15 rebounds, making one assist, three blocks and two steals to lead the Tams to a 108-98 triumph.

 

For his part, Terry’s partner, second year Toyota import Bruce (Sky) King was equally as devastating against Tanduay’s David Payne as he came up with 19 rebounds to dramatize Toyota’s control of the boards and the match.

 

Despite the margin of their victory, however, the Tams felt the pressure all the way.

 

More so when in the final quarter, the Esquires inched to within 10 points off Toyota’s lead four times and then once to eight points before Terry, Jaworski and Bruce King put the game on ice with a 6-2 blast that sent the Tams beyond recall, 106-94, with the time down to 1:46.

 

Another twinner by Terry on a slam dunk against a pair of hits by Payne and the Tams had got it – the fourth game win that wrapped up Toyota’s fifth championship in a four-year PBA campaign, the second for the Tams in the 1978 season.

With the game and the title in the bag, the Tamaraw camp finally whooped it up, letting go of a cloudburst of confetti with only a minute left in the game.

 

The Toyota victory bash, however, was not held until two nights later.

 

The win elated Dante Silverio, who said it proved that the Tams could be competitive “so long as they give their best.” Adding that he prepared the team for a grand slam year in ’78, Dante said that although Toyota didn’t make its goal, he couldn’t ask for more.

 

Along with rookie Coach Acuña, Silverio got the traditional victory ride from his jubilant players.

Finally, Toyota Got It but Via the Hard Way to Top of PBA All-Filipino (Sports Weekly, 1978)

Sports Weekly Magazine

July 21-28, 1978

On the Line, Vic Villafranca

 

 

“You asked for it. You got it.” – Toyota slogan.

 

Finally, last Saturday, on its 22^nd playdate, 91 days after it opened its campaign and two weeks after it sputtered and floundered in the semifinal round and made Coach Dante Silverio seemed like a very old man at 39, Toyota “got it” – the 1978 PBA All-Filipino championship, the coveted, most prestigious local pro circuit title that has eluded Toyota these past three years.

 

It was the Tamaraws’ second straight title in six months, their fourth since the PBA’s fledgling year in 1975 and Silverio’s crackerjack crew of Toyota originals and ’78 recruits pulled off the coup with a pressure-ridden 132-113 victory over Cinderella finalist Filmanbank in the fourth game of the pennant playoffs before a whopping crowd of 15,000 at the Araneta Coliseum.

 

 

 

With the win, the Tamaraws pegged the playoff count in their favor at three games to one, their only loss coming last Thursday when the Bankers got off the floor after dropping their first two games with a stunning 124-117 turnaround triumph.

 

Toyota’s 19-point winning margin in the fourth game should seem to indicate that the Tamaraws danced through it all, but as a still tense, still drawn Coach Silverio at the windup: “it’s been a hard game….a hard campaign…and you better believe that.”

 

It really has been that kind of a season for the touted Tamaraws since they got bumped by defending champion Crispa towards the tail-end of the first round eliminations of the double-round qualifying tilts for the semifinals.

 

Their 13-point, 123-110 setback to their arch arivals didn’t actually blur the Tams’ first round won-loss record since all that it did was to pull down Toyota’s slate to the same level as Crispa’s at 6-1, but the jarring defeat left a dent in the ’78 Tamaraws’ widely-hailed armor of invincibility.

 

It showed that the supercharged Tams were only human, after all, and in the second round, in an out-of-town match in Davao City, it was the pesky Tanduay Esquires who showed up the Toyota machine for what it was not – flawless, finely-tuned and purring – when they pulled the rugs from under Toyota, 133-128.

 

 

 

The Tams somehow made up for that sneak punch by Tanduay by turning its wrath and mangling the Crispa Redmanizers in the last game of the second round, 158-127, and things got to be shaky for Toyota.

 

In their second round game, the Tams got even with Tanduay, 137-125, but then two days later, came their crippling 143-127 loss to the Redmanizers, and they were in a bind, serious enough to dump them by the wayside should they suffer another setback.

 

With two losses against only one win, the Tams must now win all their three games in the second round to figure in the finals, a feat which at that stage seemed unlikely with the way the Tams had sputtered and hiccupped and had generally done everything short of self-destruction in the first round.

 

It was set to be sure, the lowest point in what earlier in the season had looked like a no-sweat Toyota trip to the finals, and both the friends and critics of Coach Silverio didn’t lose any opportunity to condole with him. Silverio himself conceded that things really looked bleak for his ballclub at that stage, although he made it clear that he was not about ready to throw in a towel or to put in a call ot the nearest undertaker.

 

As he grittily put it: “We may be in trouble, but we’re not dead.”

 

Brave words these, coming from a man whose team had its back against the wall and its left foot in the grave, but it probably indicates – more than anything else – Silverio’s confidence in the resiliency of his outfit.

 

And true enough, the Tams staved off outright elimination by bouncing back against Filmanbank in the second round, 143-124, and then making it two wins over Tanduay in the semis, 166-147.

 

In the meantime, while Toyota was snapping out of its first round death wish, Crispa was plunging towards what eventually would lead to the Redmanizers’ inglorious exit as a shoo-in finalist with two successive losses – first to Tanduay, 105-102, and then to Filmanbank, 103-101.

 

For its part, Filmanbank went 1-1 for the second round and a 3-2 overall to move only a win away from qualifying in the finals. To make it, the Bankers had only to get past Tanduay. This, they did to hurl the other game between Crispa and Toyota into a sudden death, it’s-you-or-I matchup.

 

In the end, it was Toyota which survived, winning by eight points, 116-108, to move into the finals against Filmanbank and write finish to the dynastic reign of the Redmanizers in the All-Filipino series of the PBA.

 

Stretching the momentum of the winning stride that it picked up in the second half of the semis into the pennant playoffs, Toyota quickly threatened to take the title on a sweep when it hammered out decisive but hard-played wins in the first two games of the best of five playoffs. But in the third game, just when it seemed as if all that was left for the Tams was to order the bubbly to whoop up its ascendancy as the best All-Filipino ballclub in the PBA, the Bankers threw a damper on the proceedings with a turnaround, 124-117 win.

 

The upset, deftly executed by Coach Lauro Mumar with his effective utilization of the slow break to unhinge Toyota’s swirling fastbreak, set back New Year’s Eve for the Tams and quickly brought back the ghost of their 1975 season when they led 2-0 only to blow the whole thing by losing three straight against Crispa.

 

It was not to be this time around, however, because late in the third quarter of the pressure-packed fourth game, seen by the biggest crowd ever to turn out in the playoffs, just when it appeared as if they would be going through the agony of a monumental fold-up, the Tams sprang back to life to take a seven-point lead at the end of the period and go on from there to bust the game wide open midway in the homestretch. To win looking back on the Bankers, 132-113.

 

It was a crackling comeback by a team which had earlier taken a 17-point lead and then blown it, had once been down by as much as six points, and the Tams who touched it off was Danny Florencio, the sneaky hit man from the old Tanduay Fire Station basketball court who rampaged for 38 pointsa against his former teammates, and, would you believe, Quirino (Rino) Salazar, the one-game wonder of the old YCO Redshirts in the old MICAA who played one of the most stirring walk-on acts in the finals of the series by putting the cuffs on Larry Mumar and knocked in three clutch hits.

 

Earlier, Ramon Fernandez got off 30 points in a centerstage one-on-one battle with Billy Robinson, and Sonny Jaworski ran rings around all his guards to set up the Tams’ dazzling finish. 

 

 

 

The way the Tams pulled away by as much as 20 points going into the last four minutes of the game it would seem as if Toyota had a picnic Saturday evening. But the victory, despite its indecisiveness, was a hard-earned effort.

 

“It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that,” said Silverio afterwards, and the way he looked and sounded – with his back drenched in sweat and his voice raspy from yelling and ranting on the sidelines – one knew that Dante really worked himself into a frazzle as he finally got for Toyota’s fans what they’ve been asking over the past three years.